Curriculum: From Theory to Practice

Citation

Null, W. (2023). Curriculum: From Theory to Practice (3rd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.

Chapter Summary

The third edition runs to about 390 pages. After forewords and prefaces carried over from all three editions, an introduction asks what curriculum is and why it matters. Part I, "Curriculum Traditions", opens with a chapter that builds the book's framework and then gives one chapter to each of five traditions. Part II, "Curriculum Practice", turns to extended cases and a closing argument, and an appendix supplies seven short curriculum dilemmas. Every chapter ends with discussion questions. The publisher describes the book as an introduction to curriculum theory and its relation to classroom practice, organised around five traditions: systematic, existential, radical, pragmatic and deliberative. This edition adds figures and addresses changes in democratic society and inclusion.

Introduction: What Is Curriculum and Why Does It Matter?

The introduction separates curriculum from education in general, sets out the basic curriculum questions, and asks what a "liberating curriculum" would be. It states the book's thesis and gives an overview of its structure.

Chapter 1: Liberal Education (and Curriculum) for All

The framework chapter. It traces a liberal curriculum from its origins through the Christian era and the liberal arts ideal to the rise of democracy and John Dewey's democratic education, then presents Joseph Schwab's challenge to the curriculum field. From Schwab it takes five "commonplaces" (teachers, learners, subject matter, context and curriculum making), and it adds a two-axis map on which the five traditions are placed.

Chapters 2–6: Systematic, Existentialist, Radical, Pragmatic and Deliberative Curriculum

The five tradition chapters share a pattern. Each opens with present-day figures or policies, then gives historical background, reads the tradition through the five commonplaces, and ends with its strengths and weaknesses.

• Chapter 2, Systematic Curriculum: No Child Left Behind, standards as a system and the Common Core State Standards, with roots in Franklin Bobbitt and W. W. Charters and a section on the free market and curriculum.
• Chapter 3, Existentialist Curriculum: Alfie Kohn on personal choice, Maxine Greene, Elliot Eisner's artistic version and William Pinar's reconceptualization, with background in G. Stanley Hall's developmental curriculum and William Heard Kilpatrick's project method.
• Chapter 4, Radical Curriculum: Michael Apple, Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a radical Christian curriculum and Gloria Ladson-Billings's The Dreamkeepers, rooted in George Counts and Harold Rugg.
• Chapter 5, Pragmatic Curriculum: Ted Sizer's school reform (including Horace Smith's "compromised curriculum") and Harry K. Wong, with Dewey's thought across three periods and Ralph Tyler, presented as a root of curriculum deliberation.
• Chapter 6, Deliberative Curriculum: William A. Reid, Ian Westbury (including Bildung and Didaktik) and Cheryl J. Craig's teacher-centred deliberation, with background in Schwab and the philosopher Richard McKeon on rhetoric and the theory–practice relationship.

Chapter 7: What Should We Do with State Curriculum Standards?

The first practice chapter follows three American educators facing state standards: a high school U.S. history teacher, a social studies department chair and a fifth-grade teacher. Each problem is followed by a discussion of how it might be resolved.

Chapter 8: How Can We Reestablish a Core Curriculum at Our University?

Two higher-education cases: a provost facing weak faculty support, the pull between teaching and research and limited resources, and a college president facing concerns about diversity, arguments for a "relevant" curriculum, and a critique of adding religion.

Chapter 9: What Should We Do to Create a Better Teacher Ed Curriculum?

Cases from teacher education at two institutions, told through deans, presidents, provosts and an assistant professor, each with a proposed resolution.

Chapter 10: Curriculum with Virtue: A Future for Deliberative Curriculum

The closing argument returns to the ancient roots of deliberation, relates virtue and faith to curriculum, and ends with Comenius's idea of a liberal curriculum for all.

Appendix A: Curriculum Dilemmas

Seven short dilemmas for discussion, among them teaching intelligent design or evolution, whether phonics must be taught, giving a star athlete a break, and whether American Sign Language should count as a foreign language.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Chapter 1

• Curriculum versus education: the book treats curriculum as a narrower question, what should be taught, to whom and why.
• Liberating curriculum / liberal education for all: the ideal of a broad, liberal curriculum extended to every learner in a democracy.
• Schwab's five commonplaces: teachers, learners, subject matter, context and curriculum making, used to analyse every tradition.
• Curriculum map: two axes on which the traditions are placed relative to one another.

