International Handbook of Curriculum Research

The International Handbook of Curriculum Research, a collection of essays edited by William F. Pinar, contributed to expanding international perspectives in the areas of curriculum studies and research. The text's publication in 2003 followed the establishment in 2001 of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (IAACS). According to Pinar, both of these can be seen as companion events. The text assisted in establishing that curriculum studies, far from being exclusively an U.S. field, has an international context. It demonstrated that there was a worldwide field of curriculum studies. This volume of essays was the first book to emphasize and analyze curriculum studies internationally. This focus was a major contribution and an extension of internationalization to the field of curriculum studies. The attention to international curriculum studies was a direction initially discussed in Understanding Curriculum Studies (1995).

The International Handbook of Curriculum Research is comprised of 38 chapters in which curriculum research in 29 nations is discussed. Far from being an attempt to coalesce curriculum research in many nations into one common curriculum studies field, the effort of this text was to first place international curriculum research within the historical, political, socioeconomic, environmental, and cultural phenomenon of globalization and second to begin complicated curriculum conversations crossing national borders.

The first section of the text, “Four Essays of Introduction,” elaborates on in-depth conceptualizations of globalization and its consequences that move beyond simple economic or trade studies for the 21st century. The authors included are David Geoffrey Smith, Noel Gough, Claudia Matus, Cameron McCarthy, and Norman Overly.

The second and main section of the handbook, “Thirty-Four Essays on Curriculum Studies in 28 Nations,” highlights scholars' discussions of curriculum work in Argentina (Silvina Feeney, Flavia Terigi, Marino Palamidessi, and Daniel Feldman), Australia (Bill Green), Botswana (Sid N. Pandey and Fazalar R. Moorad), Brazil (Antonio Flavio, Barbosa Moreira, Alice Casimiro Lopes, Elizabeth Fernandes de Macedo, and Silvia Elizabeth Moraes), Canada (Cynthia Chambers), China (Hua Zhang and Qiquan Zhong), Hong Kong (Edmond Hau-Fai Law), Estonia (Urve Laanemets), Finland (Tero Autio), France (Denise Egea-Kuehne), Ireland (Kevin Williams and Gerry [Page 493]McNamara), Israel (Naama Sabar and Yehoshua Mathias), Italy (M. Vicentini), Japan (Miho Hashimoto, Tadahiko Abiko, and Shigeru Asanuma), Mexico (Angel Daz Barriga and Frida Diaz Barriga), Namibia (Jonathan Jensen), Zimbabwe (Jonathan Jensen), the Netherlands (Willem Wardekker, Monique Volman, and Jan Terwel), New Zealand (Peter Roberts), Norway (Bjørg B. Gundem, Berit Karseth, and Kristin Sivesind), Romania (Nicolae Sacalis), South Korea (Yonghwan Lee), Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand (F. D. Rivera), Sweden (Ulla Johansson), Taiwan (Jenq-Jye Hwang and Chia-Yu Chang), Turkey (F. Dilek Gözütok), the United Kingdom (David Hamilton and Gaby Weiner), and the United States (Craig Kridel, Vicky Newman, and Patrick Slattery). The writers of the 34 essays discuss the historical dimensions and the state of curriculum research in their various countries. The text not only allows the readers to concentrate on curriculum issues within their own individual regional or national field, but also allows curriculum scholars and students to reflect and research on the field worldwide.

Pinar in the conclusion to the introduction to the handbook, titled “Next Steps,” determines that several issues become evident after reading the work done in curriculum internationally. First, curriculum work most often centers on an individual's nation or region. Second, work in curriculum in most nations concentrates on reform in the areas determined by governmental policy. Third, despite the fact that curriculum work can be driven by governmental policy, work in curriculum internationally has a critical questioning of the work and language of school reform. Finally, much of the work done in curriculum already has an international component and is already concerned with international issues, particularly the appropriation of the scholarly work of other nations to a scholar's own nation and region, of course, not without an awareness of that appropriation.

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