The place and nature of astronomy in the school curriculum vary greatly from one country to another, and even from place to place within a country. There are two main “systems” of education, which are usually called the “European” system and the “North American” system. These, and the place of astronomy in each, were eloquently described by Don Wentzel in his prologue to the proceedings of the 1988 IAU conference on astronomy education, held in Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA.

In the European system, there is usually a national curriculum. An often cited example is that in France, at 10 a.m. on the second Thursday in April, every student in a certain grade is learning the same thing from the same page in the textbook. Students are streamed, at an early age, into university, technical school, or the workplace. Astronomy tends to be taught to science students, by teachers who are well trained in science and science teaching.

In the North American system, the curriculum may be determined locally; astronomy is taught in a variety of places in the curriculum; and the teachers may therefore not be well trained in astronomy content or pedagogy. A recent requirement in the US's No Child Left Behind Act (a controversial law that played a role in the presidential campaign), that every teacher be certified in every subject that he or she is teaching, does not meet, for example, the reality of small schools in rural states in which a single teacher may teach some biology, some chemistry, and some physics. This requirement is, therefore, being relaxed.