IOE academics contribute to new book on knowledge and the curriculum

The book draws on the idea of powerful knowledge, which is understood as the knowledge that is most valuable for young people to learn, but not available from their everyday life experiences. It examines how this can be accessed by the range of young people through the school curriculum. The book includes work drawn from studies from a range of countries, including Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the UK, and considers the implications for curriculum innovation at policy, programmatic and classroom level.

Dr Jennie Golding’s chapter considers the quality of the mathematics curriculum subject-related knowledge used by teachers and students in classrooms. It analyses which mathematics disciplinary values and ways of working are potentially supported by the English school curriculum, and how these may be made available to young people in the classroom. Dr Golding argues for all young people to have increasing access to mathematical ways of thinking, to empower them as effective users of mathematics for personal and societal ends. She illustrates her arguments with examples from her recent research.

Dr Mark Hardman co-writes a chapter called ‘What do pupils learn from? Powerful knowledge, epistemic quality and matter within a science classroom’. It looks at how powerful knowledge manifests in a science classroom, through a video study of an experienced teacher. It draws attention to the material aspects of classrooms, which are often missed when thinking about teaching and learning. In this way Dr Hardman shows how mini-white boards, diagrams, descriptions and experimental results all come together to develop the understandings that pupils have.

‘International Perspective on Knowledge and Curriculum: Epistemic Quality across School Subjects’ is published by Bloomsbury. It is currently available as an e-book and will be available in hard copy from 24 February 2022.

Links

• ‘International Perspective on Knowledge and Curriculum: Epistemic Quality across School Subjects’
• Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment
• View Dr Jennie Golding’s research profile
• View Dr Mark Hardman’s research profile