New perspectives on curriculum and democracy: conceptual and empirical tools for democratic curriculum

There is an increasingly complex array of global crises facing young people in contemporary societies, including climate change and ecological collapse, increasing inequality, rising authoritarianism and the de-democratisation and privatisation of public institutions. As such, it is imperative to consider the ways in which curriculum can move beyond questions regarding the knowledge, skills and attitudes being taught in classrooms, to broader questions of how curriculum can work towards more democratic futures for all young people. Part I of the two-part special issue on new perspectives on curriculum and democracy addresses this challenge through papers that provide a range of innovative theoretical, conceptual and empirical responses to the question of how curriculum can be for democracy in a context of de-democratisation. In doing so, the papers promote innovative approaches to curriculum thinking, multiple ways of knowing and understanding, and encourage critical and creative curriculum research and scholarship in the pursuit of more equitable, democratic and socially just futures.