Balkanization of Curriculum Studies

Derived from political fragmentation of the Balkan Wars in 20th-century Europe, the term balkanization applies to curriculum studies because the discipline has also experienced processes of division into smaller entities that are hostile to one another. The phenomenon is, however, more complex and requires historical background to comprehend.

The curriculum field emerged in the early 1900s largely to facilitate the project of universal schooling in the United States. Different schools of thought about the character of curriculum inquiry emerged in what Herbert Kliebard referred to as a crucible, that is, a place in which ideas and practices of several prevailing interest groups (humanist, developmentalist, social efficiency, and social meliorist) were combined with or repelled by one another and with progressive influences of John Dewey and others. Many attempts were made throughout the first half of the 20th century to prevent balkanization and to arrive at agreed-upon ways to support curriculum development in schools. Some of these include the rise of synoptic curriculum textbooks that tried to conceptualize new common threads in diverse theory, research, and practice; many attempts by the National Education Association (NEA) to forge common statements through committee and commission reports (e.g., the Committee of Ten report of 1894, the Committee of Fifteen report of 1895, the report on the economy of time in education of 1913, the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education report of 1918, and nearly 100 policy documents between the late 1930s and the 1950s by the NEA Educational Policies Commission); a project led by Harold Rugg in the 1920s to develop central questions and a common purport for curriculum scholars as guidance for practitioners and policy makers; and the formation of the ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) in 1943 by combining [Page 69]the NEA's Department of Supervisors and Directors of Instruction with the more scholarly Society for Curriculum Study to offer a unified force to contribute to curriculum development.

Meanwhile, however, turmoil and balkanization persisted, countering attempts at centralization and unification. Those who controlled educational policy through testing and measurement were continually at odds with those who trusted expressions of personal and democratic growth. Thus, a long history of division between traditional and progressive educators ensued. In the late 1930s, there were deep divisions among progressives alone. Dewey and Boyd Bode worked to little avail, for instance, to repair bifurcations between proponents of child study and social reconstructionist camps. Within ASCD, as well, more radical scholars sought a greater forum, ultimately seeing their progeny leave that organization for otherssuch as the American Educational Research Association (AERA), especially its Division B (initially titled Curriculum and Objectives in the 1960s and changed to Curriculum Studies in 1982)and an influential Special Interest Group (SIG) on Creation and Utilization of Curriculum Knowledge begun in 1972, later becoming the SIG on Critical Issues in Curriculum and more recently Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies. Combined with a new set of conferences developed by William Pinar, Paul Klohr, Janet Miller, and others, beginning in 1973, an emphasis was initiated to reconceptualize curriculum studies by drawing upon a broader array of theory and practice that enabled greater understanding. Understanding curriculum and how it is embedded in complex social, cultural, economic, and ideological milieus was viewed by some as more important that merely researching designs to more efficiently deliver curricula mandated by governmental agencies and the corporate forces that govern them.

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