Changes to the New Zealand Ministry of Education's funding for access to specialist education services in museums and art galleries in Aotearoa New Zealand (enriching local curriculum) has created the potential for an increase in visits to these institutions by young learners, and particularly those in the early childhood education (ECE) sector. A rationale for the inclusion of young children in art museum or gallery education programmes is highlighted. Strategies for teachers and gallery educators to enhance enriching local curriculum learning experiences for young learners in these contexts are suggested.
Curriculum development is critically important to the educational enterprise, yet we lack insight into if and how ideal design and development practices are enacted in organisations that create curricular programmes and resources intended for large-scale implementation. This study identified essential elements of curriculum-development practices which, together, provide a framework for considering: When is the curriculum good (enough)? What is being made? How is it being made? Why is this important and for whom? The framework is valuable on its own and provided the foundation for a survey to inventory routines and clusters of designers oriented towards large-scale implementation.
This article analyses the integration of media and information literacy (MIL) within the curriculum, starting with the evolution of the terms "media", "literacy", and "citizenship" in 85 curricula implemented in 15 Latin American countries. In addition, the article examines the possibilities brought by this integration, according to the perspective of 49 experts. Although the need to broaden the concepts of literacy and citizenship to address media challenges is recognised, this expansion lacks the perspective of empowerment or a specific curricular space. Thus, the explicit integration of the MIL in Uruguay suggests possible venues for this educational policy in the region.
In the context of significant reforms to the curriculum for New Zealand schools, this article presents an early line of findings from an ongoing school teachers' enactment of informal formative assessment. Data were gathered through observations, interviews, and document collection in one Auckland primary school classroom. The findings illustrate the value of informal formative assessment and provide a perspective on the use of formal assessment tools grounded in classroom practice. They suggest some barriers to greater student involvement in assessment, and identify trust, perceptions of validity, control, and definitions of quality as key considerations in how teachers enact formal assessments.
Using existing research on digital citizenship education (DCE), postdigital theory, and The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC), this article indicates how schools and teachers can make links between curriculum and a postdigital interpretation of DCE. Although the view of DCE as being cross-curricular presents opportunities to integrate DCE into multiple learning areas, the onus is still on teachers to enact DCE in their learning area. The aim of this practice notes piece is to support teachers by indicating how NZC and the content focus of the different learning areas offer space to deliver a critical, speculative, postdigital form of DCE.
This article reports on a line of findings that explores how New Zealand secondary teachers teach about inequality as part of the official New Zealand curriculum (NZC) in their respective teaching subjects. This second phase of the study is part of a wider project about how inequality is positioned within NZC. In-service teachers at four large state secondary schools were invited to discuss their knowledge of how inequality is positioned within NZC and to comment on their decision making around its inclusion in their teaching practice. Teacher responses fell into three categories: 1) perceptions of stronger inequality and curriculum alignment within particular subject areas; 2) teachers' purposeful inclusion of inequality regardless of subject(s) taught; and 3) the hidden curriculum's central role in teaching and learning about inequality. These findings emphasise the need for further exploration of the tensions between the official and "chosen" curriculum. With curriculum viewed as the means of preparing students for future work and study, this research raises the importance of understanding teachers' curriculum-based decision making as they serve as critical enablers/gatekeepers to children and young people's knowledge and capacity building.
Drawing data (N = 625) from the 2004 Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning Version 4 database, this article explores how New Zealand Years 11-12 secondary students perceived the importance of learning to read and write in English and how those perceptions related to their reading attitudes and performance. More positive student perceptions of learning reading comprehension supported greater interest while more positive perceptions of learning to write supported self-efficacy. Increased performance was positively enhanced by greater self-efficacy more than greater interest. This study emphasises the importance of learning to write as a support for greater reading comprehension.
This article contributes to debates on how the history curriculum should be organised (i.e., thematically, or chronologically). It also contributes to the limited empirical research that employs a sociocultural approach to history education and the limited empirical research on history education in Singapore. Drawing on semistructured interviews with seven Singapore participants on their ideas about the nature and purpose of learning history, this article explores the implications of bringing together the disciplinary and collective memory approach to history education on students' historical thinking and national identification.
In her closing piece, Kate Hannah takes umbrage at researchers who decry narrative as not being real research—and, using the stories that the four youth writers have shared, highlights the power of storytelling in the freshness, nuance, and hope that they bring to this discussion of technology, identity, and freedom of expression.
