In the ever-evolving realm of educational research, the design and validation of curricula is gaining prominence. Ensuring both the internal and external validity of such designs is vital, with external validity, specifically applicability, highlighting the practical feasibility and relevance in real-world educational contexts. Drawing on Dewey's…

In this article, I examine how teachers can enact 'powerful knowledge' (PK)--a curriculum principle proposed by Michael Young--by linking it with the scholarship of teacher professionalism (TP). Despite the significance of teachers' role in curriculum enactment, effort to understand this topic has been insufficient. I first indicate that…

This article addresses how 'powerful' curriculum theory might be constructed from the perspective of the German "Didaktik" tradition--highly compatible with Schwab's the Practical. To start with, I scrutinize Joseph Schwab's model of curriculum planning and Wolfgang Klafki's model of lesson preparation and examine two theories of content…

This article focuses on the IB-PYP curriculum and teachers' roles within IB-PYP. The Turkish national curriculum was used to contextualize the paper, and these two curricula have been presented comparatively. The comparison encompasses their respective scoping aims, models of curricular control, distinctive teacher roles, and assessment practices.…

Curriculum reform was high on the agenda of South Africa's post-apartheid governments. Yet as time passed, the initial reforms were seen as increasingly problematic, especially when pedagogical realities met policy priorities. There was reluctance on the part of policymakers to give up what was seen as the democratic imperative behind the reforms.…

Despite decades of research to the contrary, public discourse continues to insist on the direct power of curriculum to shape student learning, rather than acknowledge the complex and situated ways that teachers and curricular materials interact to shape enacted instruction. In this paper, we use a model of curriculum enactment to illustrate the…

This study takes the policy idea of the standards-based curriculum as a point of departure. Drawing on discursive institutionalism and pragmatic institutionalism, the study's purpose is to critically examine school principals empirically as translators, enacting Sweden's standards-based curriculum into local schools' practices. The data were…

High school academic departments remain under-examined yet powerful entities in American high schools. High status department leaders create and sustain narratives around teaching and learning, disciplinary-specific best practices, and the overall efficacy and effectiveness of any number of school improvement policies and initiatives promoted by…

Teachers in the US are increasingly required to use scripted curricula. Such instructional materials often reflect the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing industry through a lack of representation of authors and protagonists outside of white, middle-class normative characters. Implementation of such curricula stands in direct contrast to…

Since the passing of No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB), teacher autonomy over curricular decisions has been restricted. As a result, state and local school districts faced increased pressures to adopt highly prescriptive and standardized literacy curricular programmes. Given this context, literacy curriculum adoption has become a widely…

In recent years, neuroscience and brain-based approaches to education have started to feature prominently in the rationale for radical educational reform, both in terms of policy and practice. Revelations about what way the brain works, it seems, is a common point of interest for neuroscience and education alike. Out of these common interests…

Schools today face the challenge of preparing students to live, work, and prosper in a rapidly changing world. As a response to this global challenge, Norway has adopted a national curriculum focusing on the development of 21st-century skills. In this study, we investigate if and how the tasks in science and language arts textbooks in…

It is widely known that there is a discrepancy between educational policy on the one side, and teaching and learning practices on the other. Most studies have been focusing on the sociocultural and micropolitical frames that shape teachers' understandings and enactments of teaching, and that cause the vast diversity of classroom practices around…

Hong Kong, as a capitalist society, has an achievement-driven education system. Visual arts have become a marginalized learning area, especially in early childhood education. Although 'art and creativity' is one of the six learning domains for early childhood education in the kindergarten curriculum guide in Hong Kong, product-oriented and…

Arts specialist teachers have a unique place in primary schools. They are often the sole teacher responsible for an entire learning area and hence commonly provide leadership and drive the curriculum implementation of the arts in and for their school. This responsibility finds us asking questions about the ability of arts specialist teachers to…