Transnational Curriculum Standards and Classroom Practices: The New Meaning of Teaching

Focusing on the meaning of teaching, Transnational Curriculum Standards and Classroom Practices contributes to a deepened understanding of what it means to be a teacher in an institutional context ranked high on the policymakers’ agenda. While the policy literature emphasises efficiency in teaching, educational research demonstrates an awareness of the importance of alternative perspectives on what makes for successful teaching. This book critically examines the conditions and dimensions of teaching as framed in current policy discourse and situates school education in relation to wider societal issues.

Based on a four-year research project financed by the Swedish Research Council and drawing on international policy discourse, as well as international research, the chapters in this book contribute to the knowledge of relations and influences between international educational reform movements, national curriculum reforms, and implications for teaching and learning practices at the classroom level. Offering results and reflections from comprehensive comparative classroom studies, the book makes a distinctive contribution to our knowledge of the implications of policy for teachers and students.

This book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students interested in the relationship between the curriculum and teaching in a contemporary context, as well as those engaged in the study of education policy, curriculum theory, pedagogy and educational leadership. It should also be of great interest to policymakers and teachers.

Ninni Wahlström is Professor of Education at Linnaeus University, Sweden. Her current research focuses on transnational and national policy discourses and their implications for national curriculum and classroom teaching from a perspective of critical curriculum theory.

Daniel Sundberg is Professor of Education at the Linnaeus University, where he is the co-leader of the SITE research group (together with Professor Ninni Wahlström). His main field of research is education reforms, curriculum and teaching, where changes over time and places in what counts as knowledge is central.