Social sciences in the New Zealand curriculum: Mixed messages
Jane Abbiss
Abstract
The official New Zealand curriculum as it pertains to social sciences embodies tensions between newer transformative and older transmissive agendas for education, and in its disciplinary divisions. This article explores the mixed messages in the curriculum for teaching and learning within social sciences. I argue that tensions in the curriculum and its permissive nature mean that “progress” towards different forms of education in social sciences will inevitably be slow and variable. The nature of change will be contingent on practitioners’ understanding of the curriculum and of these ideological tensions.
Introduction
The official document that is The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC, Ministry of Education, 2007) reflects shifting ideas about teaching and learning in the 21st century and about teaching and learning in the social sciences. The following discussion is underpinned by the assumption that official curricula are inherently sites of ideological contestation, created within specific political and social contexts and informed by different disciplinary traditions. These traditions reflect different notions of what constitutes valuable knowledge and what learning could and should entail within different subjects.
Social Sciences in NZC is a learning area rather than a specific subject. It is an amalgamation of subjects under a broad disciplinary umbrella. This raises questions about the messages provided in NZC about what constitutes valuable knowledge in the Social Sciences learning area, about similarities and differences between constitutive disciplines and about how these messages might be interpreted in practice.
Curriculum development is a process of ongoing negotiation that takes place at different sites and within different contexts. It involves both top-down (policy-directed) and bottom-up (practice-defined) processes. Contests between ideas take place during the creation of the formal curriculum that is official policy, in the interpretation of that policy via enacted curricula and in the hidden curricula of daily interactions and classroom life (Apple, 1999; McGee & Fraser, 2001). Goodson (1988) describes the process of curriculum creation as the collision of current practice with the historical inheritance of official curriculum guidelines and previous practice. To this collision might be added the actions of teacher practitioners, who may seek to maintain the status quo or to change, reform or transform the curriculum that is enacted and experienced in classrooms.
The official curriculum provides policy direction for teaching and learning in social sciences classrooms, as decided by those who were engaged in the production of officially sanctioned curriculum documents. Policy developments can be expected to reflect both new educational ideas and older practices and disciplinary traditions, and these policy directions are interpreted and enacted by teachers in schools. Social sciences teachers are thus central to the development of curriculum in practice in as much as they are actively engaged in curriculum construction and negotiation in schools and classrooms (Bruner, 1996; Hargreaves, 1994; McGee & Fraser, 2001). Policy in the form of NZC is important, though, for the way it enables teaching and learning processes, signals shifts in purpose and meaning and influences the “sense making” of those who implement the curriculum (Aitken, 2006).
Also underpinning this discussion is the notion that the knowledge that is defined through curriculum documents as being valuable and worth knowing is neither absolute nor arbitrary. This idea is articulated by Young (2010), who argues that the knowledge that is passed on in educational contexts constitutes “‘available sets of meaning’, which in any context do not merely ‘emerge’ but are collectively ‘given’” (p. 37). He further argues that academic curricula involve assumptions that some knowledge and some knowledge domains are much more worthwhile than others, and that syllabus (curriculum) construction involves efforts to enhance or maintain academic legitimacy.
This article focuses on the official curriculum and the signals it provides to social sciences teachers. It asks what is new or different in the Social Sciences learning area in NZC and how these developments might be understood. It draws together various threads from the literature to explore the shifts in thinking that are signalled in NZC in relation to social sciences. The purpose is not to present answers, but to reflect on broad issues relating to the social sciences curriculum that may be relevant for teachers and the training of teachers of social sciences, teacher educators and other academics as they seek a theoretical understanding of recent curriculum developments. To do this, the article begins with an exploration of broad ideological developments that have influenced NZC and educational debate. This is followed by an explication of the nature of the curriculum for social sciences and the contestability of the organising concepts for teaching and learning in social sciences. Implications are then drawn regarding the potential for change towards more transformative forms of teaching and learning in social sciences.
