ABSTRACT
Children’s interests, inquiries, and identities have been established as powerful personal, social, cultural, and intellectual mechanisms for inspiring, motivating, and sustaining children’s participation in learning and life. Here, I revisit Bereiter’s critique that we ought to avoid trivialising children’s interests, and connect interests with Bruner’s thinking about subject matter. I propose two models: one of interests’ recognition; the other for interests-based curriculum and pedagogy. Working theories are offered as a way forward, and as central to a spiral curriculum and relational pedagogy. Future research goals are identified for addressing subject matter in learning and teaching.
