This timely book argues that the New Zealand educational reforms were the product of longstanding unresolved educational issues that came to a head during the profound economic and cultural crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Transformation of Education Policy deals with internalization processes in education policy and their impact on national policy making. It investigates national responses to the PISA study for secondary education and the Bologna study for tertiary education.

By any measure, New Zealand must confront monumental issues in the years ahead. From the future of work to climate change, wealth inequality to new populism – these challenges are complex and even unprecedented. Yet why does New Zealand’s political discussion seem so diminished, and our political imagination unequal to the enormity of these issues? And why is this gulf particularly apparent to young New Zealanders? These questions sit at the centre of Max Harris’s ‘New Zealand project’. This book represents, from the perspective of a brilliant young New Zealander, a vision for confronting the challenges ahead. Unashamedly idealistic, The New Zealand Project arrives at a time of global upheaval that demands new conversations about our shared future.

Originally published in 1974. Here is a detailed discussion of educational change in New Zealand with implications which should provoke a fresh approach both to the educational tradition in Britain and to the problems of other educational systems which are subject to democratic control. It is primarily concerned with developments in the quarter-century between 1945 and 1970. With frequent reference to events preceding and following this period, the author stresses throughout the professed educational ideal of all post-war New Zealand governments: to provide equality of opportunity in education. He deals with principles of policy and administrative control, including the universities and estimates the influence on official policy of interest groups inside and outside the educational system. He examines social issues which include the extent to which governments have failed to promote equality of opportunity in the schooling of minority groups in the country, and treats, in an historical perspective, the perennial vexed question of state aid to private schools. The concluding chapters describe and analyse the characteristics, difficulties and prospects of primary, secondary and tertiary education.

This book offers new ideas for thinking about how more equitable outcomes might be achieved in New Zealand so that all students are well-equipped to live and work in contemporary society. It addresses a social justice concern about access to the unique affordances of subject knowledge which comprises two forms of knowledge - propositional (knowledge-that) and applied knowledge (know-how-to). The book provides perspectives on curriculum design by grounding arguments in a theory of knowledge. It describes the different knowledge forms of the theory, and argues that understanding these differences is significant for curriculum design and enactment. It explains why the current imbalance between knowledge forms is a problem, and offers suggestions for change. Understanding about knowledge itself enables more just and equitable outcomes for all students. This book illustrates how different knowledge types and forms can be used together productively to help students develop adaptive expertise for the 21st century, making it a valuable contribution to the field of education.