This literature review is the first output of the Curriculum in Practice project and informs subsequent stages of our research. The review had two main aims:
- to understand the New Zealand Curriculum update’s “direction of travel” in relation to selected international jurisdictions
- to synthesise literature about teachers’ and school leaders’ curriculum making and curriculum sensemaking.
It also examines:
- the origins and debates around “knowledge-rich” curriculum approaches
- themes from jurisdictions with Indigenous curriculum arrangements
- emerging literature on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in curriculum making.
We used a scoping and narrative literature review approach drawing on Priestley et al.’s (2021) framework. This conceptualises curriculum making as a multi-layered social process ranging from global policy discourse (supra), national or state curriculum policy (macro), and production of resources and guidance (meso), through to curriculum making at school level (micro) and interactions at the site of learning (nano).
We focused on five jurisdictions: England, Australia, Scotland, Estonia, and South Africa. Together, they illustrate different approaches to “knowledge-rich” curriculum, school curriculum autonomy, curriculum reform, and wider social and cultural educational norms. We also examined common themes in literature from jurisdictions with Indigenous curriculum arrangements. Across many jurisdictions, the balance between Indigenous authority, localisation, and national consistency continues to be negotiated. Key questions include whose knowledge matters and how education systems can build respectful and meaningful relationships between knowledge systems.
The literature generally supports teachers having a role in macro curriculum making. However, mechanisms for involvement vary, and having input does not always mean having influence. At the micro and nano levels, both high and low curriculum autonomy can create challenges and opportunities. These range from cultures of performativity, compliance, and risk aversion to anxiety and overwhelm. Teachers also hold diverse perspectives about curriculum and about the level of input or agency they want or are expected to have as curriculum makers.
AI is beginning to influence curriculum making across the education system, from supra-national debates about the purposes and content of education to teachers’ everyday work in schools and classrooms. However, considerably more research focuses on teachers’ use of AI than on its use in curriculum governance or policy administration. The emerging AI literature raises new questions while reinforcing longstanding ones: What is curriculum for? What roles should teachers and disciplinary expertise play? And what guidance, governance, and accountability are needed to support ethical, equitable, and robust curriculum making?
Overall, the literature we reviewed draws attention to the complex processes through which curriculum is created, interpreted, negotiated, and enacted. These insights provide a useful foundation for the next phases of our research to explore how the updated curriculum is experienced and enacted within diverse schools and classrooms in Aotearoa New Zealand.