Twenty-first century learning, transformative education and NZC
During the last few decades in Aotearoa New Zealand (as in other countries) there have been calls for educational change to better meet the needs of learners in the 21st century. These calls are based on the idea that society is changing and that contemporary youth will live in a world different from that known by their parents and teachers (Bauman, 2005; Best & Kellner, 2003). Educational change is seen as an integral and necessary part of a social transition from modernity and life in an industrial age, to postmodernity and life in a knowledge age and an increasingly complex society (Gilbert, 2005; Trilling & Hood, 2001).
The 21st century learning discourse and calls for educational reform are contestable and have a number of explanations. For example, they can be seen as part of a postmodern paradigm shift (Gilbert, 2005) or, conversely, as a feature of a liquid modernity and complicit in neoliberal economic and social agendas (Bauman, 2005). Notwithstanding this contestability, a 21st century learning discourse is helping to shape educational reform worldwide, including the curriculum for schools in Aotearoa New Zealand. Curriculum change is seen as helping to address the needs of 21st century learners and of society in a knowledge age and a globalised world.
Recent curriculum changes in Aotearoa New Zealand have presented opportunities to engage with ideas about 21st century teaching and learning and the nature and purpose of education in the nation’s schools. Academic debate relating to curriculum has inspired a curriculum stocktake (Ferguson, 2002; McGee, 2004), a curriculum review and implementation of the revised national curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007),1 and most recently the National Certificate in Educational Achievement (NCEA) achievement standards alignment process (Ministry of Education, n.d.).2 These developments have engaged educators in discussion about broad philosophical and ethical matters relating to the nature and purpose of curriculum (Mutch, 2005a; Neyland, 2005) and discipline-specific issues with implications for practice in schools and classrooms (e.g., Fountain, 2008).
The discussions have taken epistemological and ontological turns, with arguments made that there is a need to address different ways of knowing and being. There have been calls for a paradigm shift and a radical change in the education system to:
•redefine what it means to achieve (Gilbert, 2008)
•teach for dispositions, understanding and critical thinking rather than for knowing (Hook, 2006)
•equip 21st century learners to participate in a knowledge society as producers rather than consumers of knowledge (Gilbert, 2005, 2007)
•think differently about the “self” as a learner (Hipkins, 2005).
These arguments contribute to a transformative agenda for education in Aotearoa New Zealand. They reflect an international movement supporting the creation of transformative rather than transmissive forms of education (see, for example, McGregor, 2009, and Sterling, 2001, for arguments in support of transformative education).
However, there is debate about what transformative education means and what transformative learning involves in terms of educational practices. Some, including Mezirow (2000, 2009) and Taylor (2009), focus on cognitive transformation as it relates to individuals’ understanding and thinking. Others, notably Paulo Friere, are concerned more with transforming society, social justice learning and participation in democratic processes (Torres, n.d.). Indeed, a variety of characteristics may be present in transformative education initiatives, including:
•a communicative purpose in seeking to understand what others mean
•purposeful intent to provoke learners to the edge of learning
•attention to learner–teacher power relations and social inequalities
•teaching that challenges students to assess their own assumptions, value systems and world views
•the fostering of pedagogies for imagining and for critical reflection
•examination of systems, institutional dynamics, rules and customs (see Taylor & Jarecke, 2009; Torres, n.d.).
One or more of these characteristics may or may not be shared in specific transformative teaching and learning initiatives.
In the context of education in Aotearoa New Zealand, curriculum change in the form of the new national curriculum can be seen to promote, to some extent, a transformative agenda for education and learning. The early sections of NZC, for example, articulate a vision, principles, values and key competencies that transcend and apply across learning areas. This section emphasises ideas relating to knowledge construction, critical thinking, identity construction, the importance of social context and its relevance for learners, global connectedness and future-focused issues, among others. Statements that learning experiences should support students to “critically analyse values and actions based on them” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 10), that “thinking is about using creative, critical, and metacognitive processes to make sense of information, experiences, and ideas”, and that students who are competent thinkers can “ask questions, and challenge the basis of assumptions and perceptions” (p. 12) reflect principles of transformative learning. Hipkins (2008) advocates a transformative agenda when she describes the curriculum key competencies as providing “something more” in relation to thinking, and opportunities for “deep learning” in subjects that results from exploring thinking in conscious ways within disciplinary contexts.
