Discretionary space: English teachers discuss curriculum agency

Abstract

The move towards a national curriculum in Australia has created a new urgency to consider the extent to which teachers can claim agency within their profession. Drawing on data from interview transcripts of a small scale participant centred research project involving secondary English teachers in a school in Melbourne, Australia, this paper explores an apparent contradiction in teachers' perceptions of their role in curriculum decision-making. The focus of the project was to investigate teachers' attitudes to the teaching of poetry in an attempt to explain why this genre of literature is now almost entirely absent from the senior secondary 'taught' curriculum in the Australian state of Victoria. On one hand, the teachers in this study express frustration that the looming introduction of a national curriculum - combined with an increased emphasis on standardised testing - seems set to reduce their agency; on the other, they entertain the possibility that children from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and communities might be better served by a centrally set curriculum than has previously been recognised. We draw on Bernstein's theories to argue that an analysis of this apparent contradiction may lead to the development of more socially just pedagogical practices within the teaching profession and among teacher educators.