Reconceptualising the school curriculum to address global challenges: Marrying aims-based and ‘powerful knowledge’ approaches

Abstract

Today's school students are inheriting complex and harmful global challenges that are potentially irreversible and which they will need to address. The ability to think critically and creatively, to work in interdisciplinary teams and to understand the importance of a healthy planet for all life will be needed for success. Education has a major role in helping humanity achieve this. This article argues that transformations in both curriculum and pedagogy are required. It offers a potential conceptualisation and examples of what learning might look like to achieve these aims, exemplified by school science education as science will need to play a significant role if these global challenges are to be successfully met. This new conceptualisation draws upon Young's (2012, 2013) ‘powerful knowledge’ and the rather different approach found in Reiss and White's (2013) arguments for an ‘aims-based’ curriculum to propose curricula and associated pedagogies that can potentially address the global challenges of our times.