American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies

The American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (AAACS) was established in [Page 28]2001 as an affiliate of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (IAACS). The AAACS, like its parent association, adopted as its mission the promotion and progress of curriculum studies as an academic discipline and field of study. AAACS is an advocacy organization that promotes the development of strong and viable curriculum studies departments and associations across campuses throughout the United States. Directed primarily at the faculties of institutions of higher learning in the United States, the AAACS advocates the continuation and strengthening of the field of curriculum studies as an interdisciplinary source and method of inquiry intended to foster a rigorous and scholarly conversation concerning curriculum, teaching, and learning.

Recognizing the importance and inevitability of the internationalization of curriculum studies, AAACS desires the conversation concerning curriculum in the United States to be informed by issues in other countries around the world, and to inform those conversations with thought and research from the United States. And though its local developments and constructions differ widely across borders, AAACS recognizes that curriculum studies is an international disciplinary field, and the organization recognizes that curriculum is a local project with national and even parochial contents and contexts.

To facilitate this conversation, the AAACS advocates the establishment of local curriculum units at colleges and universities. These units would actively engage in maintaining rigorous courses of studies in curriculum, advocate for the continuing strength of the field, and sponsor local projects to develop learning and research in the field. Such projects would derive from specifically designated and local curriculum studies units. These units would advocate for hiring of faculty with expertise in teaching curriculum courses, for undertaking collaborative research projects, to facilitate the development of regular and special local events to promote the continuation of complicated conversations on campuses, and to inspire the intellectual development of curriculum scholars and students in the advancement of the field of curriculum studies.

Acknowledging historical memory, the AAACS hopes to advance the field by drawing into the conversations essential texts that have been important to the development and advancement of the field of curriculum studies. To this purpose, the AAACS established the Canon Project in 2007 to develop a curriculum bibliographical mapping of texts central to the field of curriculum studies.

The AAACS sponsors a yearly spring conference, bringing together curriculum scholars from across the United States and around the world to engage in complicated conversations about the field of curriculum studies in its efforts to advance the field. AAACS also promotes its agenda in the sponsorship and publication of the online Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies.