Curriculum Studies - What Is The Field Today
Curriculum Studies - What Is The Field Today
Curriculum Studies - What Is The Field Today
Taubman
(1995,
p.
852)
consider
that
the
theoretical
wing
of
the
field
must
not
be
ignored,
as
several
synoptic
textbooks
continue
to
do.
As
Reba
Page
(2009,p.9)
states
the
central
question
of
curriculum
studies
has
been
its
identity:
Curriculum
studies
seems
to
have
always
had
something
of
an
identity
problem
()
The
identity
problem
has
also
always
been
inflected
by
external
developments,
including
broad
societal
shifts
and,
more
recently,
increasing
intervention
in
curriculum
by
formal
government
(local,
state,
and
federal)
and
by
a
growing
number
of
informal
interest
groups.
Acknowledging
that
the
curriculum
field
has
been
suffering
a
kind
of
identity
crisis,
Pinar,
Reynolds,
Slaterry
and
Taubman
(1995,
pp.
849,848,857)
pointed
out
the
problems
and
possibilities
of
the
field
filled
with
a
thousand
of
voices,
marked
by
the
proliferation
of
discourses
and
defined
as
an
energetic
field,
because
the
curriculum
is
an
extraordinarily
complicated
conversation.,
the
field
is
no
longer
arrested
and
moribund,
but
rather
a
hybrid
space
with
a
relatively
rapid
shift
from
the
Tylerian
paradigm
to
an
understanding
paradigm,
which
is
the
same
as
saying
that
the
field
has
moved
from
a
paradigmatic
unity
to
particularism.
The
state
of
the
field
is
a
theoretical
task,
namely
when
we
are
using
the
contributions
of
the
different
authors
whose
texts
have
had
a
strong
influence
on
the
construction
of
the
curriculum
field.
In
his
Thirteen
Theses
in
the
Question
of
State
in
Curriculum
Studies,
Nathan
Snaza
(2010,
p.
43)
writes
about
the
first
thesis
that
the
question,
What
is
the
state
of
curriculum
studies?
cannot
be
answered,
for
we
are
only
barely
on
the
way
to
learning
how
to
pose
it.
The
state
of
the
art
is
not
an
inventory
of
the
past
but
a
complex
analysis
of
what
is
changing
in
the
curriculum
field.
It
firstly
includes
a
vision
of
the
future
that
captures
the
changing
discourses,
to
secondly
promote
a
critical
analysis
of
the
identity
of
the
field
and
acknowledge
the
common
and
different
aspects
among
the
various
authors.
As
the
curriculum
studies
field
is
filled
with
different
voices
and
besides
its
inner
controversy,
William
Pinar
(2010a,
p.
528)
writes:
The
present
state
of
the
field
seems
sufficiently
variegated
to
conclude
what
we
curriculum
studies
scholars
have
in
common
is
not
the
present
but
the
past.
Perhaps
that
is
what
curriculum
history
has
3
In
effect,
after
its
formative
years
(Seguel,
1996;
Schubert
et
al.,
2002)
the
present
of
curriculum
studies
have
been
developed
based
on
a
relationship
with
the
past,
where
the
theoretical
and
practical
perspectives
need
to
be
integrated
largely
on
social,
cultural
and
political
circumstances
and
specifically
on
paradigmatic
analyses.
The
diversity
of
the
curriculum
is
one
of
the
fields
main
characteristics,
not
one
of
its
weaknesses.
Furthermore,
the
focus
on
theory
needs
a
critical
analysis
of
the
practical,
particularly
when
we
are
deeply
involved
in
complex
curriculum
discourses
and,
in
the
meantime,
we
are
not
looking
for
the
stasis
of
curriculum
practice
that
is
frequently
controlled
by
governmental
power,
which
provides
a
technical
decision
on
curriculum
development.
In
this
case,
the
critical
analysis
is
conceived
itself
as
an
agent
of
enlightenment
in
the
historical
process,
and
is
deeply
related
to
social
and
political
struggles
(Held,1980,
pp.399-400).
