Identifying situational logics influencing curriculum change in higher education

Curriculum in higher education should adapt to meet the changing needs of students and society but is often resistant to change. Studies on curriculum change in higher education have identified structural and agential factors influencing academic orientations towards curriculum change. Investigation of the interplay between structure, culture, and agency in curriculum change extends this work. This paper presents a case study on embedding the ‘Nature of Science’ (NOS) in undergraduate science curriculum in Australia to enhance critical scientific literacy for all graduates. Margaret Archer's ‘situational logics' were used to analyse the structural and cultural conditioning of agency towards or against curriculum change to include NOS. Findings indicate that a situational logic of protection in the structural domain conditions agency towards reproduction of the traditional science curriculum. In the cultural domain, a situational logic of correction conditions agency towards realignment of the traditional science curriculum with its new purposes.