Conversing for conversion: Turning system wide curriculum into local curriculum reform

The challenge of reforming curriculum within an education system remains as fresh today as it ever was when researchers began to seriously investigate the nature of what resulted from the implementation of innovations which had not been generated by those who were intended to put them into practice, and especially when innovations were being designed to attempt to strengthen educational rigour and outcomes or even bring about neverbefore-tried outcomes, or use new teaching techniques to represent new ways of conceiving of educational activity and learning processes. In several ways we are living in parallel educational times to those of the 1960s – 1970s since the education system is again being used by governments to seek to achieve economic and social objectives for the good of the nation. Australia has to be seen as a strong global player, and no state of Australia wants to be identified as falling behind in the competition stakes. Educational concerns have become readily identified with political concerns, and schools, teachers and students are being asked to perform for the sake of those concerns.