Conference Agenda

This symposium arises from the research activities of the KOSS Network: "Knowledge and Quality across School Subjects and Teacher Education " which has been funded by the Swedish Research Council (2018-24). The network has brought together cross-disciplinary educational research groups from Sweden, England and Finland specialising in different school subjects. The scope of the network has been enlarged during recent years, to include colleagues from Germany, Belgium, Austria, the Czech Republic and beyond. The aim of the research programme has been to study how content knowledge in different school subjects is defined and transformed, taking a comparative perspective across education systems in a variety of national contexts. By using the theoretical concepts of “powerful knowledge” (Young, 2015; Young, 2013), “epistemic quality” (Hudson, 2018) and “transformation” (Gericke et al., 2018) we have studied how these concepts form knowledge of importance for subject didactics and how this can be developed within teacher education. These issues form the point of departure for what can be regarded as teachers’ powerful professional knowledge. The specific research questions around which the KOSS research programme has been framed are as follows:

1. How can the nature of powerful knowledge and epistemic quality in different school subjects be characterized?

2. How can the transformation processes related to powerful knowledge and epistemic quality be described?

3. How can the nature of teachers’ powerful professional knowledge be characterized and what are the implications for teacher education policy and practice?

In our initial position paper (Gericke et al., 2018) we called for we highlighted the need for empirical studies across school subjects. Accounts from a range of studies were subsequently published in two books (Hudson et al., 2022a; 2022b). The first addresses questions of epistemic quality and powerful knowledge with a particular focus on the implications for curriculum innovation. The second addresses the implications for innovation in teacher education policy and practice arising from the consideration of questions related to the development of powerful professional knowledge. In Hudson et al. (2025) we outline our overall approach as a ‘critical knowledge-led approach to curriculum research and teacher education across school subjects’. This forms the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Curriculum Studies on Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Subject Didactics.

Activities of the network have included research on powerful knowledge, epistemic quality and the transformation processes in the classroom as well as on related educational policy and curriculum development.

In this symposium we will give a short introduction into the theoretical background of current research on powerful knowledge and epistemic quality as we understand it in UK, Sweden, Belgium and Germany.

The first paper deals with citizenship education in language teaching and learning in immersive schools in the Northern Basque country. It focuses on the reconstruction of powerful knowledge and epistemic quality in the classroom, including teachers‘ and students‘ perspectives on teaching and learning. The second paper deals with an ever-present and complex question, the knowledge content of literature teaching and how students' learning of this content should be measured and assessed. With a specific focus on upper secondary school, this paper examines, based on the concepts of powerful knowledge and powerful professional knowledge, literature teaching in a school landscape characterized by a measurability discourse. The third paper focuses on powerful knowledge in contemporary curriculum reforms and involves a comparative analysis the cases of in Flemish Belgium and England. In doing so it examines the history, evolution, tensions, risks and consequences for teacher education of a ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum. Central to these risks is that of the lethal mutation of ‘knowledge-rich gone wrong’ into knowledge of low epistemic quality.

The EduLing project is concerned with citizenship education in language teaching and learning in France, Austria and Germany. It is an international comparative study on three teaching-learning settings: language teaching and learning in minority schools, in CLIL and mainstream classes. Although citizenship education is repeatedly considered in the policy discourse on language teaching and learning in Europe, there have been hardly any studies on citizenship education in this context as a didactic category to date. The project therefore aims to empirically reconstruct selected European concepts and practices of citizenship education in language teaching and learning and addresses the research question of the extent to which the mentioned language teaching-learning settings contribute to citizenship education / éducation à la citoyenneté (Ravez 2018) in three different European countries. The reconstruction of teaching and learning practice focuses on the concept of powerful knowledge and epistemic quality (Hudson/Gericke/Olin-Scheller/Stolare 2022). The promotion of epistemic quality must be seen as elementary, especially in the context of the challenges of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4, i.e., with regard to the development of an inclusive and equitable quality of education (UN, 2015) that grants all students epistemic access (Young 2013: 115; Morrow, 2008) to powerful knowledge. According to Winch (2013), powerful knowledge includes propositional knowledge (knowing that) as well as inferential and procedural knowledge (knowing how). Hudson (2018) accordingly defines creative thinking as a particular characteristic of high epistemic quality in school mathematics, for example, while superficial, rote and algorithmic thinking in mathematics must be regarded as of low epistemic quality. The concepts of powerful knowledge and epistemic quality can be transferred to the context of citizenship education in language teaching and learning. The proposal is limited to a discussion of the sub study of French and Basque language teaching and learning in immersive schools in the Northern Basque Country, the Ikastola. The paper highlights classroom interaction as well as teachers’ and students‘ perspectives on teaching and learning. The data show that teaching and learning in the Ikastola represents a case of powerful knowledge and epistemic quality, thus a practice-model to be discussed and exploited for didactic innovation. The research promises a profound insight into chances and challenges of citizenship education in language teaching-learning settings and enables an empirically based conceptualisation for future classroom practice in Europe.

