This paper reflects on some changing contexts of the discussion of curriculum and pedagogy since the late 1960s, and it draws on three research projects in which the author has been involved to illustrate why pedagogy and curriculum have again become issues of evident public and political concern and to show some particular points of tension in moving forward today. Issues of curriculum and pedagogy came under challenge in association with new social movements of the 1960s and beyond, and the new emphasis on whose knowledge was being privileged in schooling, and what identities and social patterns were being perpetuated through schooling. Today, in the context of global auditing and benchmarking, and of competitive economic policies and anxieties about migration and citizenship, education is seen by governments as a prominent part of their economic and social policy. But keeping strong attention to both curriculum (or "the what") and the pedagogical relationships (or the process) is rarely attained simultaneously. (Contains 2 notes.)