The general tenor of the academic discussion relating to NZC is one of support for the new national curriculum and the opportunities afforded by the officially sanctioned curriculum to create a more responsive, relevant and transformative style of education in Aotearoa New Zealand schools. This is tempered by concerns relating to potential disjunctions between the grand ideas and the realities of practice. Also, appreciation of the negotiated nature and the contestability of official curriculum documents suggests that ideological tensions can be expected to exist within the national curriculum. These tensions might be reflected in different discourses and assumptions made about teaching and learning, both in general terms and in relation to different disciplines. This leads to questions about the types of messages given in the curriculum about teaching and learning in relation to the social sciences.
Learning in the social sciences
NZC describes the policy aspirations of the Government for teaching and learning within the social sciences in Aotearoa New Zealand schools, as negotiated and formulated during the curriculum writing and consultation process. These aspirations are articulated in different ways and places in the official curriculum. They are expressed through the principles and guidelines that apply across all learning areas, the essence statement for the social sciences and the learning outcomes that are specified for particular disciplines or subjects within the Social Sciences learning area, specifically for social studies, geography, history and economics. Thus the curriculum for social sciences is complex and layered.
Learning within social sciences disciplines
The creation and development of a Social Sciences learning area3 within the national curriculum can be seen as part of an international trend in curriculum organisation to combine hybrid mixes of different subjects into learning areas (Reid, 2006). In a paper written to explore debates on the definition of social sciences, and to place in context the redevelopment of the Social Sciences learning area in NZC, it is argued that the development of a Social Sciences learning area signals a perceived need and intention to make links between learning in the compulsory schooling sector, senior secondary school and the tertiary sector (Mutch, Hunter, Milligan, Openshaw, & Siteine, 2008). The writers recognise a relationship between different disciplinary contributors and contend that together the social sciences “provide a broad understanding of how societies work, and how people can participate as critical, active, informed and responsible citizens with high level skills needed for the twenty-first century” (Mutch et al., 2008, pp. 4–5). At the same time, they argue that curriculum content is unavoidably selective, and that what constitutes “social sciences” and learning in the social sciences is contested.
In NZC, social studies is a core subject in the compulsory schooling years (curriculum levels 1 to 5), which equates with the primary school years plus Years 9 and 10 at secondary school. It is also a foundation subject for other social science subjects in the senior secondary school (levels 6 to 8). Social studies as a subject has its origins in the progressive education movement of the 1940s and in the new social studies movement of the 1960s, which saw a shift away from teaching geography and history in the younger years and the development of a subject that emphasised ideas such as democratic citizenship and an inquiry approach to learning, and drew on a variety of social sciences, including sociology, economics and political science (Aitken, 2006; Barr, 1993; Mutch et al., 2008). However, connections between social studies and the traditional disciplines of history and geography are maintained in NZC.
Social studies is grounded in and connected to particular social science disciplines through the conceptual strands. Three of the four conceptual strands that are described in the Social Sciences essence statement in NZC provide barely disguised links with senior social science subjects: Place and Environment with geography; Continuity and Change with history; the Economic World with economics. Aitken (2006) intimates that the development and nature of the national curriculum for social sciences reflects a desire to seek connections with and establish roles for history, geography and economics within social studies through the conceptual strands. Thus social studies as a subject can be seen to reflect agendas for educational change and the disciplining force of established academic disciplines.
In addition, NZC gives greater prominence than the preceding curriculum to the contributing senior disciplines through the reorganisation of the conceptual strands (Ministry of Education, 1997). The number of strands is reduced from five to four, three of which relate to traditional social science disciplines and one to social studies, and they align with the disciplines for which achievement objectives are newly specified at levels 6 to 8. The two strands from the previous curriculum that were more oriented towards social studies are merged into one: “social organisation” and “culture and heritage” become Identity, Culture, and Organisation. This restructuring creates more overt links between the conceptual strands that define learning in social studies in the younger years (levels 1 to 5) and the subject disciplines that are part of qualifications and assessment structures in the senior school (levels 6 to 8).
