Designing and Developing a Constructivist National Social Studies Curriculum: An Example from New Zealand

Abstract

This paper describes the design and development of an integrated national social studies curriculum for all New Zealand primary and secondary school students. The development process began in 1995 and the final version of the curriculum was issued to schools at the end of 1997. Design problems were both ideological and pedagogical. Those who favoured a traditional liberal education lobbied for a return to history and geography; post modernists advocated a reconstructionist curriculum which emphasised process rather than product. The design teams needed to satisfy both groups and design a curriculum which emphasised ideas rather than facts, and incorporated thinking, valuing and decision-making in a way which made it easy for teachers to implement these skills in their classrooms.