Chapters 2–6

• Systematic tradition: curriculum as a standardised system, as in standards-based reform.
• Existentialist tradition: curriculum centred on individual choice, experience and meaning.
• Radical tradition: curriculum as a means of social critique and transformation.
• Pragmatic tradition: curriculum made workable in real schools, from Dewey to Tyler.
• Deliberative tradition: curriculum decided through careful, local deliberation among those involved.

Chapters 7–10 and Appendix

• Curriculum standards: state requirements, and how teachers and departments respond to them.
• Core curriculum: a shared required programme at university level.
• Virtue in curriculum making: the book's closing link between deliberation and character.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A clear organising framework. Five named traditions, all analysed through the same five commonplaces and each closed with strengths and weaknesses, give students a consistent way to compare positions. Several endorsers on the publisher's page (for example Craig Kridel and Christy McConnell Moroye) praise this organisation of a crowded field.
• History joined to the present. Each tradition is introduced through recent figures or policy and then traced back to its early-twentieth-century sources, so readers meet Bobbitt, Kilpatrick, Counts and Tyler as ancestors of present debates.
• Cases and dilemmas. Part II and the appendix put the framework to work on standards, core curricula, teacher education and everyday school decisions, with discussion questions throughout.
• Breadth of levels. The cases run from fifth grade to university core curricula and teacher education, so the book also serves readers who work in colleges and universities.

Limitations

• An argued position, not a neutral survey. The book favours the deliberative tradition: the final chapter is titled "A Future for Deliberative Curriculum", and endorsers such as Peter Hlebowitsh and William Schubert note that Null advocates it as the most effective. Students should weigh the strengths-and-weaknesses sections with this in mind.
• American context. No Child Left Behind, the Common Core, state standards and the cases in Part II are all American. Readers elsewhere will need to translate the examples to their own system.
• A particular emphasis on liberal education and faith. The Christian era, a radical Christian curriculum, "Faith and Curriculum" and Comenius each have a section or chapter. Some readers will welcome this emphasis, while others will want a more secular survey alongside.
• Selective coverage. Each tradition is represented by a handful of figures, so the book is a map rather than a full account of any school of thought.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is a natural first book in the curriculum and instruction course. A. V. Kelly's The Curriculum: Theory and Practice is the other introduction on the list, a British text built around content, objectives and process models and the politics of curriculum. Read both if possible: Null for the American debates and the traditions framework, Kelly for a British perspective. Ornstein and Hunkins's Curriculum: Foundations, Principles, and Issues is a broader survey of foundations, design, implementation and evaluation, and suits readers who want a fuller textbook after Null.

Two books let students go deeper into the figures Null summarises. Flinders and Thornton's The Curriculum Studies Reader prints original writing by Bobbitt, Dewey, Tyler, Eisner, Freire, Greene, Pinar and others, so it pairs well with Chapters 2–6. Pinar's What Is Curriculum Theory? develops the reconceptualist view that Null places within the existentialist tradition. For the practical side, Wiggins and McTighe's Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units is a hands-on guide to unit planning, closer to Chapter 7's classroom problems than to Null's theory.

How to Use This Book

The book suits undergraduate and master's students in education, practising teachers and school or university leaders who make curriculum decisions. No prior study of curriculum is required.

• Core: the Introduction and Chapter 1. Learn the five commonplaces and the map before going further; every later chapter depends on them.
• The traditions: Chapters 2–6 in order. For each, make a one-page table of its figures, its view of each commonplace, and its strengths and weaknesses. Comparing the tables is the best preparation for Part II.
• Practice: choose the Part II chapter that matches your setting: Chapter 7 for school teachers, Chapters 8–9 for higher education or teacher education. Try to resolve each case yourself before reading the author's discussion.
• Close: read Chapter 10 as the author's own argument, and decide whether you agree.

Use the appendix dilemmas for seminar debate, asking how each tradition would respond. Read a primary source from the course reader alongside each tradition chapter. Readers outside the United States should substitute their own national curriculum documents for the state standards in Chapter 7.