Recent neoliberal policies and societal trends point toward new and perennial tensions for nation-state education, including curriculum/Didaktik and leadership thereof. These challenges affect governance/leadership and curriculum with changes in aims and values together in ways that demand coherence, yet the traditionally disparate fields of educational leadership and curriculum/Didtakik have developed separately in terms of approaches to theory and theorizing that have informed empirical studies over time. This article draws upon an analysis of theory/theorizing in these fields, as well as modern education theory and its core concepts, and discursive institutionalism to frame this issue and a larger project.