Tyler
Rationale,
Reconceptualization
and
Post-
reconceptualization
If
the
field
of
curriculum
is
characterized
by
a
vigorous
debate,
energy,
and
a
plethora
of
compelling
arguments,
(Lincoln,
1992,
p.84)
indeed,
then
we
must
also
acknowledge
that
the
control
of
curriculum
is
already
visible
due
to
its
administrative
nature..
However,
curriculum
studies
have
a
deep
concern
within
schools,
which
look
at
the
context
of
curriculum
construction
from
divergent
perspectives,
although
political
analyses
have
been
emphasized
in
recent
decades.
Writing
about
the
nightmare
of
the
present,
William
Pinar
(2010a,
p.
528)
observes:
The
problem
of
the
present
is
intensified
by
the
fields
historic
preoccupation
with
the
school,
too
often
severed
from
material
specificity.
Now
an
abstraction
without
concrete
referents,
the
school
functions
as
free-floating
signifier
of
fantasy
()
The
reduction
of
academic
achievement
to
standardized
test
scores
functions
to
obliterate
the
reality
of
individual
teachers
and
students
in
actual
schools.
Knowledge
is
traded
for
skills,
another
concept
without
content.
The
instrumental
influence
became
evident
with
Tyler
-
the
giant
of
curriculum
development
-
who
to
Philip
Jackson
(1992,
p.
24)
was
the
5
father
of
the
Bible
of
curriculum
making:
What
kind
of
book,
then,
is
it?
Tyler
does
not
say.
Instead,
he
talks
about
what
the
book
does
or
tries
to
do.
He
says
it
attempts
to
explain
a
rationale
for
viewing,
analyzing
and
interpreting
the
curriculum
and
instructional
program
of
an
educational
institution
(Ibid.,
p.
25).
The
Tyler
Rationale
represents
the
foundation
of
the
field
and
its
paradigmatic
stabilization
as
curriculum
studies
(Pinar,
2008,
p.
491)
with
a
long
and
persistent
influence
on
curriculum
practices,
reorganizing
its
institutional
molds
(Pinar,
2010d).
Related
to
psychology
and
behavioral
objectives
in
the
ideas
of
Bruner
and
Bloom,1
the
Tyler
Rationale
is
a
normative
theory
prescribing
the
curriculum
to
teachers
and
students.
Broadly
accepted
in
the
schools,
the
Tyler
Rationale
became
the
doctrine
in
the
curriculum
development
(Klein,
2009,
p.
119)
as
well
as
its
universal
model
(Kliebard,
1970,
p.
269).
Now,
what
does
reconceptualization
mean?
The
theoretical
turn
towards
reconceptualization
was
a
new
movement
in
curriculum
studies
of
the
1970s
that
was
explicitly
directed
against
curriculum
development
as
the
old
stuff
(i.e.
the
perspectives
of
Tyler
and
Bloom
on
curriculum
development),
according
to
Leonard
Waks
(2010,
p.
234).
In
the
preface
of
Understanding
Curriculum,
edited
in
1995,
William
Pinar
recognized
that
the
curriculum
field
was
in
a
period
of
stasis
and
that
there
was
a
need
to
move
it
into
new
ways
of
understanding.
The
strategies
for
the
understanding
of
curriculum
imply
an
option
within
the
field
-
curriculum
theory
is
an
interdisciplinary
field
committed
to
the
study
of
educational
experience
(Pinar,
2004,
p.
20).In
the
early
1970s
the
field
was
in
crisis.
The
critical
analyses
of
Huebner,
as
well
as
Macdonald,
were
crucial
for
recognizing
the
arguments
of
a
new
curricular
agenda
for
curriculum
studies
that
raised
a
challenge
for
the
humanization
of
schooling.
If
Pinar
is
the
most
well-known
of
the
movement,
then
Curriculum
Theorizing:
The
Reconceptualists
is
the
seminal
text,
edited
by
Pinar
in
1975.
Reconceptualization
was
meant
to
include
different
voices
associated
not
only
with
the
wider
movement
of
a
humanistic
nature
and
its
hermeneutical
roots,
but
also
with
the
thoughts
of
the
Frankfurt
School,
firstly
introduced
into
curriculum
studies
by
Huebner
and
Macdonald.
