Knowledge and the New Zealand curriculum ‘refresh’

This paper examines the extent to which there has been a shift towards disciplinary knowledge in recently developed curriculum documents in New Zealand and evaluates whether a new ‘Understand, Know, Do’ structure for the curriculum has the potential to facilitate coherent design of teaching programmes and ‘deep learning’. Using a social realist lens, Bernsteinian theories on knowledge structures and recontextualization, and the principles of a Curriculum Design Coherence Model, the analysis identifies instances of both conceptual coherence and epistemic confusion which raises questions about the underlying principles upon which the curriculum documents are being developed.