Innovation and consolidation in curriculum development and reform: the case of the new social studies

Abstract

The New Social Studies movement of the 1960s and 1970s represents a significant era of curriculum development and reform in the United States, which had international implications. This article presents an Australian case study of the experiences of curriculum workers involved in the development of an elementary social studies curriculum in the 1980s and their responses to the New Social Studies movement. It addresses the question: How did curriculum workers in the 1980s respond to innovative curricular and pedagogical practices espoused by Hilda Taba and the New Social Studies, and what influences shaped their work? It draws on data gathered primarily through oral histories of curriculum workers and corroborated by analyses of documentary evidence (reports, syllabuses, and correspondence) archived by the state educational authority in Queensland, Australia. Through their oral histories, curriculum workers provide reflective, evaluative, and contrasting 'voices' on official state-level efforts, or what Ross aptly calls the 'official state curriculum', and their perceived impact upon the curricular and pedagogical practices of classroom teachers.