Working
on
the
shoulders
of
conceptual-empiricists,
the
reconceptualists
1
To Edmund C. Short, Whats worth Recalling?, 2010, p. 180, curriculum theorists can see the folly of turning
to the use of scientific theory where many of its assumptions have come to dominate curriculum policies and
practices with a host of negative consequences and inappropriate justifications for actions taken by schools
and policymakers based on these scientific/technological assumptions.
were
crucial
for
studying
the
curriculum
from
a
viewpoint
other
than
one
of
technical
rationality,
as
well
as
for
analyzing
its
social
and
personal
contexts.
For
M.
Frances
Klein
(2010,
pp.
120-121),
the
reconceptualists:
are
a
diverse
group
of
scholars
in
curriculum
development
who
want
to
conceptualize
approaches
to
curricula
in
fundamentally
different
ways
()
the
term,
the
reconceptualists,
as
applied
to
such
a
diverse
group
of
thinkers
casts
a
very
wide
umbrella
over
all
of
them.
Answering
the
question
What
is
the
reconceptualization?
William
Pinar
(1979,
p.
93)
stated
that:
reconceptualization
is
a
reaction
to
what
the
field
has
been
and
what
it
is
seen
to
be
at
the
present
time.
The
new
state
of
the
field
is
now
less
externally
imposed
criteria
to
become
more
open
to
a
new
understanding
of
what
the
curriculum
is,
whereby
understanding
is
the
strategic
tool
of
curriculum
theorizing
that
defines
commonalities
and
substantive
differences
among
group
discussions.
If
there
was
no
ideological
or
thematic
unity
among
the
reconceptualists,
then,
as
Slattery
(2006,
p.
57)
recognizes
reconceptualization
would
represent
an
intellectual
movement
for
the
understanding
of
curriculum
studies
with
a
degree
of
unity
that
never
existed:
Every
October,
graduate
students
and
faculty
traveled
together
to
a
conference
associated
with
the
Journal
of
Curriculum
Theorizing,
now
JCT:
An
Interdisciplinary
Journal
of
Curriculum
Studies,
held
at
Bergamo
Center
in
Dayton,
Ohio
()
It
is
important
to
note
that
a
diverse
group
of
scholars
attended
this
conference,
and
they
were
united
only
in
their
opposition
to
the
managerial
and
prescriptive
nature
of
curriculum
studies
aligned
with
Frederick
Taylors
scientific
management
and
Ralph
Tylers
principles
of
curriculum
and
instruction.
Thus,
it
is
a
misnomer
to
call
these
professors
the
reconceptualists.
There
was
no
ideological
or
thematic
unity
among
the
participants.
Two
main
curricular
issues
were
discussed
in
the
meantime:
the
political
and
the
personal
or
the
first
and
second
waves
of
the
reconceptualization.
Largely
accepted
but
largely
uncoordinated,
this
first
wave
reinforced
the
features
of
a
social
theory
linked
to
Marxist
or
neo-Marxist
perspectives,
whose
analytical
icons
are
class,
hegemony
and
ideology.
The
second
wave
of
reconceptualization
started
with
the
expansion
of
discourses
associated
with
autobiographical,
psychoanalytical
and
deconstructional
approaches
(Schubert
et
al,
2002,
p.
508).
7
Text based on the ideas presented by Pinar in his application for the Canada Research Chair and used by his
permission.
For Marla Morris, Back up Group: Here Comes the (Post)Reconceptualization, 2005, p. 3, postreconceptualization is not Post, but (Post) and to be (Post) suggests that the movement has connection
with what come before and is not chopped off from it entirely or divided by a deep chasm. We are
intertwined with our intellectual ancestors no matter how much we think we are different from them.
4
The Gender of Racial Politics and Violence in America, 2001, p. 27.
5
The Synoptic Text Today and other essays, 2006a, p. 5
they
recognized
the
multiplicity
of
voices.
The
political
issue
was
not
to
be
forgotten
but
instead
relocated
in
a
new
approach:
Through
the
reconceptualization,
we
continued
the
political
work
of
the
sixties.
Many
of
us
wanted
to
relocate
the
political
to
the
subjective
and
the
personal.
I
would
say
in
retrospect
we
were
both
political,
but
at
different
sides
of
politics.