However, at the same time there has also been a shift to integrated achievement objectives within social studies. The social studies objectives for levels 1 to 5 are no longer presented under strand headings, as they were in the 1997 curriculum, and particular achievement objectives may reflect concepts and understandings from two or more conceptual strands. Thus there have been simultaneous movements to create more overt links between social studies and the senior subjects in the curriculum structure, and to create more holistic and integrated notions of learning in social sciences in the primary and early secondary years.
The move to clarify and strengthen links between social studies and other disciplines can be understood as an attempt to resolve persistent tensions between junior social studies and the senior disciplines. These tensions are evidenced in ongoing debates and expressions of unease about the purpose and nature of social studies and the relationship of this newer core subject4 with the older and established disciplines of history and geography (Aitken, 2006; Mutch et al., 2008; Openshaw, 2000, 2005). Hunter (2006), for example, suggests that the way in which social sciences subjects are represented in NZC may reflect a defence of territory by the subject-specific writing groups, and that such protectionism represents a lost opportunity to create a coherent and integrated social sciences learning area through inter- and trans-disciplinary explorations. Simultaneous attempts to defend disciplinary territories and to transform learning in the social sciences through the structural elements of the national curriculum can be seen as part of ongoing negotiations of disciplinary tensions. NZC can be seen as maintaining disciplinary differences and distinctions between constituent subjects while attempting to create a more cohesive curriculum framework for social sciences and to support a more holistic approach to learning in the junior years.
Contestable learning
Ideological tensions
Ideological tensions are evident in differences in the achievement objectives of different social science disciplines, which reflect different views on the kind of knowledge that is worth knowing and which stem from different and co-existing discourses. Discourses are defined here as sets of concepts, beliefs and practices that define and influence thinking on an issue and are ideologically grounded (McLaren, 2003). Take, for example, the following achievement objectives:
Understand that the causes, consequences, and explanations of historical events that are of significance to New Zealanders are complex and how and why they are contested. (history, level 8)
Understand that well-functioning markets are efficient but that governments may need to intervene where markets fail to deliver efficient or equitable outcomes. (economics, level 8)
These reflect different ideas about and understandings of society. Hunter (2006), drawing on Hinchey (2004), takes the view that the economics statement presents an uncritical view of capitalist free-market economics and a consumerist notion of citizenship. In contrast, the history achievement objective could be seen to present an idea of critical citizenship. I would argue that these achievement objectives reflect different epistemological assumptions. The history objective assumes historical explanations to be problematic, whereas the economics objective addresses an economics problem but does not appear to problematise the explanation itself.
A reading of the descriptions of senior disciplines in the social sciences position paper produced by Mutch et al. (2008) reinforces the idea that the constituent social sciences disciplines reflect different and particular understandings of the nature of learning in those disciplines and what learning should be about in those subjects at the school level. The distinctly different tone and emphasis of the contributing sections in the position paper suggest that the writers of each section (who may or may not include individuals involved in writing the curriculum) were writing from different viewpoints and had different intentions in writing about their subjects. They also appear to reflect different ideological positions. The history description, for example, seems to reflect postmodernist and critical views relating to the co-construction of historical interpretations, the importance of context and attention to the multiplicity and complexity of human experiences and the rendering of those experiences. An argument is made for the reshaping of history programmes “to include more critical approaches and new contexts for historical inquiry” (p. 29). In contrast, the economics account appears to reflect more neoliberal or traditional understandings of economics in claims about human decision making, the fair and efficient operation of markets and the rationality and supremacy of capitalist enterprise, and in the support given to the scientific method and economic models to explain and predict real-world phenomena.
