Introduction

In this chapter it is argued that decisions about teacher knowledge are inextricably linked with decisions about national curriculum policies and that these increasingly have been affected by political control. The chapter concentrates on the example of England, showing how national curriculum reform, in most phases of the education system, has had an impact on requirements for teachers' knowledge. As a consequence of the wide range of potential linguistic topics that could inform teaching, it is recommended that the selection of appropriate topics should be informed by principles that limit and focus the range of knowledge. Successful implementation of such principles needs to take account of the tension between political control and evidence-informed practice if new knowledge is to inform teaching and learning.

The concern of this book, namely the linguistic knowledge that it is important for primary teachers to understand, is affected by a wider concern: who decides what primary teachers need to understand? The question is important because even the most logical and persuasive case for a particular kind of linguistic knowledge is unlikely to achieve the impact and influence it deserves if some of the answers to this question are not considered. In this chapter I explore the influence that political processes have had on decisions about subject knowledge, which, I reveal, are inextricably linked with curriculum and pedagogical reform.