Editorial

Abstract

The scrutiny of any educational system inevitably raises issues about constructions of worthwhile knowledge (content) and how the learning of knowledge so-deemed should be managed (pedagogy). Issues of national curriculum reform are discussed by a number of writers in this issue. In providing an overview of the Australian situation, Wayne Sawyer raises issues related to the uneasy tension between increasingly critical English curriculum formulations and narrowly defined literacy testing regimes. Writing of the situation in England, Richard Andrews details ways in which curricular reform still operates within a conservative, target-setting and assessment driven model. Terry Locke makes similar points about the New Zealand situation, when he discusses ways in which assessment reforms, especially when related to high-stakes qualifications reforms, construct their own de facto curriculums. The article on the South African situation, by Hilary Janks and Jeanne Prinsloo, is a reminder of ways in which issues of power (and disempowerment) are implicated in curricular constructions.