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Guest edited by Vivienne Baumfield, Gerry Czerniawski, Richard Pountney and Sarah Seleznyov, this special issue of the Curriculum Journal celebrates the 50th anniversary of BERA and the work of the British Curriculum Forum (BCF).

The special issue recognises the debt to the work of Lawrence Stenhouse, a former BERA President, and a founder of BCF, and his influence, both nationally and internationally, on teachers’ work in developing the curriculum. BCF brings together all those with an interest in collaborative curriculum making, research, and development across the four nations of the UK. Drawing on a rich history, spanning more than 40 years, and continuing the tradition of research and development founded by Lawrence Stenhouse, BCF aims to support BERA in connecting with schools, and to enable practitioners to engage with research.

The issue will draw from the fields of teacher education, curriculum as enquiry and professional learning with specific themes such as sustainability, integrated curricula and citizenship, including varied school subjects and disciplines, different student age groups, and the contrasting national policy approaches to teacher training and education in relation to the curriculum across the UK and internationally. Especially welcome are studies or discussion of Stenhouse’s work and how the concepts and ideas he introduced, such as the ‘teacher researcher’, for example, have been interpreted and applied in the UK, as well as translated and recontextualised in international contexts.

The guest editors welcome submissions from school-based teacher practitioners, as sole authors or in collaboration with other researchers.

A fuller discussion of the context and objectives of this special issue can be downloaded below. Please read this in full before submitting your abstract.

Timeline & publication process

• Abstracts received by: 12 June 2023
• Abstract authors notified of decisions by: 3 July 2023
• First draft of full papers by: 2 October 2023
• Reviewing complete, authors notified of revisions by: 22 January 2024
• Revised papers received by: 5 April 2024
• Special issue to publishers: June 2024
• Publication: November 2024

Initial abstract proposals should be 250–500 words in length and should be submitted by email to publications@bera.ac.uk before the deadline of 12 June 2023. Please specify ‘CJ special issue: New perspectives on curriculum’ in the subject line. From these submissions, between seven and eight abstracts will be selected for the special issue.

The guest editors will then invite authors of selected abstracts to submit their full papers by 2 October 2023. All full papers submitted to this call should follow the Curriculum Journal’s general guidelines for authors and will be subjected to double-blind peer-review following the journal’s usual procedure.