School Knowledge, Working Knowledge and the Knowing Subject: A Review of State Curriculum Policies 1975–2005 was an ARC Discovery Project that ran between 2007 and 2008. The University of Melbourne funded a further year of research in 2009. The Chief Investigators on this ARC grant were Lyn Yates and Cherry Collins of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, with additional research assistance provided by Kate O’Connor, Katie Wright and Brenda Holt.
Responding to a noted dearth of systematic scholarship about the development of state curriculum policies, the Curriculum Policies Project aimed to produce a foundation picture of developments in curriculum policies across the nation over a 30-year period. The project provided a wide overview of the last generation of state curricula, moving past previous projects that were limited in scope to individual government reports, Commonwealth developments, subject areas or political contexts.
The overarching focus of the project was on charting continuities and changes in state curriculum policies, especially regarding changing approaches to knowledge, to students, and to the marking out of academic and vocational agendas. The focus was broadly on secondary schooling, and aimed at building up snapshots of curriculum changes at ten-year intervals.
As part of the pilot for SOCEY, the project has been made available in the SOCEY Repository, with materials and data available through open or mediated access.