Emerging school curricula: Australia and Scotland compared

Abstract

Education policy across the Anglophone world is notable for the emergence in the last few years of new forms of national curriculum. This new curriculum model is characterised by a number of common features. These include a shift from the detailed specification of knowledge to genericism and a focus on skills/competencies, an emphasis on the centrality of the learner, and an articulation of curriculum as assessable outcomes. Despite these commonalities, the new curricula exhibit idiosyncratic features, formed as global discourses are mediated at the level of national contextualisation of curriculum policy. This article draws upon two case studies – the new Australian Curriculum and Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence – to illustrate how, in these cases, new curriculum policy has emerged.