Digital citizenship education (DCE) is a concept that looks to develop learners as competent, critical, and active participants in digitally connected societies. The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) conveys a vision of DCE across subject disciplines, yet digital citizenship is scarcely defined in teaching content or learning objectives. This article reviews existing conceptions of DCE and their position in curricula, before using a postdigital lens to develop a novel conception, speculative DCE. This conception is rooted in the need to examine knowledge, issues, and speculative visions of the future through and beyond different subject disciplines. NZC and accompanying documents are assessed for their applicability to accommodate different conceptions of DCE. Analysis suggests that the emphasis on a future-focused approach, combined with curriculum integration, has scope for unpacking sociotechnical relations, developing transdisciplinarity, and enacting speculative DCE.
Kauri Tearaura (Ngāti Mahuta, Tainui, and Cook Islands) shares his personal story before expanding on the harm that is done by hate speech, especially to minority communities, such as the Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Sex Characteristics community (SOGIESC). He suggests that a way forward might be found in diversity, inclusion, and allyship.
In this opening piece, Fiona Cram (Ngāti Pahauwera) reflects on her introduction to the new technology of her childhood—the television set. She intersperses her memories of how this device changed her whānau’s dynamics with advice for today’s young people as they clamour for new technology to think more deeply about the associated consequences.
Organisation (UNESCO) contributed a special section to Curriculum Matters with a range of perspectives on Global Citizenship Education, which is a key area of focus for UNESCO nationally and globally.In this issue, we take another area of focus for our organisation, that of freedom of expression.
Hannah Christini concludes the section featuring young people’s experiences of changing technology and links this to her choice of becoming a teacher. She highlights that critical literacy and critical digital skills will be important components of her teaching practice.
In her article, Katja Neef reflects on her personal experiences of living as a mixed-raced Asian migrant in Aotearoa New Zealand and how technology and media can exacerbate racial stigmatisation and structural racism.
Poetry can be a significant aspect of a person’s literacy experiences (Tomlinson & Lynch-Brown, 2002). It is an excellent genre for learning, but what are the best methods and should poetry be required for English as a foreign language (EFL) literature majors? The main purpose of this study is to determine how effective poetry can be in increasing EFL literature majors’ English reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills, and examine if the learners can reach a higher level of higher order thinking. This study examines communicative language teaching (CLT) and how a CLT poetry course can impact EFL literature majors’ language and higher order thinking skills. This article introduces the benefits of such pedagogies and advocates for making poetry classes a requirement for all EFL literature majors. The results of the study indicate that the EFL participants improved all four English language skills, reached a higher level of critical thinking, and also improved their vocabulary knowledge. Therefore, the theory of making a poetry class a requirement for EFL literature majors is sound as long as the class is based on CLT approaches and methods. It is also recommended that more EFL teachers carry out CLT poetry teaching in their courses to benefit their EFL learners’ language and critical thinking skills.
This study examined how a group of Korean international students enrolled in a writing class in a United States business programme navigated their literacy practices through the use of KakaoTalk, a social networking application for smartphones. On the basis of 29 student interviews and a detailed narrative of one focal student's activities in KakaoTalk group sessions, the study aimed to elucidate the less studied feature of literacy studies: the social networking methods that students mobilise to make meaning of their school literacy activities collaboratively and individually. The study findings suggest that students' identities and literacy performances shape one another through the intersection of local and global forces. Theories of identity and the Korean concept of "in-maek" offer important insights into the dynamic interchange of students' social and literacy practices and identities. This study provides insights into the influence of such identity work on students' academic experiences and the development of a curriculum for a business programme writing class.
As part of a multiyear research project investigating the affordances of online citizen science (OCS) projects for enhancing school students’ learning in relation to science and digital technology, teacher–researchers have designed and implemented classroom interventions incorporating one or more OCS projects. The project is situated in New Zealand, and each intervention has embedded an OCS project within a wider unit of learning focusing on one or more “science capabilities” (Ministry of Education, n.d.). This article presents one of the case studies generated in the wider project. It is of a Year 9 class that engaged with the OCS project Planet Four as part of a wider inquiry unit emphasising the science capability Use evidence: “Can humans live on Mars?” The findings demonstrate that a deliberate focus on using evidence throughout the unit gave students multiple opportunities to practise and develop this science capability within the engaging context of space travel.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, calls to protect children and young people have proliferated in educational contexts, consolidating safety as a core principle guiding an increasing number of decisions at schools. Recently, however, more and more scholars have begun to question the ambiguous nature of “safety”, analysing the tensions between this concept, education, and children’s citizenship. The purpose of this article is to problematise the political and educational implications created by concerns about safety in the unprecedented times of COVID-19. Using Apple and Beane’s (2007) classic work on democratic education, our study delves into the educational experiences of nine educators and eight students in Aotearoa New Zealand during COVID-19 to explore their uses of safety. Our findings highlight the nuanced ways in which the discourses of safety can lead to curricular and pedagogical practices of comfort, isolation, and control.
