Teacher expectations; teaching Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories; subject English and the New Zealand Curriculum; curriculum design; the Innovation School.

Articles highlight issues of curriculum access, social justice, and learning that were presented by global events in 2020 and which are likely of interest and important for educators and policy makers in Aotearoa New Zealand and globally in the present and looking forward. Articles in this collection focus on specific curriculum matters that relate to particular Aotearoa New Zealand curriculum policies and teaching initiatives that the authors have also identified as important, because they may be problematic or present opportunties for valuable learning for children and young people. One article focuses on education in South Korea. It too addresses questions about students’ learning, particularly the pedagogical practices that support academic learning within shadow education.

In this volume: Inequality in the New Zealand curriculum; flexible learning spaces and curriculum organisation; Can culturally responsive policies improve Māori achievement?; Information literacy; Global citizenship education.

Shadow education as an emerging focus in worldwide curriculum studies; How “tight/loose” curriculum dynamics impact the treatment of knowledge in two national contexts; School libraries and librarians in New Zealand secondary school curriculum planning
and delivery; A conversation with Tamsin Hanly; Second-language learning and teaching; Political indoctrination through myth building: The New Zealand School Journal at the time of World War 1

Te Marautanga o Aotearoa; Te Whāriki; health education; science; epistemic thinking; controversial histories; mathematics and statistics.

In this issue: Curriculum research for the public good; lessons for 21st-century learning from the secondary school music classroom; an equitable curriculum for a digital age;  high self-efficacy teachers and teaching dance; influences on self-worth; biomechanics and the health and physical education curriculum; enhancing parental involvement in student learning; social studies curriculum development.

In this issue:

• Future-oriented learning, innovative learning environments and curriculum: What’s the buzz?
• Examining resources for and about social justice in senior social studies
• Community arts participation enhances teaching and learning
• The visual arts as a learning tool within an early childhood setting
• Has health education in the New Zealand curriculum “come of age”?
• Teachers, Curious Minds, and science education
• Science capabilities for a functional understanding of the nature of science
• A consideration of the recently revised asTTle: Writing
• Can written reporting against New Zealand’s National Standards fulfil the mandate of creating a robust, learning-focused, home–school partnership? 

In this issue:

• Agentic subjectivities and key competencies 
• Music teachers talking: Views on secondary school curriculum content 
• Reframing, refocusing, and revitalising: The inclusion of identity in the New Zealand curriculum 
• A review of New Zealand’s EOTC policy and curriculum: Changing meanings about safety
• Starting the conversation: Student transition from secondary to academic literacy
• Metaphors and metaphorical understanding
• Metaphors as boundary objects in preservice primary teacher mathematics education 
• Using an extended food metaphor to explain concepts about pedagogy 
• Linguistic threats associated with metaphors about evolution 
• Space, relationships and performativity: Using metaphor to reflect on teaching 
• Learning through feedback loop metaphors 
• A bridge over troubling waters in education: The complexity of a “students as co-researchers” project
• Teachers’ metaphors of literacy: Do we need new metaphors?