Reclaiming ‘expert territory’? An exploration of early career primary teachers’ varied curriculum-making experiences

Abstract

Ongoing performative accountability agendas across education systems reinforce perceptions of curriculum as a ‘product’ to be delivered by teachers positioned merely as ‘technicians’. The prevalence of such positioning raises questions as to where opportunities exist for teachers to be knowledge-led curriculum ‘makers’. This thesis addresses such questions, exploring early career teachers’ experiences of knowledge-led forms of curriculum-making in Australian primary schools, strengthening understanding of opportunities that exist, and the school-level conditions which enable and constrain such curriculum-making in practice. Adopting a qualitative, multiple case study design, this research explores early career primary teachers’ reported curriculum-making experiences, during professional experience placements and their first year of teaching. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews and visual mind-mapping tasks, a Bourdieuian perspective is adopted which highlights the complex relationship between objective school-level structures and teachers’ curriculum dispositions and aspirations.

This research highlights limited opportunities for early career teachers to engage in knowledge-led forms of curriculum-making, with a continuum of experiences reported. The scope of teachers’ curriculum thinking and practice is contingent upon three interrelated domains of school context which reflect broader systemic pressures. It is argued that limited opportunities for early career teachers to engage in knowledge-led curriculum-making risks them having to embrace identities as curriculum ‘technicians’ as a way of coping with ongoing performative pressures. This research contributes a contextualised understanding of the complexities of teachers’ curriculum work in current times, and rich insight into the dynamic interplay between school-level conditions and early career teachers’ curriculum aspirations.