Structural and cultural properties in teachers’ practices: enactment of the 2022 national science curriculum standards in China

This study explores the enactment of a standard-based curriculum by a group of science teachers and reveals the structural and cultural properties that shape teachers’ classroom practices. Drawing on a social realist perspective, this study focuses on China’s 2022 national curriculum standards in science, highlighting scientific literacy as scientific ideas, scientific thinking, inquiry practices, and attitudes and responsibilities. Qualitative data were collected through semistructured interviews, classroom observations, and reflections from ten participating teachers and were analyzed in terms of the agency-structure dialectic. The findings indicate that teachers prioritise scientific ideas and acknowledge scientific thinking and inquiry practices yet often capitulate in practice, and are baffled by attitudes and responsibilities. High-stakes exams, textbooks, and teachers’ professional beliefs imparted from graduate schools are the key structural and cultural properties that influence teachers’ practices in terms of curriculum enactment. This study calls attention to the consistency of structural and cultural properties in teachers’ curriculum enactment.