I
would
say
the
political
theories
were
also
subjective
theories,
without
realizing
it,
because
they
wanted
a
shift
in
attitudes
and
structures
and
practices,
which
required
different
subjectivities.
We
were
both
a
little
overstating
the
distinction
between
the
subjective
and
the
social,
maybe.
(Pinar,
Interview,
2009c).
Post-reconceptualization
enlarged
the
second
wave
of
reconceptualization,
reinforcing
as
well
the
subjectivity
of
an
interdisciplinary
curriculum
research:
We
work
to
create
views
(in
other
words,
montages)
of
especially
interdisciplinary
configurations
not
visible
in
the
compartmentalized
curriculum
organized
around
the
school
subjects
and
focused
on
standardized
exams.
(Pinar
2006a,
p.5).
If
reconceptualization
is
remarkable
in
curriculum
Studies
since
the
1980s,
William
Pinar
never
used
the
term
post-reconceptualization
with
a
meaning
other
than
simply
reconceptualization.
He
recognizes
three
chronological
monents:
curriculum
development,
reconceptualization
and
internationalization
(Pinar,
2008).
As
a
theoretical
approach,
post-reconceptualization
returned
to
the
main
question
of
curriculum
studies
-
What
knowledge
is
of
most
worth?
(Pinar,
2006a,
p.
80)
not
as
a
sociological
issue
but
as
a
methodological
problem,
so:
the
new
curriculum
research
and
development
must
be
documentary
and
work
like,
both
carefully
synoptic
and
critical
and
transformative,
leading
us
students
and
teachers
back
to
the
original
texts
and
forward
to
our
ongoing
subjective
self-formation
in
society.
(Ibid.,
pp.
10,13)
Is
there
a
contradiction
in
this
articulation
between
post-
reconceptualization
and
curriculum
development?
I
suppose
not,
as
curriculum
development
is
neither
an
exclusive
field
of
practitioners,
nor
an
exclusive
field
of
traditionalists
or
of
neo-Tylerians.
Curriculum
development
is
a
moment
of
curriculum
construction
in
a
multiplicity
of
practices.
If
post-reconceptualization
is
a
new
period
or
a
misnomer
(Reynolds,
2003,
p.
86)
certainly
the
understanding
paradigm
continued
with
the
reconceptualises
and
the
post-reconceptualists.
It
is
always
possible
to
say,
according
to
the
words
of
Pinar
that
someday
there
will
be
a
new
10
paradigm,
but
its
not
here,
yet.
No,
were
still
in
the
paradigm
of
understanding
curriculum.6.
The
moment
of
understanding
curriculum,
different
from
a
prescriptive
moment,
was
born
with
reconceptualization
in
the
1970s
but
surely
it
did
not
die
in
the
2000s
with
the
post-reconceptualization.
If
a
reconceptualist
theory
did
not
exist,
then
the
post-reconceptualist
theory
could
also
not
be
a
fact.
Patrick
Slattery
(2006,
p.
190)
used
the
term
reconceptualized
curriculum
theory
and
Reynolds
William
(2003,
p.
86)
used
comprehensive
theory
of
curriculum,
as
fundamental
matter
of
reconceptualization.
Despite
the
terms
used
by
authors,
the
field
of
curriculum
studies
has
been
and
will
continue
to
be
surffed
by
different
perspectives
and
struggles
to
express
modes
of
theorizing
and
acting.
The
norm
for
curriculum
studies
is
divergence,
conflict
and
theoretical
instability.
The
crisis
identity
is
always
a
focal
point,
as
quoted
by
Pinar,
Reynolds,
Slattery
and
Taubman
(1995,
p.
849):The
curriculum
field
has
been
suffering
a
kind
of
identity
crisis,
and
we
wanted
to
help
resolve
that,
by
pointing
the
continuities,
as
well
discontinuities,
between
the
traditional
and
reconceptualized
field.
2. Is
the
state
of
the
field
more
confusing
through
the
space
of
authors?
After
reading
Leaders
in
Curriculum
Studies:
Intellectual
Self-
portraits,
I
tried
to
answer
the
question
what
is
the
field
today?
through
some
well-known
authors.
For
Leonard
Waks
(2010,
p.
234),
the
leaders
of
the
generation
of
educational
scholars
after
1960
often
saw
themselves
as
revolutionaries.
