Heteronormativity is pervasive and ongoing in most societies. New Zealand, despite its comparatively liberal laws in relation to sexual orientation, is no exception. The effects of such attitudes, values and prejudices extend into education and, by default, into curriculum. Findings from a study including student and staff online surveys, a ...

This article deals with the philosophical issue of epistemology, or knowledge theory, in education as related to forms of learning, teaching methods and assessment in the language arts classroom, specifically reading instruction. The article details two common forms of curricular knowledge emerging from the essentialist and instrumentalist epistemological clusters; the ...

Visual arts education has long enjoyed a place in the New Zealand curriculum. Institutional endorsement of the value of visual arts learning for all children has maintained its status as a core subject in schools, a secondary schools examination subject and as specialist courses in colleges of education and schools ...

Through the use of fictionalisation, a narrative inquiry tool that allows for the “trying on” of future possibilities, I survey the state of the US curriculum field in the aftermath of Schwab’s “practical”. I note that the theory–practice binary, which Schwab explicated in the 1970s, morphed into a highly convoluted ...

In this review of the English area of the New Zealand curriculum, the spotlight is focused on the grammar teachers in primary schools are expected to know and understand in order to effectively teach and assess literacy. It is suggested that, despite some professional development in the 1990s during the ...

This article argues that empathy has an important place in the history classroom and can contribute to the aims of The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). The article examines the concept of empathy from both an affective and cognitive angle. It proposes that empathy is linked to The ...

In an attempt to develop tolerance and acceptance of other cultural groups, teacher educators from the University of Newcastle worked with members of the local African community to develop a creative arts programme for young school children. The process of engaging with the African cultures, the school teachers and students ...

Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to Michael F. D. Young, whose book Knowledge and Power (1971) was very influential on my early thinking about curriculum. Michael Young is an emeritus professor at the University of London and was in New Zealand to give the prestigious Hood lecture at ...

When I was corresponding with one of the authors in this issue, Emeritus Professor James Popham, I received an advertisement for his latest book in a document called “Popham eflyer”. As educationalists are wont to be, particularly those in assessment and evaluation research, I am at times somewhat distracted by ...

The aim of this article is to clarify some key concepts in the current Norwegian discourse on assessment, the importance of which is essential in working with teachers on developing competence in assessment for learning. Competence is reflected in teachers’ assessment practice, which includes the ability to design a cohesive ...