Subaltern Curriculum Studies

In a recent essay written for a 7th-grade English class, my granddaughter Janelle, engaged the questions: Who Am I? Who Are You? Who Are They? Ironically, these are the very same questions that concern subaltern scholars and which guide the work of those concerned with issues of curriculum studies. In fact, the questions and subsequent discussion, especially in regard to the intersubjectivity and fluidity of identity are central to subaltern curriculum studies.

In a 2007 essay, William Pinar defined curriculum as the intellectual site where individuals [Page 823]struggle to define themselves and the world. The struggle that Pinar refers to is autobiographical, institutional, and highly complex, with new generations facing transformed worlds often times hardly imagined by their predecessors. For scholars and members of subaltern communities, ...