They
produced
a
new
philosophy,
a
new
history,
and
new
sociology
of
education.
The
identity
of
the
field
has
been
built
by
authors
such
as
Pinar,
Apple,
Young
and
Goodson7.[
Being
world-widely
acclaimed
authors,
their
theoretical
perspectives
and
personal
experiences
are
crucial
to
reflect
on
curricular
issues.
As
curricular
voices,
these
authors
have
promoted
curriculum
studies,
although
other
authors
outside
the
United
States
or
outside
England
should
be
quoted.
6
Text based on the ideas of Pinar presented in his application for the Canada Research Chair and used by his
permission.
7
Certainly, Im paying more attention to William Pinar and Ivor Goodson because I wrote an essay about them
(Whole, bright, deep with understanding. Life story and politics of curriculum studies. In-between William
Pinar and Ivor Goodson, 2009).
11
For
those
who
have
read
their
texts,
it
will
be
easy
to
acknowledge
the
importance
of
their
educational
and
curricular
approaches.
As
curriculum
leaders,
Pinar,
Apple,
Young
and
Goodson
have
been
paradigmatically
thinking
about
the
curriculum,
as
well
as
introducing
new
intellectual
contributions.
As
Lincoln
(1992,
p.
83)
acknowledges
in
relation
to
Pinar,
they
maintain
some
control
over
the
debate,
although
the
confused
field
derives
from
conflicting
groups.
For
Michael
Connelly
and
Shijing
Xu
(2008,
p.
524),
some
of
the
confusion
noted
by
Jackson
was
related
to
the
passion
and
intensity
of
feeling
about
the
writings
and
positions
of
one
person
and
group
about
persons
and
groups.
In
the
past,
Jackson
(1992,
p.37)
described
the
field
of
curriculum
as
being
confusing
when
he
wrote:
The
boundaries
of
the
field
are
diffuse,
so
much
so
that
one
may
wonder
sometimes
whether
it
has
any
boundaries
at
all.
To
some,
that
condition
is
troublesome;
to
others,
it
is
exhilarating;
to
all,
it
can
become
confusing
at
times.
Today
in
the
early
2010s
the
field
might
well
look
more
confusing
than
it
then
did
(Connelly
&
Xu,
2008,
p.
523)
in
the
eyes
of
Jackson.
Maybe
it
will
be
permanently
confusing
due
to
its
internal
disagreements
and
external
marginalization.
This
confusion
that
existed
and
probably
will
exist
in
the
future
arises
from
the
different
theoretical
approaches
in
the
curriculum
field.
Current
curricular
debates
about
curriculum
are
strongly
related
to
the
question
What
knowledge
is
of
most
worth?
Not
least,
the
ongoing
debates
explore
the
tensions
between
curriculum
theory
and
curriculum
development,
especially
when
there
remains
a
conflict
between
the
more
theoretical
and
more
practical
within
the
field.
For
example,
M.
Frances
Klein
(2010,
p.
119)
observes:
they
seemed
to
be
engaged
in
developing
alternative
bases
for
engaging
in
curriculum
thought
while
I
was
intensely
interested
in
classrooms
practices
and
the
types
of
curricular
decisions
that
were
currently
being
made
to
affect
what
and
how
students
learned
and
how
those
should
be
improved.
The
substantive
change
of
the
field
that
occurred
with
reconceptualization
is
perceived
differently
by
Apple,
Young
and
Goodson.
Despite
the
theoretical
similarities
between
Apple,
Young
and
Goodson,
who
have
the
sociology
of
education
in
common,
their
main
disagreement
has
brought
Apple
and
Pinar
together.
However,
Goodson
and
Pinar
share
the
same
perspectives
about
autobiographical
12
15
16
17
Given
this
idea,
and
as
writes
Terrance
Carson
(2009,
p.
156),
the
field
is
already
unavoidably
implicated
in
worldly
circumstances,
but
unlike
the
convergences
of
economic
globalization,
the
internalization
of
curriculum
studies
is
not
necessarily
a
uniform
field.
Curriculum
maintains
its
roots
in
local,
national,
and
cultural
specificities,
but
these
now
exist
in
relationship
with
unfolding
world
circumstances.
