Deliberative Curriculum

Deliberation is a formal process of inquiry about curriculum policy, program development, and other curriculum activity, including conflicting goals and values in specific situations of practice. Its fundamental purpose is to reach justified decisions about curricular action in particular contexts [Page 278]considering the problematic character of a situation. Through this process, public policy decisions are implemented in social and typically institutional contexts with development of materials and strategies for their use. Deliberative inquiry focuses on curriculum policies and guidelines concerning a particular classroom and less often, a school, a district, a state, or a nation.

Researcher Ilene Harris depicted deliberative inquiry as a form of curriculum inquiry because it links the interrelated tasks of doing practical curriculum activity with doing formal curriculum inquiry, namely research, through ...