Curriculum Matters 7: 2011

In a year of unprecedented events in New Zealand’s history, in which I was to lose people close to me and in which I saw firsthand the toll taken on my hometown community of Greymouth and my current place of residence, Christchurch, I cannot reflect on this year in curriculum without relating it to those events. As I write this, the clean-up of the oil spill following the Rena’s grounding off Tauranga is also underway—another example to support the points I will make.… Read more

This paper explores views of mathematics that have been offered in parliamentary exchanges over the past two decades. It makes connections between the development of mathematics curriculum and the political and ideological arrangements in which curriculum is nested. In tracing how school mathematics debates in parliamentary sessions are set within specific social, cultural and economic contexts, we draw attention to an increasing national drive for competitiveness and to heightened… Read more

In New Zealand the majority of students attend schools that reflect the dominant mainstream context, yet these schools include indigenous Māori and learners from diverse cultural and language backgrounds. By building on contemporary cultural knowledge and students’ own experiences, the arts have the potential to enhance educational outcomes for a diverse student population. This research examines the effects of an intensive programme of teacher professional development in culturally… Read more

This paper conceives history in the New Zealand curriculum as a curriculum problem. In exposing this problem, history’s identity is thrown into question. I outline a motif of disturbance in light of my professional experiences of history curriculum and assessment policy shifts (1990s to 2010). From a critical pedagogy stance, I conceive the national curriculum’s events-based orientation to history as traditional and played out in pedagogy as exclusive cultural reproduction. From a critical… Read more

This paper views key competencies through a sociocultural lens to discuss the role they have played as agents of change in The New Zealand Curriculum and their as yet unrealised potential to stimulate further change. It draws on several exploratory studies to describe broad types of action and change which the key competencies have afforded, tracing several recursive cycles of professional learning during which understanding of the role key competencies might play in curriculum… Read more

The aim of this article is to comment on the ways in which beliefs and theories of learning affect the teaching and learning of mathematics. When mathematics is viewed as a static body of knowledge, a transmission style of teaching is often employed. In contrast, a radical constructivist view of learning suggests that mathematics could be a constructive and creative endeavour. We suggest that this perspective of mathematics aligns with the principles, values and key competencies in The… Read more