Curriculum Studies, Definitions and Dimensions of

Origins

The term curriculum studies evolved during the past half century from its forerunner known as curriculum development, a term that emerged in the 1930s to designate a field that evolved at the beginning of the 20th century to facilitate curriculum (courses of study) for schools in the expanding project of universal schooling. Curriculum studies is a term that designates a shift of theory and practice as scholars sought understanding of curricula as phenomena of interest and societal import in contrast with sole concentration on service to leaders of practice in schools. By the early 1970s, widely recognized curricularists determined that their work should not primarily provide a basis for curriculum development in schools. They realized that if they simply served the will of schools, they were inadvertently supporting the will of those who made policy for schools. Such policy was thought to misrepresent public interests because it was conjured to fulfill the interests of the most wealthy and powerful members of society. This argument brought a wide range of scholarly sources to the forefront, such as diverse philosophies, literary and artistic works, and a range of social, political, and economic perspectives. Interests of equity and social justice, as well as self-realization and identity, have emerged as major topics of emphasis. The cause of societal maintenance that schools had long served was deemed limited if not puerile as a reason for scholarship. [Page 230]Thus, the guiding questions of curriculum studies are pursued relative to whatever configurations of human association or community lend themselves to such pursuits and are not relegated to school alone. By 1982, the scholarly area of curriculum studies was fully instantiated by the educational research community, symbolized by the renaming of the curriculum division of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) as Curriculum Studies rather than Curriculum and Objectives, which was the name that had prevailed for the previous two decades.

The following sections discuss each of the three main topics of curriculum studies: perspective, paradigm, and possibility.

Perspective

Curriculum studies derives perspective from the following: key questions it pursues, the field of inquiry, and its history, context, philosophy, and policy.