This is not to say that these are the only ideological influences underpinning the achievement objectives in these subjects, or that these are the only possible ways of understandings history or economics. Nor is it to say that particular content does not have an important place in learning within these disciplines; it may be argued, for example, that learning about supply and demand and the operation of markets is central to understanding economics. Academic disciplines embody a range of theoretical perspectives within broad disciplinary domains, including traditional, postmodern and critical perspectives. What is important here isn’t making a judgement about whether critical or traditional views of history and economics are “better” (although the views of the author might be implied through context and tone of writing). Rather, what is important is recognition that different ideological positions have been advocated and have taken ascendant positions in different components of the curriculum for social sciences in recent curriculum developments and negotiations. The curriculum for social sciences thus represents the working out of ideological tensions in a particular time and place, with different disciplines within the Social Sciences learning area reflecting critical or transformative agendas to greater and lesser degrees.
Concepts and conceptual understandings
The concepts and conceptual understandings that are prescribed in the curriculum for social sciences are contestable. Social Science learning intentions are framed as broad conceptual understandings, which are the generalisations or understandings about a concept that students are expected to develop at different levels and in relation to the conceptual strands (Ministry of Education, 2009). These are presented through the Social Sciences essence statement and the achievement objectives for the contributing social science subjects. This approach to the framing of learning is consistent with international research that suggests that curricula should support teaching and learning that engages with “big ideas, facts, processes, language and narratives of subjects so that learners understand what constitutes quality and standards in particular disciplines” (James & Pollard, 2008). Notwithstanding these general principles, how the big ideas might be interpreted and presented is open to interpretation—by policy makers, academics and the teachers who give effect to the curriculum learning intentions and shape the learning programmes that are experienced by students.
Many concepts that are used to focus learning in the social sciences in NZC also featured in previous curricula: society, community, heritage, cultural interaction, biculturalism, participation, values, beliefs, leadership, rights, responsibilities and social justice, to name a few. Some concepts are new or have greater prominence in NZC as it relates to social sciences than in previous curricula, including identities, sustainability, innovation, enterprise and critical engagement. A detailed discussion of how all the different concepts and conceptual understandings pertaining to social sciences might be understood is beyond the scope of this article. However, brief consideration is given here to two concepts—culture and citizenship—to illustrate the contestability of conceptual understandings
Culture
It is intended that students in the social sciences “learn about diverse cultures and identities of people” who are members of communities (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 30). This intention is reinforced through the curriculum achievement objectives, including, for example:
Understand how cultural practices reflect and express people’s customs, traditions, and values. (social studies, level 2)
Understand how cultural interaction impacts on cultures and societies. (social studies, level 5)
Understand how cultures adapt and change and that this has consequences for society. (social studies, level 7)
However, the concept of “culture” can be understood and engaged with in different ways.
One way of thinking about culture relates to how we might generalise about cultures and groups. Culture can be essentialised, so that people within a cultural group are viewed as being the same. For example, all Māori, Pasifika and Pākehā people, and all youth and members of different subcultures, are assumed to share the same values, interests and concerns. Or culture can be problematised, with different cultural groups seen as being diverse, with participants sharing some values and interests in particular contexts and differing in their responses in other contexts. The achievement objectives relating to culture can be understood differently depending on inclinations to essentialise or problematise the concept.
Another way of thinking about culture relates to narratives, which reflect the ideological discourses that define and influence thinking on an issue. The ideas of “cultural impact” and “cultural interaction” invite stories that trace events and human responses. Stories of cultural interactions may be told differently within different narratives. Within a Western progress narrative, for example, cultural impact and cultural conflict would be explained as necessary gains and pains in the advance towards a successful society that is modelled on Western values; the story is of striving for social cohesion, technological advance and collective Western democratic ideals, which are assumed to be superior to those of other cultures and societies. Within a social justice narrative, cultural interactions would be seen in terms of power, rights, control and oppression, with some groups being advantaged and others disadvantaged in the negotiation of power. The focus is on social diversity, struggle and justice. These or other narratives might operate within different social sciences classes depending on how teaching programmes are constructed and on the understandings of teachers who enact the curriculum in practice.
