Unreal Tournament: The Battle Over the New Zealand Social Studies Curriculum

Abstract

This article examines the process and content of the highly contentious social studies curriculum recently introduced in New Zealand. Essentially, there was a conflict between two ideological perspectives: that of the social democrats who wrote the original draft, and that of the neo-liberals as represented by the Education Forum. The article concludes that in the contest over the new curriculum, the social democrat perspective nominally gained the upper hand.