Ways of Knowing

Curriculum studies focuses on identifying knowledge that is worthwhile. Ways of knowing are a prerequisite concern that deals with how we can know what is worthwhile. How knowledge is obtained, attained, or acquired has long been the concern of a branch of philosophy called episte-mology. Edmund Short shows how forms of curriculum inquiry are derived from and contingent on such ways of knowing in Forms of Curriculum Inquiry. Some of the most widely debated episte-mological bases or ways of knowing include experience, authority, revelation, reason, empiricism, intuition, dialectic, dialogue and deliberation, critical inquiry, meditation, artistic engagement, embodiment, and indigenous forms of perceiving insight.

Experience creates a repertoire of cases, often informally, to be drawn on in future situations with similar attributes. John Dewey insisted that experience ...