Ricoeurian Thought

Paul Ricoeur (19132005), a French philosopher in the phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions, offers insights into research methods for curriculum studies and issues of curriculum and ethics. His work has influenced research method through the development of hermeneutics as affecting the conceptualization and practice of qualitative inquiry and narrative inquiry. His work on self-hood (how we become a self and what are the characteristics of that self), while less taken up in curriculum studies, offers important counterweights to curriculum work that focuses on the cognitive/rationalist aspect of being human rather than on a more complete image of the human being as the basis for curriculum thinking and making.

Ricoeur's work in method falls into three areas: the potential of hermeneutics, the practice of hermeneutics, and the practice ...