A major field of psychological research in education concerns the relationship between teachers' beliefs and their practices. A contested yet fairly consistent assumption underlying this literature is that the beliefs that teachers hold concerning the educational profession directly and/or indirectly affect their practices in actual…

It is commonly understood that policy makers make curriculum policy and teachers implement it. Some teachers, however, have been in on the ground floor of curriculum policy development. Driven by events in their life histories and teaching contexts, these teachers develop and teach original course material in their own classrooms. Over time they…

The refocussing of Australia-Asia relations is manifest in a combination of national policy moves in Australia. Parallel shifts have been made in Europe, the United States, Canada and New Zealand. In Australia, the curricular response to this shift has become known as "Asia literacy." This study is drawn from a wider project that…

This article reports the development of integrated arts curriculum in two Hong Kong secondary schools over a 9-year period. Initial findings display a range of individual responses to educational change that are both non-predictable and non-linear. Chaos theory is used to explain these varied responses in terms of bifurcations. The findings of…

In the wake of new forms of curricular policy in many parts of the world, teachers are increasingly required to act as agents of change. And yet, teacher agency is under-theorised and often misconstrued in the educational change literature, wherein agency and change are seen as synonymous and positive. This article addresses the issue of teacher…

Chen's book, "Asia as Method" (Duke University Press, 2010), and his theorization on topics of de-imperialization, de-colonization, de-cold war, as well as on foregrounding epistemologies and frames of reference situated in the diverse contexts in Asia have contributed to empowering scholars and researchers situated not only in Taiwan, but also in…

The burgeoning knowledge of the human brain generated by the proliferation of new brain imaging technology from in recent decades has posed questions about the potential for this new knowledge of neural processing to be translated into "usable knowledge" that teachers can employ in their practical curriculum work. The application of the findings…

This article examines the uptake of "suzhi"--roughly glossed as "quality"--in China's recent curriculum reform called "suzhi jiaoyu" (Education for Quality) in the rural ethnic context of Qiandongnan. It engages with three layers of analysis. First is a brief etymological overview of "suzhi" to map out its cultural politics in contemporary China.…

This study presents an analysis of the consequences for students when performance assessment and differentiation practices are combined, as part of attempts to increase minimum standards within upper-secondary schooling. Recent standards-based curriculum reform in Australia demonstrates how a focus on minimum levels of achievement can limit the…

This article analyzes the notion of curriculum potential by revisiting the ideas of Miriam Ben-Peretz and Joseph Schwab. Invoking the German "Didaktik" tradition and by way of a curriculum-making framework, the paper argues that interpreting curriculum materials for curriculum potential requires a careful analysis and unpacking of the meanings and…

This conceptual essay explores how Gerald Vizenor's (Anishinaabe) literary discussions of "shadow survivance" provide opportunities to work against the containment of Indigenous knowledge in mainstream and culture-based curricular practices. More specifically, the essay considers how constructivism is deployed as an opening to the inclusion of…

After years of generating divergent approaches to scholarship, cast mostly as reactions against a historical orthodoxy, the curriculum studies community is now looking at a new dialectic--one marked by a physics that pull ideas inward toward some centripetal center. The tension between looking for unifying ideas as they articulate with a…

Creating transnational spaces of curriculum inquiry calls for dialogic encounters between East and West. This article makes visible, both for Western and non-Western curriculum scholars, the historical development of curriculum studies in South Korea over the last 3 decades. Focusing on reconceptualist approaches to curriculum, the article argues…

Educative curriculum materials--materials designed to promote both teacher and student learning--may help novice teachers learn how to engage in productive curricular planning. However, little is known about how educative supports within these materials should be written to best support teachers. This quasi-experimental study examines the…

This article presents a review of five chapters in "Part III, Section F: Inquiring into Curriculum" of "The SAGE Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction" (F. M. Connelly, M. F. He, J. I. Phillion, Eds.; Sage Publications, 2008). These chapters ["Part III: Curriculum in Theory. Introductory Essay" (William H. Schubert. pp. 391-398); "Curriculum…