Jackson, Philip W.

Philip W. Jackson achieved prominence first as an educational psychologist, then as an observer of classroom life, and later as a philosopher of education. Throughout his career, he contributed seminal work to the field of curriculum studies. In deceptively simple prose, he has argued that the unintentional curriculum is as worthy of study as is the official curriculum; that the study of curriculum is healthiest when it draws on many perspectives, including its own history; that efforts to define curriculum prescriptively have been more provocative than instructive; and that the moral nature of teaching is a necessary starting point for curriculum studies.

After receiving his PhD from Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1955, Jackson joined the faculty of the University of Chicago (where he remained until ...