Curriculum Studies, The Nature Of: Essay 3

Joseph Schwab's late 1960s' essay, “The Practical: A Language for Curriculum,” generally is acknowledged as one of very few of the most prescient and significant contributions to the field of curriculum. Widely read then and now, this essay has gained laudatory attention even as it has suffered indignities of misunderstanding, dismissal, or bare acknowledgment. In his appraisal, he declared that the curriculum field at the time was moribund. Many readers, past and present, remember this negatively judgmental term as an adequate summary of Schwab's thesis. These naysayers appear to have missed the essence of his message. For example, Schwab cogently argued that the practical had or should have the pride of place in both the language of and work in the curriculum field. He also ...