Assets and liabilities for curriculum change: exploring teachers’ perspectives of enacting education outside the classroom

Despite extensive investment, deep curriculum change is a challenging and frequently elusive process. By exploring the experiences of teachers enacting Education Outside the Classroom (EOtC), this paper examines the assets and liabilities these teachers experienced during a time of curriculum change. Drawing on Schlossberg’s theory exploring adaptation to change, ten teachers from ten schools across four countries (Finland, Hungary, Ireland and Spain) participated in semi-structured interviews. Following deductive and inductive analysis framed around Schlossberg’s domains of Interpersonal, Institutional and Physical Settings, this study found that teachers, working in different settings, experience different levels of assets and liabilities. Teachers’ discussion did not identify many liabilities relating to the Physical Setting, potentially suggesting that the approach of taking students outside the classroom is not a major barrier to engaging in EOtC. In comparison, Institutional Supports, acting as assets and liabilities, appear to be the area that dominates teachers’ considerations. In certain contexts, there appear to be tensions between interpersonal and institutional support, particularly relating to dominant beliefs. This study highlights how, at times of curriculum change, we need to consider the context more carefully, and the paper concludes by proposing key areas of consideration.