Institutional logics and curriculum decision making: enacting the Australian Curriculum English and NAPLAN literacy

Abstract

This article, an initial report on a section of a larger research study, examines the institutional logics that underpin teacher decision making in response to changes in Australian curriculum and assessment. The research analyses secondary school teachers’ accounts of their work enacting the Australian Curriculum: English and the literacy component of Australia’s national testing (NAPLAN). It establishes whether teachers describe their curriculum enactment as controlled by the logics of market forces, bureaucracy or professionalism. It then considers whether the prevailing logics impact on the way the curriculum is structured in the classroom, analysing the extent to which the structures can be described as segmented or cumulative. The research suggests that for curriculum policies to be effective in delivering cumulative and transferable knowledge structures to the classroom, they must be integrated into teachers’ professional logics, rather than perceived as bureaucratic or market-driven impositions.