Citizenship
Citizenship education provides a raison d’être for social sciences in NZC:
The Social Sciences learning area is about how societies work and how people can participate as critical, active, informed, and responsible citizens. (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 30)
Citizenship education, though, is a contested field. Social science curriculum analysts have identified different ways of understanding citizenship education, arguing that it can be construed in terms of personal identity, values, rights, responsibilities and choices; social issues relating to equities, disparities and allocation of resources; and political awareness and participation (see, for example, Aitken, 2005; Mutch et al., 2008).
Historically, different positions have been taken on whether citizenship-related teaching should inculcate or challenge: whether it should encourage young people to adapt to the status quo, support a particular set of values and encourage allegiance and loyalty to a system; or encourage questioning and challenging of existing systems and structures (Mutch, 2005b; Openshaw, 2000). The content, spirit and tone of NZC, discerned in the Social Sciences essence statement and in the broader vision, principles and key competencies in the front of the curriculum, point to a construction of citizenship as critical engagement. Developing knowledge and skills to “engage critically with societal issues” is an explicit curriculum goal for learning in the social sciences (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 30). The implication is that critical engagement is to be achieved through application of a social inquiry approach to learning, which involves students in asking questions, exploring and analysing perspectives and values, and reflecting on the understandings they have developed.
What might it mean, though, for students to engage critically and to participate as critical, active and informed citizens in social sciences? Critical engagement involves critical thinking, but critical thinking can be understood differently. Critical thinking may be thought of as a prescribed process for inquiry; as a matter of information decoding and identification of different contexts and points of view held by others; as problem solving; as personal reflection and questioning of one’s own understandings; as exploration of language and ways of representing ideas; as learning about disciplines and the types of understandings that different disciplines afford; or as challenging power relations and institutional systems and structures. These views of critical thinking encompass understandings that are more or less technicist (concerned with procedure), cognitive (concerned with thinking processes) and transformative (concerned with challenging assumptions and changing people or society). They also imply different ideas about participation and active citizenship.
The extent to which the curriculum is advocating for students to take social action, as opposed to considering what social action might be taken, is open to interpretation. It depends on the reading of the intentions that “Through the social sciences, students develop the knowledge and skills to enable them to: better understand, participate in, and contribute to the local, national, and global communities in which they live and work” and that “Using a social inquiry approach, students … consider the ways in which people make decisions and participate in social action” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 30). The curriculum seems to be ambivalent on this and it can be read as supporting both cognitive and active views of citizenship education.
Turning from the curriculum itself to a recent social issue and media debate, the contestability of citizenship education and active learning in the social sciences is illustrated in the public discussion in recent years relating to whether there should or should not be an “h” in Wanganui to make the city name Whanganui. The reactions reported in the media of the then mayor of Wanganui and of the public to the action by a group of children from the Te Korowai Whakamana class at Ötaki School are illuminating. The children wrote to the mayor with their opinions on the issue and expressed anger at the council decision to maintain the status quo of Wanganui as the city spelling. Responses to a television news item (“Laws accused of ‘bullying’”, 2009) varied from criticism of the children for showing disrespect to the authority of the mayor, of the teacher for allowing the children to write their letters and of both for making minority (Māori) demands of the (Pākehā) majority, to support for the children’s action and their democratic right to take such action. The idea that children would actively participate in democratic processes in the community as part of their schooling proved to be contentious.
Citizenship and participation, then, are highly contestable notions. Learning in social sciences is potentially a dangerous practice in the sense that it can involve exploration of touchy social issues and tensions between individual, school and community values. Exploration of social issues is integral to learning in the social sciences and is embedded in the idea of critical engagement that is promoted in NZC. However, the extent to which social sciences learning might be constructed in cognitive or active terms, in ways that reinforce or challenge authority, or in ways that make learning “dangerous” or keep it “safe”, is not determined by the curriculum. This will be decided in practice by the teachers whose professional responsibility it is to interpret curriculum intentions and enact these interpretations through teaching programmes.
Discussion
NZC is a permissive curriculum, as was the preceding curriculum developed in the 1990s. It is permissive in the sense that it gives teachers the freedom and authority to decide the shape the curriculum takes in classroom practice. The official policy position is that NZC was intentionally designed to give schools “the scope, flexibility, and authority” to design and shape a meaningful school curriculum, and teachers the “scope to make interpretations in response to the particular needs, interests, and talents of individuals and groups of students in their classes” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 37).
