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The Curriculum Studies Reader cover

Education

Education

The Curriculum Studies Reader

David J. Flinders (ed.); Stephen J. Thornton (ed.)

An anthology of 33 readings in curriculum studies, from Dewey's My Pedagogic Creed to recent articles on high-stakes testing, bullying and whiteness in school programmes. Rather than summarising the field, it lets students read the original arguments of figures such as Bobbitt, Dewey, Tyler, Eisner, Freire, Greene, Pinar and Noddings, grouped in four parts from early arguments to current questions.

Prerequisites: A first course in curriculum design or curriculum foundations, so that the main planning models and their critics are already familiar.

Difficulty Level
Advanced
Academic Level
Graduate
curriculum studiescurriculum theoryprimary sourcescurriculum historyanthology

01 / Reading Guide

Reading Guide

Citation

Flinders, D. J., & Thornton, S. J. (Eds.). (2022). The Curriculum Studies Reader (6th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The sixth edition is an anthology of 33 readings, about 470 pages, arranged in four parts. The readings run from John Dewey's My Pedagogic Creed to recent articles on high-stakes testing, bullying, whiteness in school programmes and the liberal arts. The editors say the collection combines well-known and pivotal work with "concrete examples of innovative curriculum" and current topics, and that this edition adds contributions on high-stakes testing, multicultural literacy, white supremacy in the curriculum and climate change. The four parts are numbered but not titled, so each is described below by the readings it contains.

Part I (Readings 1–6): early arguments about what schools should do

The opening part brings together early twentieth-century positions that still frame the field. Franklin Bobbitt's "Scientific Method in Curriculum-Making" represents the efficiency tradition. Against it stand Maria Montessori's "A Critical Consideration of the New Pedagogy in Its Relation to Modern Science", Dewey's "My Pedagogic Creed", Jane Addams's "The Public School and the Immigrant Child" and George S. Counts's "Dare the School Build a New Social Order?". Linda S. Levstik's "Outside Over There: My Book House Divides the World, 1919–1954" takes the My Book House collection as its subject.

Part II (Readings 7–13): objectives, courses of study and critique

Ralph W. Tyler's "Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction" and W. James Popham's "Objectives" represent objectives-based planning, and Jerome S. Bruner's "Man: A Course of Study" presents a specific designed course. Elliot W. Eisner's "Educational Objectives—Help or Hindrance?" questions the objectives approach. The remaining readings look at curriculum from other angles: Philip W. Jackson's "The Daily Grind" on classroom life, Paulo Freire's "The Adult Literacy Process as Cultural Action for Freedom" and Maxine Greene's "Curriculum and Consciousness".

Part III (Readings 14–22): reconceptualization, implementation and equity

William F. Pinar's "The Reconceptualization of Curriculum Studies" opens a part that covers curriculum change and difference. Miriam Ben-Peretz writes on curriculum potential, and Milbrey Wallin McLaughlin on implementation as mutual adaptation. William H. Watkins examines Black curriculum orientations, the American Association of University Women takes up how schools shortchange girls, and James A. Banks writes on multicultural literacy and curriculum reform. Nel Noddings's "Care and Coercion in School Reform", Eisner's "What Does It Mean to Say a School Is Doing Well?" and Stephen J. Thornton's "Silence on Gays and Lesbians in Social Studies Curriculum" complete the part.

Part IV (Readings 23–33): current questions

The most recent readings include Angela Valenzuela on subtractive schooling and caring relations, Wayne W. Au on high-stakes testing and student identities, Elaine Chan on teachers' experiences of culture in the curriculum, Dennis Carlson on "The Bully Curriculum", Christy M. Moroye on the work of ecologically minded teachers, Thomas Misco on curriculum reform for controversial topics in post-communist settings, Michael W. Apple on home schooling, Chet Bowers on "Educational Reforms for Survival", Michael F. D. Young on a subject-based curriculum, and Rhianna Thomas on whiteness as hidden curriculum in a bullying-prevention programme. The closing reading is Noddings's "Renewing the Spirit of the Liberal Arts".

