Teacher decision-making in contested curriculum: A study of New Zealand social studies

This thesis is about teacher decision-making in curriculum design. It argues that design difficulties arise when these factors converge: contestation about the curriculum subject, a decentralised and localised curriculum, a high level of teacher autonomy and limited priority for teacher subject knowledge. These factors are traced to causal forces including the changed status of disciplinary knowledge, the outcomes of 21st century learning, the emphasis on learning and the learner, and the concurrent change to the role of the teacher. Although the thesis uses the subject of social studies in New Zealand to illustrate the factors and causes of major curriculum change, it locates these changes within the international context. The thesis used an empirical study of New Zealand social studies to investigate teachers’ knowledge of the subject, and following from that, their design and teaching methods. Five teachers were interviewed about the factors that determine their decision-making in curriculum design and planning for social studies in Year 7 and 8. The study found that the problems of content-selection and purpose-justification could be identified by the variation in teachers' social studies subject expertise. It also revealed that how teachers conceptualised their own role had important implications for curriculum design. Each teacher’s social studies subject expertise was analysed using Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing and their design expertise was analysed using the Curriculum Design Coherence Model. The study enabled the identification of subject contestation, the localised curriculum, teacher autonomy, and the low status of subject expertise as factors that contribute to the difficulties and confusion experienced by teachers when making curriculum design decisions. These factors were explained by locating the causes in New Zealand’s curriculum policy but also in the wider issue of the relationship between a subject’s disciplinary foundation and the way in which it is altered and designed for teaching. The explanatory concepts enable generalisations about curriculum selection and design that extend beyond the scope of the study findings to build the thesis argument that teacher subject expertise is critical for ensuring a coherent, conceptual curriculum that is justified by its selection of disciplinary concepts.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Spicer, Rochelle

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Rata, Elizabeth
• Sitene, Alexis

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/66901

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/66901