Moribund Curriculum Field, The

Declared first by Joseph Schwab in 1969 and reiterated by Dwayne Huebner in 1975, this assessment of the state of the field points up the intensity of the crisis it underwent following the 1957 launching of the first man-made satellite, Sputnik, by the USSR. General agreement exists that Schwab's 1969 pronouncement coincided with the emergence of a paradigm shift in curriculum studies, usually referred to as a reconceptualization or renaissance of the field. The effect was to change the field's focus from curriculum development to a scholarly effort to understand curriculum from a wide variety of perspectives. The degree of influence Schwab exerted on that shift, however, has been disputed.

Following Sputnik, amidst grand rhetoric of concern for education's role in the national security, the federal ...