Technology education was introduced as a successor to various forms of craft or technical education in some parts of the world in the 1980s. In South Africa (SA) the implementation of technology education was in more than one sense unique. Not only was it a new subject within the South African educational context, but it coincided with the dawn of…

In September 2015, the Australian Federal Government endorsed the final version of the Australian Curriculum arts framework a document resulting from nearly seven years of consultation and development. "The Australian Curriculum: The Arts Version 8.0" comprises five subjects: dance, drama, media arts, music and visual arts. This article…

The Australian curriculum to be introduced in all Australian schools over the next few years provides two competing narratives about curriculum. An overt narrative provides an unproblematic view of curriculum where the rhetoric and discourse that promotes a "world-class curriculum" effectively obscures a second narrative. This second…

This paper captures a national curriculum maker's experiences of revising the physical education curriculum in South Korea. A self-study was conducted in order to make known the chairperson's experiences concerning the various obstacles encountered in revising the national curriculum and to offer previously unseen insights afforded by the…

This article examines how interest groups in Hong Kong have politicised national history, an unpopular school subject, for their own political ends and allied themselves with the PRC against the SAR government and its policy of not making it a single, independent, compulsory core subject in the school curriculum. The article argues that this has…

The purpose of this article is to identify some key areas of the Australian curriculum that remain sites of struggle and contestation. We propose that there remain a number of contentious points in relation to the national curriculum. These points relate variously to the content and form of the curricular documents; assumptions about knowledge,…

Recent moves in Australia to institute a national curriculum emanated from federal governments of ostensibly different political persuasions in the period from 2003, building on developments that go back over 25 years. This article traces continuities and new developments, meditating on two questions: whether the current moves are politically…

This paper explores the politics of education in countries affected by conflict. Drawing particularly on the Palestinian experience, it looks at the power relations among internal and external actors that shape the curriculum-building process. In the increasingly politicised world of international aid, especially in the Middle East, it challenges…

A curriculum is a knowledge structure outlining what is to be learned in what order. The Australian curriculum for English emphasises creation of a "coherent" and "cumulative" "body of knowledge about how the English language works", with learning that is "portable and applicable to new settings across the school…

Science schooling enjoys high status. Scientific capability is perceived as critical in underpinning economic success in advanced societies. Science achievement, at all levels, has become a global competition in which nations want to be seen to triumph. Governments periodically pay close attention to science education with a view to ensuring it…

While all comparisons are difficult, a consideration of the English national curriculum may offer some insights about the Australian version. In this paper, I suggest that there are some important similarities between the two approaches. I query the stated purposes of the Australian national curriculum and its adoption of a notion of equity which…

This article explores the possibilities of shifting ethnocentric bias in curricula and pupils' constructions of national and European identities using the concept of "Europe" as a tool. The European dimension was conceptualized as a subtle approach, within the deeply divided society of Cyprus, to alleviate the ethnocentrism of history…

In this paper we discuss the idea of national education in Singapore. National education, broadly speaking, is a civics programme which seeks to instil a sense of place, identity and history in young Singaporeans with a view to developing national pride and commitment. We set this discussion against the backdrop of globalization and the idea of…

This paper reports the findings of a case study aimed at investigating the forces influencing curriculum policy in one Catholic school in Western Australia (WA). The student-outcomes' focused Curriculum Framework was released in 1998 and is mandated to be implemented in all WA schools by 2004. This has made non-government schools answerable to the…