Culturally Responsive Curricula: Lessons from Research and Classroom Practice

Please join us for this free event to celebrate the launch of the 2^nd Edition of Teacher Agency: An Ecological Approach by Mark Priestley and Gert Biesta (with Sarah Robinson). At the event you will hear from Mark and Gert about the new book, and also find out about some of the plans for the Stirling Centre for Research Into Curriculum making (SCRCM). The book is available from https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/teacher-agency-9781350536340/.

We are also delighted to have a keynote presentation by Dr Claire Golledge from the University of Sydney. Claire will share some of her research around developing culturally responsive curricula, which has considerable resonance as Scotland takes forward its reforms to Curriculum for Excellence.

This is an in-person event; we can enable attendance remotely to listen to the presentations but not participate in discussions. If you wish to attend online, please do not register using this page, but instead email curric-stir@stir.ac.uk for a link.

Refreshments will be available from 3.30pm.

Culturally Responsive Curricula: Lessons from Research and Classroom Practice

Drawing on a decade of research in Australian education, this presentation examines what it means to build curricula that genuinely nourish rather than merely accommodate cultural diversity. It brings together Claire’s work across the Culturally Nourishing Schooling project, her classroom ethnographic research into history education, and ongoing curriculum research with Professor Kevin Lowe. Together, these bodies of work reveal a persistent tension at the heart of curriculum reform: systems can simultaneously gesture toward cultural responsiveness while actively foreclosing it, for example, functioning in practice as a form of policy deception toward First Nations communities. The presentation draws out broader implications for education systems internationally, asking what principled and genuinely culturally responsive curriculum-making demands of teachers, researchers, and system leaders alike.

Bio

Dr Claire Golledge is a Senior Lecturer in Education in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at The University of Sydney, where she coordinates Secondary Humanities Curriculum. Prior to joining the University, Claire was a secondary school teacher and leader.

Claire's research spans classroom-based ethnographic work, critical curriculum policy analysis, and school reform, with a particular interest in achieving equitable outcomes for First Nations students and communities. She is a stream lead on the Culturally Nourishing Schooling project and a co-author of curriculum policy research examining the Australian Curriculum's treatment of First Nations knowledge and perspectives. Her book Inside the History Classroom (Routledge, 2026) draws on sustained ethnographic research to explore how history is taught, experienced, and contested in secondary schools.