International Encyclopedia of Curriculum

The International Encyclopedia of Curriculum, published in 1991, is a major, one-volume reference work of 1064 pages that was edited by Arieh Lewy. It was derived from his work as editor of the curriculum articles of the International Encyclopedia of Education, a 10-volume set edited by Torsten Husen and T. Neville Postlethwaite in 1985, with a supplement published in 1989. Several encyclopedias on different topics were [Page 492]derived from the original volume and supplement. Curriculum is one of these topics.

The encyclopedia is distinctive in the diversity of international authors and topics germane to many different parts of the world. It is introduced by John Goodlad, who writes of curriculum as a domain of scholarly inquiry. The encyclopedia is divided into 13 sections: (1) conceptual framework, (2) curriculum approaches and methods, (3) curriculum processes, (4) curriculum evaluation, (5) language arts, (6) foreign language studies, (7) humanities curricula, (8) arts curricula, (9) social studies, (10) mathematics education, (11) science education programs, (12) physical education, and (13) international curriculum associations and journals.

Although several subtopics and individual articles of the International Encyclopedia of Curriculum offer perspectives on what is not considered to be curriculum studies today, the volume gives a valuable international perspective on what constituted curriculum studies at the beginning of the 1990s.