Curriculum Studies, Definitions and Dimensions of

Curriculum studies deals with a robust array of sources that provide the following: (a) perspective on questions about what curriculum is or ought to be, (b) alternative or complementary paradigms of inquiry that enable explorations of such questions, and (c) diverse possibilities for proposing and enacting responses to the questions in educational theory and settings of educational practice. This tripartite emphasis on perspective, paradigm, and possibility depicts substantive concerns of curriculum studies and serves as the organizing structure of this entry. A necessary beginning is to clarify the origins of curriculum studies.