National curricula influence, and are influenced by, political agendas. Understanding political enmeshment (both overt and covert) in curriculum development is therefore vital for ensuring transparency and quality in curricula. This paper analyses how the Australian Curriculum is represented in the federal Education Ministers' media releases.…

Professional networks of teachers have been well documented in education studies but there is still a need for a fine-grained analysis of teachers' ego-networks in the context of curriculum making. It is important to understand the nature and dynamics of teachers' connections and how teachers mediate their practices accordingly. This study…

Despite the divisions within Northern Ireland's education system along religious and academic lines, it has managed to maintain relative stability, or at least a functional inertia, over the past four decades. The full potential, however, of this system and in particular, the Northern Ireland Curriculum (NIC), has yet to be realised. This paper…

Drawing on the concept of agency and teacher agency and engaging with figurational sociology, this paper explores the extent to which teacher agency plays a role in one teacher's enactment of a new school subject (Leaving Certificate Physical Education (LCPE), an examinable subject assessed in a high-stakes environment) in a period of curriculum…

This paper aims to analyse the concepts of scientific literacy and agency in two official documents of the Chilean science curriculum. We used Fairclough's three dimensional model as critical lenses, based on critical discourse analysis, where every discursive event can be analysed: (1) as a text; (2) as a discursive practice; and (3) as a social…

This study explores the form of curriculum documents and its implications for the enacted curriculum. In this study, the narrative voices that appear in the Scottish Broad General Education phase and the Swedish Compulsory phase of the curriculum are scrutinized in relation to the most likely reader of these documents--the teacher. The study…

Teacher autonomy and teacher agency are positively related to teachers' motivation and engagement in teaching. This paper combines the concepts of teacher autonomy and teacher agency to study how Brazilian and Norwegian lower secondary teachers respond to an accountability system marked by a centralised outcomes-based curriculum and testing.…

The present article draws attention to the latest curriculum reform in Finland, which came into effect in August 2016 and promoted a shift towards a competency-based curriculum which highlights diversity as a positive resource. The main aim of this study was to gain insights into the understanding of 'inclusion' within the context of PE policy in…

Current curriculum reform in Wales provides an opportunity for teachers to have greater freedom to develop pedagogical approaches that meet the needs of their pupils. The "Successful Futures" report recommends that teachers should have a greater autonomy in choosing how to deliver the curriculum, and ensuring it is done so in a manner…

Although teacher agency is increasingly recognised by educationists in the Global South, it is not always well understood or accommodated in policy, as experienced with Universal Primary Education (UPE) reforms in Uganda. This empirical study analyses its role on the UPE reforms, the factors that shape it and its implications for curriculum…

This paper draws on Bourdieu's theorising (particularly habitus and field) to think about position-making of teachers in respect of the early enactment of the Australian Curriculum. Position-making, a concept developed from the analysis proffered, can be contrasted with the more common practice of position-taking endemic in a relatively stable…

The proposed Curriculum for Wales 2022 presents a bold new vision for curriculum, teaching and learning. Together with its focus on four key purposes, it affords substantially more flexibility and autonomy to teachers and schools, positions learners as central to curriculum decision making, promotes active forms of pedagogy and…

This paper explores the knowledge conceptions in teachers' curriculum making within a classroom perspective through a lens of social realist theory. Curriculum making is conceptualised as a process that occurs between students, teachers, knowledge content and contextual factors, in which teachers must balance various priorities and knowledge…

This paper reports on research that explored the experiences of secondary Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) professionals' simultaneous negotiation and implementation of the new Curriculum for Wales (CfW) Health and Well-Being (HWB) Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE) and policies focused on the transformation of Initial Teacher…

In the large volume of research on curriculum reform, very little attention is paid to the implications of geographical location, yet, this can be significant. The current curriculum reform process in Wales has presented an opportunity for schools to radically change their practice. While rural schools have welcomed this opportunity, they face…