Making Sense of a New Curriculum Text within Competing Discourses and Complex Contexts

The article discusses a study investigating how a group of teachers in Queensland, Australia made sense of the first systemically developed preschool curriculum guidelines. The study was informed by aspects of critical and post-structuralist theory and data examined included transcripts of conversations with teachers and official documents. The study showed that teachers constructed contradictory interpretations of the new curriculum text. They perceived the guidelines as both endorsing existing beliefs and practices and creating new expectations for practice. Teachers' interpretations reflected the competing discourses, agendas and power relations that shaped their views about curriculum and the production of the curriculum guidelines. The study highlighted that the preschool curriculum is negotiated within complex and unstable discourses and power relations. Understanding the complexities that shape curriculum can help educators to monitor reflexively the positive and negative impact of curriculum reform on teachers' practice.