SAGE Hand Book of Curriculum and Instruction, The

The SAGE Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction (2008) is 604 pages in length, divided into three parts and six sections. The editor of the handbook, Michael Connelly and the two associate editors, Ming Fang He and JoAnn Phillion, organized the book around practical issues in curriculum studies:

• Part 1: Curriculum in Practice
  • Section A: Making Curriculum
  • Section B: Managing Curriculum
• Part II: Curriculum in Context
  • Section C: Diversifying Curriculum
  • Section D: Teaching Curriculum
  • Section E: Internationalizing Curriculum
• Part III: Curriculum in Theory
  • Section F: Inquiring Into Curriculum

Each part has an introduction, written by Ian Westbury, Allan Luke, and William Schubert, respectively. In all there are 26 chapters. The intent of The SAGE Handbook is to create a working vision of curriculum studies that respects its diversity; provide a comprehensive and inclusive set of authors, ideas, and topics; and incorporate an international, global, and comparative outlook. The book aims to represent the curriculum field without delving into specific subject areas such as math or social studies. Also, to follow-up on Philip Jackson's Handbook of Research on Curriculum, The SAGE Handbook focuses on post-1992 curriculum policy, practice, and scholarship. Reading this text along with Jackson's earlier volume provides a comprehensive view of curriculum studies. The target audience for the book is curriculum and instruction practitioners as well as graduate students and university researchers.

Four aspects of The SAGE Handbook stand out. First, the editors note that the curriculum field may be characterized by its “intellectual energy.” Earlier declarations of the curriculum field suggested it was “moribund,” as Joseph Schwab indicated in 1969, or “confused” as described by Philip Jackson in his 1992 handbook. “Energetic” provides the reader with a sense that the field of curriculum studies is lively, hopeful, and productive.

Second, the editors of The SAGE Handbook asked all of its writers to consider global and national cultural intermingling and its impact on curricula. Some chapters focus on issues of diversity within particular countries. Others focus on international and global issues. Some chapters bring into relief racial issues that cause student disappointment, unresponsive teachers, and disem-powering curricula. Other chapters reveal the ways in which curricula are meaningful and teachers who are at the forefront of positive educational change. In general, the tone of the handbook is [Page 756]forward-looking and hopeful. The handbook ends with a call for comparative curriculum studies to explore cultural resources, social development, and the mutual sharing of ideas and knowledge.

Third, this book is dedicated to practical matters related to schools, communities, and governments. Influenced by the ideas of Joseph Schwab, the editors created a book that addresses issues of practice at theoretical, organizational, and scholarly levels. The editors divide education into several areas: curriculum subject matter (e.g., science. language arts), curriculum topics (e.g., gender, diversity) and preoccupations (e.g., implementation, evaluation), and general curriculum theory. One implication of this approach is that along with university professors and their students, the book is aimed to appeal to policy makers, curriculum developers, and other educational practitioners.

Fourth, in the last chapter, Connelly and Shijing Xu summarize The SAGE Handbook by noting that each chapter offers a different window and mapping of the curriculum studies field. Yet, with their Confucian way of examining curriculum studies as a whole, the authors view the field as continuous, made up of various layers of perspectives that form and melt away only to create new perspectives. The authors do not see the curriculum field as discontinuous, filled with starts and stops.

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