Hudson, Brian (2018): Powerful knowledge and epistemic quality in school mathematics. London Review of Education 16, 3, 384-397. Hudson, B./Gericke, N./ Olin-Scheller, Ch./Stolare, M. (eds.): International Perspectives on Knowledge and Curriculum: Epistemic Quality across School Subjects, Bloomsbury Publishing plc, London, 17-35. Morrow, Wally E. (2008): Bounds of Democracy: Epistemological Access in Higher Education. Pretoria, HSRC Press. Ravez, Claire (2018): Regards sur la citoyenneté à l école. In: Dossier de veille de l´IFÉ 125, 1-40. Lyon: ENS. http://veille-et-analyses.ens-lyon.fr/DA-Veille/125-juin-2018.pdf Schütze, Fritz (1983): Biographieforschung und narratives Interview. In: Neue Praxis 13 (3), 283-293. UN (2015), Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. https://sustainabledevelopment. un.org/ ?menu=1300 (29.01.2023) Wegner, Anke/Hudson, Brian/Loquet, Monique (2022): Epistemic Quality of Language Learning in a Primary Classroom in Germany. In: Hudson, Brian/Gericke, Niklas M./Olin-Scheller, Christina/Stolare, Martin (eds.): International Perspectives on Knowledge and Curriculum. London: Bloomsbury, 53-78. Winch, Christopher (2013): ‘Curriculum design and epistemic ascent’. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 47 (1), 128–46. Young, Michael (2013): Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: a knowledge-based approach. In: Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45, 2, 101-118.

An ever-present and complex question concerns the knowledge content of literature teaching and how students' learning of this content should be measured and assessed. The knowledge content of literature teaching is a subject-didactic issue where the teacher's understanding of the subject is central. Subject understanding refers to the teacher's perception of content and teaching methods, which reflect perceptions of the broader purpose of teaching and the subject. With a specific focus on upper secondary school in Sweden, this paper examines, based on the concepts of powerful knowledge and powerful professional knowledge, literature teaching in a school landscape characterized by a measurability discourse. The empirical material consists of four Swedish teachers' conversations during a research circle on place-based reading. A particular focus is on the teachers' subject understanding and perceptions of the knowledge content of literature teaching and how this can be understood as aspects of the quality of teaching. Our results show that teachers' powerful professional knowledge concerns teaching practices that are characterized by the openness of literary reading and supporting students in finding strategies where they can create envisionments. The teachers’ statements show that students' knowledge development needs to be assessed over a longer period of time, in order to be able to discern a progression in literary reading. The powerful professional knowledge is also about being able to manage and challenge students' previous experiences in interpretive teaching activities and to build teaching on academic knowledge that needs to be adapted and transformed for the classroom. It is also about being able to navigate a field of tension where the knowledge structure of literature teaching contrasts with the overarching knowledge structure they encounter in their everyday school life where measurement discourses fragment students' literary reading.

Buell, L. (2005) The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Blackwell Pub. Furlong, J. & Whitty, G. (2017). Knowledge traditions in the study of education. I G. Whitty & J. Furlong (Red.), Knowledge and the study of education: An international exploration, (s. 13–57). Symposium Books. Gericke, N., Hudson, B., Olin-Scheller, C. and Stolare, M. (2018). Powerful knowledge, transformations and the need for empirical studies across school subjects. London Review of Education, 16 (3): 428–444. Hudson, B., Gericke, N., Olin-Scheller, C. and Stolare, M. (2023). Trajectories of powerful knowledge and epistemic quality: analysing the transformations from disciplines across school subjects, Journal of Curriculum Studies, (55,2) 437-456. Langer, J.A. (2011). Envisioning Literature. Literary Understanding and Literature Instruction. 2. uppl. Teachers College, Columbia University. Larsson, M. (2021). Viktig läsning? Svensklärare i gymnasiet om läsundervisning i en performativ kontext. Högskolan Dalarna. Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1–22. Muller, J., & Young, M. (2019). Knowledge, power, and powerful knowledge re-visited. The Curriculum Journal, 30(2), 196–214. Wintersparv, S. (2021). Teaching the reading experience: upper secondary teachers’ perspectives on aesthetic aspects of literature teaching. Umeå University.

