Curriculum Studies, The Nature Of: Essay 4

Few fields in education are as welcoming yet bewildering as curriculum studies, and few academics are as self-conscious of their identity and [Page 251]the nature and future directions of their field as those called curricularists. The constantly changing field has always been an area that challenged and baffled, and to describe its character remains primarily an act of normative discourse. Yet the nature of curriculum studies takes on different dimensions when viewed through its conference presentations. An analysis of over 18,000 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division B and related division conference presentations, delivered between 1970 and 2008 (along with papers from other curriculum theory conferences), reveals a dramatic shift in what constitutes curriculum studies. Although conference presentations do not a field make, pronounced changes ...