Through
theorizing
about
internationalization,
Pinar
advances
the
worldliness
of
a
cosmopolitan
curriculum,
as
a
primacy
of
the
particular.
Curriculum
as
worldliness
is
both
possibility
and
practice,
as
it
cultivates
comprehension
of
alterity,
including
that
self-
knowledge
that
enables
understanding
of
others,
(Pinar,
2009a,
p.
7)
and
promotes
a
dialogue
in
the
words
of
Janet
L.
Miller
(2005,
p.
14):
Some
of
us
are
proposing
constructions
that
possibly
could
challenge
present
tendencies
toward
separatisms,
balkanizations,
and
colonizations,
both
within
and
beyond
US
borders
that
threaten,
through
their
reiterative
practices,
to
(re)produce
the
very
effects
that
they
name.
Some
of
us
are
suggesting
that
the
field
itself
still
might
productively
locate
resistance
and
the
possibilities
of
connection
and
transformation
within
competing
curriculum
discourses.
The
worldliness
of
a
cosmopolitan
curriculum,
as
William
Pinar
writes
(2009a,
p.
8),
at
first
implies
that
general
education
is
more
than
an
introduction
to
great
works,
the
memorization
of
essential
knowledge,
or
a
sampling
of
the
primary
disciplinary
categories
(three
units
in
social
science,
three
in
natural
science,
etc.),
and,
at
second,
acknowledges
the
personification
of
the
individual:
understanding
the
subjectivity
of
the
internationalization
of
curriculum
studies
accompanies
my
efforts
to
understand
the
fields
intellectual
history
and
present
circumstances,
as
the
individual
personifies
that
history
and
those
circumstances
(Pinar,
2010b,
p.
5).
Moving
curriculum
to
a
new
place,cosmopolitanism
is
a
name
for
an
orientation
toward
self,
others,
and
world;
is
a
name
for
an
outlook
toward
the
challenges
and
opportunities
of
being
a
person
or
community
dwelling
in
a
world
of
ongoing
social
transformation;
it
is
a
way
for
life
in
which
persons
one
participants
in
pluralistic
change
rather
than
passive
spectators,
or
victims,
of
such
change
(Hansen,
Burdick-Shepherd,
Cammarano
&
Obelleiro,
2009,
p.
587).
Final
words
18
Curriculum
is
a
complex
endeavor
suffering
in
a
permanent
discussion
both
about
its
theoretical
state
and
the
relationship
between
curriculum
theory
and
curriculum
development.
The
metaphor
used
by
Joseph
Schwab
(1970)
-
the
moribund
curriculum
-
has
been
rejected
like
other
metaphors
or
images
reviewed
by
Philip
Jackson
(1992),
namely
confusion,
conflict,
amorphous,
elusive,
in
disrepair,
driven
into
disarray,
suffering
from
severe
disorientation,
ill-defined
epistemology.
The
study
of
curriculum
studies
should
not
be
approached
in
terms
of
what
does
not
work
in
the
field
but
as
what
is
differentially
analyzed
and
discussed
by
conflicting
groups
that
make
it
theoretically
dynamic
and
powerful.
This
is
not
a
weak
but
rather
a
theoretical
empowerment.
After
the
out-of-datedness
of
the
Tyler
Rationale
some
curricular
scholars
in
the
field
hold
a
strong
conviction
of
curriculum
as
a
conversation.
Other
curricular
scholars
stress
the
primacy
of
the
social
and
political
by
rejecting
the
subjectivity
of
the
curriculum.
The
contrast
between
curriculum
becoming
increasingly
separated
by
post-
structuralism
and
by
post-modernism
is
a
contrast
associated
with
theoretical
differences,
as
well
as
personal
divergences.
Running
as
a
river
(Reynolds,
2003;
Paraskeva,
2004),
the
curriculum
is
a
local,
national
and
international
conversation,
whose
words
are
used
by
those
who
directly
and
indirectly
are
making
the
curriculum
in
context.
The
key
problem
of
the
curriculum
is
the
contrast
between
theory
and
practice.
The
field
theoretically
runs
toward
diversity,
while
at
the
same
time
the
curriculum
practices
are
controlled
intensively
and
persistently
by
administrative
agendas;
namely,
when
social
engineering
(Pinar,
2004)
is
sufficiently
strong
inside
schools.
