Theological Research

There is a long tradition of using theology as a method for curriculum research and as a metaphor for understanding curriculum. Theological research in the curriculum field seeks historical, psychological, and philosophical understandings that will enhance investigations of religion and education, separation of church and government, court rulings on prayer in schools, spirituality and holistic practices in the curriculum, the eschato-logical dimensions of currere, character education, debates about evolution and intelligent design, moral development, values in the classroom, textbook challenges and library controversies, access to religious education, reactions of religious denominations to queer identities, and ethnographic dimensions of religion and spirituality in cultural studies.

Theology (from the Greek theos, “God,” and logos, “word” or “meaning”) has a variety of interrelated definitions. In pagan antiquity, it referred to a mythological explanation of the ultimate mysteries of the world. The Stoics sought more reasoned knowledge of the “divine” dimension of existence. Aristotle considered theology the “first philosophy” based on an immaterial unmoved mover that he originally considered metaphysics. Contemporary theology often views itself as a reflection on religious experience. David Tracy, however, emphasizes the need to examine truth claims on the basis of rational argument by bracketing religious commitment. His “foun-dational theology” (also called philosophical or historical theology) seeks to replace earlier fundamentalist theology, which functioned as a form of apologetics. Foundational theology functions analogously to philosophy in its critical role. It seeks to uncover the basic categories with which a systematic theology can be developed. It takes cognizance of the truth that knowledge of reality is available only on the basis of the structure of the particular being who questions it (Martin Heidegger's Dasein). Thus, a wide range of epistemological options are available in contemporary theology, ranging from strict empiricism with structural linguistic analysis (Ludwig Wittgenstein) to neoclassical metaphysics and process philosophy (Alfred North Whitehead) or process theology (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin). Tracy suggests five possible models of foundational theology: orthodox, liberal, neo-orthodox, radical, and revisionist. Mark C. Taylor offers a postmodern mode that he calls “A/Theology”a theological orientation rooted in an aesthetic of discontinuity and indeterminacy that springs from Jacques Derrida and deconstruction.

Today, theology includes the formal academic study of ontology, cosmology, eschatology, metaphysical grounding of being, historical understandings of the divine, notions of gods and goddesses, hermeneutic analysis of sacred texts and rituals, epistemological understandings of wisdom literatures, notions of existence and time, as well as anti-foundational metaphysics. Theology as an academic discipline helps illuminate these issues. There have been many scholars in the curriculum field who have used theology to understand and advance important issues related not just to religion, spirituality, and culture but also textual interpretation, schooling practices, and pedagogical philosophies. Some scholars have argued that it is impossible to understand curriculum and schooling historically without the investigation of the theological dimensions of U.S. educational events such as the Olde Deluder Satan Act in Massachusetts in the 1640s, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin's writings on the role of education in a democracy, the Yale report on the “Defense of the Classics” in 1828, Horace Mann and the Common School movement of the 1840s, Jane Addams's educational and social vision for women and children at Hull House in Chicago in 1889, the progressive education movement of the 20th century, post-Sputnik curriculum reforms in the United States from 1958 to 1965, and No Child Left Behind legislation of 2001. Whether accountability programs, testing practices, school structures, curriculum leadership, or textbook adoption, there are theological antecedents and influences that curriculum scholars have investigated. Additionally, the theological training and experiences of curriculum scholars influence their curriculum theorizing, as seen, for example, in John Dewey's A Common Faith; William Pinar, William Reynolds, Patrick Slattery, and Peter Taubman's Understanding Curriculum; Madeleine Grumet's Bitter Milk: Women and Teaching; Phillip Phenix's “Transcendence and the Curriculum”; James B. Macdonald's “Theory, Practice, and the Hermeneutic Circle”; Dwayne Huebner's The Lure of the Transcendent; Michael P. O'Malley's “A Critical Pedagogy of Soul”; Kathleen Kesson's “Critical Theory and Holistic Education”; James Henderson and Kathleen Kesson's Curriculum Wisdom: Educational Decisions in a Democratic Society; Patrick Slattery's Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era and “Toward an Eschatological Curriculum Theory”; William E. Doll's A Post-Modern Perspective on Curriculum; and C. A. Bowers's Education, Cultural Myths, and the Ecological Crisis: Toward Deep Changes and Educating for an Ecologically Sustainable Culture: Rethinking Moral Education, Creativity, Intelligence, and Other Modern Orthodoxies.

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