Curriculum Matters 13: 2017

Ko tā tēnei tuhinga he whakaahua i te whanaketanga o Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, te marautanga ā-motu i hangaia hei ārahi i ngā kura reo Māori. Ko mātou ngā kaituhi he kaiako i te kura tuatahi, i te kura tuarua, me te whare wänanga hoki. Whakatakotoria ai i roto i tēnei tuhinga ō mātou whakaaro me ā mātou tirohanga ki ngā take i pā ki te hanganga o tētahi marautanga Māori taketake, ahurei hoki.

This article offers brief commentary on the development of Te … Read more

This article explores the history of curriculum relating to Pasifika early childhood education (ECE) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Specific contributions of Pasifika peoples to the developments of Te Whāriki are considered. The aspirations of Pasifika peoples and academics that are presented in the body of scholarship developed over the past 15 years are also considered. Drawing on a critical narrative, Pasifika methodological concepts of tuatua, tuatua mai, and talanoa are employed to… Read more

Understanding the policy directed education environment in which health education as a subject sits in The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) is akin to attempting a complex jigsaw puzzle without a picture to show how the pieces fit together. This article will provide an overview of the multiple education policies, presented as a “jigsaw”, that give shape to health education in NZC. Ongoing challenges for health education associated with aspects of the jigsaw will be… Read more

This article draws primarily on a policy discussion hosted by the New Zealand Association of Research in Education’s (NZARE) Science Special Interest Group at the 2016 national conference, arguing that an ecosystem view of science education is a useful metaphor when considering both what is being done to implement the vision for science education as articulated in The New Zealand Curriculum, and where some of the gaps continue to exist. 

This article explores the effect of high-stakes assessment on the representation of epistemic knowledge in the enacted curriculum—that is, the curriculum experienced by students in the classroom. Epistemic knowledge concerns the processes for constructing and evaluating theories that explain phenomena in the natural and social worlds. Knowledge-building disciplines such as history and science each have their own epistemic processes. We explore the extent to which these processes are… Read more

Learning about controversial historical issues is an essential feature of citizenship education in democratic societies, but in New Zealand, the high-autonomy national curriculum leaves it up to teachers to choose whether they engage their students with difficult questions about the past. This can place teachers in an awkward position. They do not operate as autonomous entities when it comes to making curriculum decisions. Schools are largely self-managing and each school has responsibility… Read more

Mathematics curriculum documentation currently presents important information and messages for New Zealand teachers. Mathematical processes are not explicitly set out but embedded in different locations and there are multiple sources of proxy official curriculum information for the primary school. This article identifies and discusses examples of curriculum tensions for teachers and suggests possible changes for any future renewal of the mathematics (and statistics) curriculum.