Applied arts and artistic cultures are taught in vocational high schools, in France, with the aim of developing civic and social skills in students, which are cross-cutting or generic. To achieve this, this design education revolves around the creation and conception of artefacts. This article explores epistemological issues relating to the role…

'The knowledge question', addressing what students need to know and learn, becomes particularly relevant during the process of a new school reform. This paper examines the political messages and the role of knowledge in the current curriculum reform initiative for primary and secondary education in Norway (2020). The study is based on a document…

This article reports on the design of interdisciplinary units in five International Baccalaureate schools in Norway and Denmark, each with fewer than 100 students in their Middle Years Programme. The mixed methods study describes subject combinations and time frames of 37 enacted units and 111 hypothetical interdisciplinary units, and the…

The importance of teaching reasoning in schools is widely recognised. Yet this has presented teachers with difficulties, particularly in primary education. Difficulties partially stem from a lack of cohesive theory about reasoning for education and a lack of specificity about it in the English National Curriculum. One route to improved teaching of…

This paper reports on a research project undertaken with a group (n = 19) of Irish preservice student teachers (PSTs) during the third year of a five-year undergraduate education course. A series of workshops were carried out on the classification and design of mathematics tasks. The research is presented as a case study using mixed methods to…

Agency, understood as the capacity to act independently and to make one's own choices, is considered central to children's development. Thus, education, and hence education curricula, have a role in the development of learner agency. While curriculum development is a key focus for educational theory, research, policy, and classroom practice, the…

Despite the advocated importance of twenty-first century competences in education, it appears that they are not systematically integrated in national curricula, school curricula and classroom activities. Potential explanations can be found in the current ambiguity of definitions for twenty-first century competences and the absence of educational…

School politics in Sweden has recently moved in a conservative direction, emphasising the importance of conventional school subjects, stronger teacher authority and more discipline in the classroom. At the same time, consensus on the utility of such measures is lacking in the school debate. The conservative approach is often criticised as…

The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the multidimensional curriculum model (MdCM) in the development of higher-order thinking skills in a sample of 394 elementary and secondary school students in Israel. The study employed a quantitative quasi-experimental pre-post design, using a study module based on MdCM, comparing intervention group…

The use of argumentative strategies that promote the defense of well-grounded personal arguments contributes to the development of a critical, ethical and political thought that leads to responsible and socially committed people. Based on the quality of the produced arguments in philosophical essays, this work evaluates the potential application…

Although England was not included in the International Instructional Systems Study because it was not a high-performing jurisdiction by the Study's definition, contributors largely were England-based. Analysing the Study's nine overall aspects of instructional systems, this paper finds that England is out of step with many of the high-performing…

This paper compares two contrasting educational policy responses to globalisation in Australia: the "New Basics" experiment that occurred in the State of Queensland (2000-2003) and the Australian Curriculum, which is currently being implemented across the nation from preschool to Year 10 in English, history, mathematics and science.…

Despite the belief that schools tend to be resistant to change, it is possible to find secondary schools in the UK which are investing in the design of an innovative curriculum for their Year 7 (11-year-old students). This article focuses on four of these schools and discusses some of the challenges they face in planning and implementing their…

This article examines pedagogical shifts in art history teaching that have developed as a response to the implementation of a standards-based assessment regime. The specific characteristics of art history standards-based assessment in the context of New Zealand secondary schools are explained to demonstrate how an exacting form of assessment has…

GlobalEd 2 (GE2) is a set of technology-mediated, problem-based learning (PBL) simulations for middle-grade students, that capitalises on the multidisciplinary nature of the social sciences as an expanded curricular space for students to learn and apply scientific literacies and concepts, while simultaneously also enriching their understanding of…