As
Madeleine
Grumet
(1988,
p.
122)
writes,
the
problem
of
studying
the
curriculum
is
that
we
are
the
curriculum.
Certainly
we
are
apart
in
terms
of
our
answer
relative
to
the
main
issue
of
curriculum
studies
-
What
knowledge
is
of
most
worth?
Acknowledging
that
curriculum
is
complex,
any
state
of
the
field
is
only
a
particular
moment
with
one
date
for
theorizing
about
how
the
present
is
being
intersected
by
the
past
our
historical
condition
and
present
-
our
personal
and
human
proposal.
Shaped
by
different
perspectives,
it
will
be
recognized
that
the
neo-Tylerian
approaches
are
coming
back.
Curriculum
studies
will
always
have
an
identity
problem.
What
is
certain
is
that
it
is
not
a
problem
of
a
poor
or
weak
theory.
The
ongoing
theoretical
approaches
in
the
field
are
solid
arguments
for
both
understanding
its
complexity
and
the
contexts
in
which
we
are
the
actors.
19
In
this
case
the
state
of
the
field
is
a
powerful
analysis
of
what
we
can
do
and
think
when
we
are
the
curriculum.
Maybe,
it
can
help
us
ask,
related
to
curriculum
studies,
the
following:
What
is
worthwhile?
What
is
worth
knowing,
experiencing,
needing,
doing,
being,
becoming,
overcoming,
sharing,
and
contributing?
(Schubert,
2009,
p.176).
As
we
cannot
provide
the
answers
but
only
an
understanding
process,
the
words
we
can
now
exchange
together
will
be
responsible
for
what
one
day
our
students
will
retain
about
their
past,
like
William
Pinar
(2010b,
p.
144)
said
about
his
own
schooling:
I
received
a
solid
introduction
to
the
various
school
subjects,
taught
by
often
animated
and
dedicated
teachers.
Working
in
opposition
to
the
words
of
Jackson,9
the
curriculum
studies
field
exist
and
does
not
look
gloomy
at
least
in
other
countries
outside
the
USA.
Consequently,
when
we
write
about
the
epistemological
state
of
the
field,
we
are
learning
how
to
understand
that,
as
Nathan
Snaza
(2010,
p.43)
observes:
the
question,
What
is
the
state
of
curriculum
studies?
cannot
be
answered,
for
we
are
only
barely
on
the
way
to
learning
how
to
pose
it.
The
state
of
curriculum
studies
help
us
find
the
complicated
answers
to
what
is
the
field
today.
Known
as
a
review
literature,
the
state
of
the
field
comprises
a
wide
vision
of
what
is
happening
in
the
field
and
the
emphasis
on
theoretical
analyses.
Besides,
its
diversity
cannot
be
considered
as
an
epistemological
crisis.
To
conclude,
and
stressing
an
argument
to
be
considered
advanced
by
Gaztambide-Fernndez
and
Thiessen
(2009,
p.
14):
whether
the
field
is
characterized
as
continuous
or
fragmented,
coherent
or
chaotic,
stable
or
uneasy,
there
is
no
doubt
that
curriculum
studies
is
a
healthy
and
productive
scholarly
field.
References
Anderson-Levitt,
K.
M.
(2008).
Globalization
and
Curriculum.
In
F.
M.
Connelly
(Ed.),
The
Sage
Handbook
of
Curriculum
and
Instruction
(pp.
349-368).
Los
Angeles:
Sage.
Apple,
M.
W.
(2010).
On
Being
a
Scholar/Activist
in
Education.
In
E.
C.
Short
&
L.
J.
Waks
(Eds.),
Leaders
in
Curriculum
Studies:
Intellectual
Self-Portraits
(pp.1-17).
Rotterdam:
Sense
Publishers.
9
See Philip Jackson, Conceptions of Curriculum and Curriculum Specialists, 1992, p. 4 : I myself wondered
(only half in jest) whether there is a thing as a field of curricular studies after all . The picture of what
is happening at the level of theory building and of making pronouncements about the curriculum in general
looks gloomy indeed-
20
21
24
25