Couched in democratic terms, schools and teachers are given the power and responsibility to design learning that is responsive to perceived student needs, within the broad conceptual guidelines of the curriculum. It can be argued that the conceptual nature and the brevity of the mandated curriculum support and strengthen the role of teachers as local curriculum developers.
According to Cubbit (2005), the intention in redeveloping the Social Sciences learning area in NZC was to clarify and refine the learning expectations. It was not the intention to completely reconstitute the curriculum for social sciences, but to restructure it in order to reduce the document to a one-page essence statement and set of refined achievement objectives. Yet the broader ideological foundations of NZC have shifted to reflect transformative views of learning (among others), both in terms of learning focus and learning process. Herein lie challenges for those whose professional responsibility it is to interpret the curriculum and the learning intentions it signals.
Permissiveness in curriculum is seen by educators as a strength because of the flexibility it provides to shape learning in ways that are meaningful for students (see, for example, Aitken, 2005; Bailey, 2005). With a permissive curriculum, though, go interpretation issues relating to concepts, content and teaching, and learning approaches. What should be learnt and how should students engage with different ideas? The responses to this question will depend on the understanding that teachers have of the theoretical foundations and ideological tensions in the curriculum, and their personal commitments to traditional, transformative or other educational agendas. The pedagogical shifts that are signalled in NZC, which are aimed at creating a more responsive, relevant and transformative education, are potentially both discomforting and exciting for social science teachers, depending on individuals’ notions of what teaching and learning in social science subjects is and should be about.
I am not arguing against permissive or conceptual curricula. Nor am I pessimistic about the potential of NZC to effect change in teaching and learning in social sciences that reflects 21st century learning and transformative agendas. I would caution, though, that faith in NZC to produce a fundamental and universal shift in social science teaching and learning in Aotearoa New Zealand needs to be tempered by an appreciation of the ideological tensions and mixed messages inherent in NZC and the realities of teachers’ positions and their varied beliefs.
Teachers, as members of different communities, can be expected to have a range of beliefs about teaching and learning and varied understanding of NZC, and therefore to variously embrace or resist curriculum changes. Different agendas are likely to be given effect in different schooling contexts and by different teachers. “Progress” towards different forms of teaching and learning will inevitably be slow, and some teachers will likely reject transformative agendas as not constituting progress or desirable outcomes for students of the social sciences. The actions of the professionals who work in schools will ultimately determine the extent to which changes that are made in social science teaching and learning in the 21st century are cosmetic and maintain the status quo, or are of a more transformative nature.
This article is an initial step towards a critical understanding of NZC, based on exploring the ideological tensions inherent in the official national curriculum and its transformative possibilities. It represents a particular understanding of NZC and of social science curriculum developments. This interpretation is influenced by the author’s ideological position and pragmatic concern for the situated realities of teaching. It is offered as a contribution to ongoing discussion and debate around curriculum developments in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the curriculum for social sciences in particular.
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Notes
The author
Dr Jane Abbiss is a senior lecturer at the School of Māori, Social and Cultural Studies in Education, College of Education, University of Canterbury.
Email: jane.abbiss@canterbury.ac.nz
1NZC was introduced in 2007, to be fully implemented in schools in 2010.
2The standards review is intended to ensure that curriculum-based standards are aligned to NZC and address issues of duplication, credit parity, consistency, fairness and coherence.
3The New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 1993) established Social Sciences as one of seven learning areas, and a separate curriculum document was developed for social studies levels 1–8 (Years 1–13) (Ministry of Education, 1997). NZC includes Social Sciences as one of eight learning areas that contribute to a “broad, general education and lays a foundation for later specialisation” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 16).
4The first social studies curriculum was introduced for primary schools in 1961, but it wasn’t until the introduction of social studies in 1997 in the New Zealand curriculum document that a social studies curriculum for all levels of schooling was developed (Aitken, 2006).