In this contribution we reflect on the impact of ‘powerful knowledge’ research developments in curriculum reforms at the transnational level by focusing on two contemporary cases: (a) the current reform of pre-school and primary education towards a ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum (Flemish Ministry of Education, 2024). (b) the 2024-2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) in England (U.K. Department of Education, 2025). A comparative analysis of these two cases is particularly interesting, since the official communication and media coverage of the Flemish knowledge turn point to England as its major source of inspiration and British experts have been concretely involved in its development. The concept of powerful knowledge in the current Flemish discourse on knowledge-rich curriculum is conspicuous by its absence. A comparative discourse analysis pinpoints differences between the discourse underlying the Flemish knowledge turn, and the discourse on powerful knowledge as it appears from publications of the powerful knowledge research community (Tamassia, 2025). However, it is important to note that the ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum in England has been characterized as being ‘loosely-defined’ by Magee et al. (2025) which echoes earlier criticism of it being ‘ill-defined’ (Hudson and Shelton, 2021). The term does not appear in the current National Curriculum Framework for England though reference is made to ‘core knowledge’ in the second of its two central aims. In relation to this, Young (2014) highlights how the resources of the Core Knowledge Foundation, strongly influenced by the cultural literacy of E.D.Hirsch, had been imported from the USA by think tanks such as Civitas. This became the basis for the ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum promoted directly through speeches by the Schools Minister and the Chief Inspector with only fleeting reference to ‘powerful knowledge’. It is to the credit of the CAR review group that it has defined what it means by the term and has included reference to powerful knowledge centrally. However, there are severe tensions inherent in bringing together two very differing approaches under one conceptual umbrella. Core knowledge emphasises an individualistic perspective on learning and memory whilst powerful knowledge is founded on a social realist perspective that emphasises disciplinary knowledge developed in communities of inquiry. This overall approach greatly increases the risk of ‘lethal mutations’ (Jones and Wiliam, 2022) into knowledge of low “epistemic quality” (Hudson et al., 2025). This is against the background of the demise of subject-specific teacher education (Hudson, 2025) and is discussed in further detail in Hudson (2026).

Flemish Ministry of Education (2024). Press release. https://data-onderwijs.vlaanderen.be/documenten/bestanden/persbericht-timss-2023.pdf Hudson, B. (2025). The demise of subject-specific teacher education in England, Journal of Curriculum Studies, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2025.2496960 Hudson, B. (2026) The ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum in England: history, evolution, tensions and associated risks of ‘lethal mutations’, https://fabians4education.edublogs.org/2026/03/09/reflections-on-the-curriculum-and-assessment-review-brian-hudson/ Hudson, B. and Shelton, C. (2021). Developing powerful knowledge and creative know-how. In B. Hudson, M. Leask, and S. Younie. (2021) Education System Design. Abingdon, Routledge, pp. 141-153. Jones, K. and Wiliam, D. (2022). Lethal Mutations in Education and How to Prevent Them, Evidence Based Education https://evidencebased.education/lethal-mutations-in-education-and-how-to-prevent-them/ Magee, J., O’Connor, K., & Swain, N. (2025) Knowledge-rich curriculum: towards definitional clarity in the context of reform in Australia and England. Education 3-13, 53(7), 1190–1203. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2025.2514696 Tamassia, L. (2025). The Flemish knowledge-turn and powerful knowledge. A practice-oriented literature and document study. Presentation at the conference Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Teaching and Learning. University of Vienna, November 21 and 22, 2025. U.K. Department of Education (2025). Curriculum and Assessment Review. Final Report. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/690b96bbc22e4ed8b051854d/Curriculum_and_Assessment_Review_final_report_-_Building_a_world-class_curriculum_for_all.pdf Young, M. (2014). Why start with the curriculum? In Young, M. and Lambert, D.; with Roberts, C. and Roberts, M. (Eds.) Knowledge and the Future School: Curriculum and Social Justice. London, Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 41-64.