Sources: Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies

Abstract

The Field of Curriculum Studies During the past decades, much effort has been devoted to defining curriculum studies, an everchanging academic field that at times proves amorphous and bewildering. In fact, few areas of education have so conscientiously scheduled symposia to ascertain the field’s health and to suggest future directions. More than 75 presentations during the past 15 years have been staged at American Educational Research Association (AERA) conferences to define and to determine whether if the field of curriculum is “moribund,” as famously asserted by Joseph Schwab and Dwayne Huebner, or merely engaged in the ongoing quest for meaning and relevancy today. Moreover, few professional terms appear so omnipotent as well as baffling as curriculum. Defining the word has become a regularly practiced activity, yet consensus is illusive. While authors seek to construct conceptions with great precision, definitions remain idiosyncratic and sui generis. Often, curriculum is defined simply as a course of study. Other characterizations view the term more as a state of mind or act of inquiry that results in some form of growth. For this publication, an operational definition of curriculum consists of conceiving and configuring experiences that potentially lead to learning, and curriculum studies, thus, becomes the examination of this process. No doubt this explanation may well be as generic and flaccid as any that will ever appear in an educational encyclopedia. Yet, a careful reading of conceptions of curriculum through the years, notably Philip W. Jackson’s analysis in the 1992 Handbook of Research on Curriculum, causes one to quickly realize that an open-ended, fluid definition is necessary to confront the complexity that characterizes and sometimes seems to threaten the field. The study of curriculum, beginning in the early 20th century, served primarily the areas of educational administration, pedagogy, and testing and was seen as a method to design and develop programs of study for schools. In what became a distinct academic field, curriculum subsequently expanded to draw on various disciplines from the arts, humanities, and social sciences in order to examine broader educational forces and their effects on the individual, society, and conceptions of knowledge. Many curriculum leaders at mid-20th century represented an avant-garde in educational studies where “middle-range theorizing”— exploratory theory integrated with thoughtful practice—took form in different ways, as conventional program development as well as more expansive forays into educational design. In the early 1980s, curriculum studies became a more commonly used term to separate itself from “the field of curriculum” and its emphasis on program design and development and “curriculum and objectives” traditions. The field of curriculum studies has now emerged to embrace a contested conception of academic scholarship and research. Although similarities to other educational fields— social and cultural foundations, educational policy and administration, cultural studies, instruction and supervision, assessment and evaluation—are pronounced, the differences are profound.