Key Concepts

Part I: foundations

  • Scientific curriculum-making: Bobbitt's attempt to apply a method of analysis to the construction of the curriculum.
  • Progressive and reconstructionist arguments: the Dewey, Addams and Counts readings, which tie schooling to democratic and social aims.

Part II: objectives and their critics

  • Objectives: the idea, in Tyler and Popham, that planning begins from stated aims, and Eisner's questioning of that idea.
  • The daily grind: Jackson's focus on the routines of classroom life as an object of study.
  • Cultural action and consciousness: the Freire and Greene readings.

Part III: reconceptualization and implementation

  • Reconceptualization: Pinar's redefinition of curriculum studies as an academic field.
  • Curriculum potential: Ben-Peretz's term for what a curriculum could do beyond its designers' intentions.
  • Mutual adaptation: McLaughlin's account of implementation as a two-way process.
  • Multicultural literacy and equity: the Watkins, AAUW, Banks and Thornton readings.

Part IV: current questions

  • High-stakes testing and discursive control: Au's reading on testing and student identities.
  • Hidden curriculum: Thomas's reading, on whiteness enacted through a bullying-prevention programme.
  • Subject-based curriculum: Young's argument for the case of subject knowledge.
  • Fidelity expectations: Misco's reading on rethinking curriculum reform for controversial topics.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

  • Original voices rather than a summary. The collection reprints the arguments themselves, from Bobbitt and Dewey to Tyler, Eisner, Freire, Greene, Pinar and Noddings. A student can quote them directly and see how the authors answer each other.
  • Contrasting arguments grouped together. David L. Acevedo, reviewing an earlier edition in Educational Review, wrote that the editors do well in the first half of the book in grouping contrasting arguments that give context for divergent curriculum ideologies. The table of contents bears this out in Parts I and II, where efficiency, progressive and critical positions sit side by side.
  • Historical range plus current topics. The sixth edition adds readings on testing, bullying, whiteness in school programmes and ecology; the final reading returns to the liberal arts, which gives the book a deliberate arc from past to present.
  • Reviewer endorsements. O. L. Davis, Jr., quoted by the publisher, describes the Reader as "a beginning to study, not an ending", and the Harvard Educational Review is quoted as saying it will interest anyone who wants to know why schools teach what they teach.

Limitations

  • No running narrative. An anthology cannot explain the field in its own voice. The table of contents gives no part titles, and the reader must work out the groupings from the readings. A student without a first course in curriculum may find the sequence hard to place.
  • Selection means omission. With 33 readings across the whole field, each theme is represented by only a few; a reader needing a sustained treatment of any one of them will need the authors' full books.
  • A mixture of periods and settings. Readings range from a nineteenth-century creed to recent articles, and some address particular countries or school systems, such as the post-communist settings in Misco's article. The collection is therefore best read selectively.

Where It Fits in the Course

Of the curriculum books on this list, the Reader is the one made of primary texts. Allan Ornstein and Francis Hunkins's Curriculum: Foundations, Principles, and Issues is a graduate survey of the field's foundations, design models and issues, and A. V. Kelly's The Curriculum: Theory and Practice is a British introduction that asks what a curriculum is for and who should decide it. Wesley Null's Curriculum: From Theory to Practice organises the field into five traditions. Wiggins and McTighe's Understanding by Design Guide is a practical planning guide for units.

William Pinar's What Is Curriculum Theory? gives a single theorist's sustained argument, and Pinar himself appears in the Reader. A sensible order is to read one textbook survey first for orientation, then use the Reader to meet the original arguments those books summarise, and then take up Pinar's book to see one position developed at length.

How to Use This Book

The Reader is aimed at graduate students, teacher educators and researchers who need the original texts for papers and seminars. A first course in curriculum design or foundations makes the arguments easier to place, since many readings respond to the planning tradition associated with Tyler.

A practical plan:

  • Read in pairs that disagree: Bobbitt with Dewey or Addams; Tyler or Popham with Eisner; Jackson with Freire or Greene; Banks with Young.
  • Core readings: Parts I and II supply the historical positions (efficiency, progressive, objectives-based and their critics), and Pinar's Part III essay marks the turn to the reconceptualized field.
  • Optional: Part IV readings are best chosen to match a research interest, such as testing, school climate, ecology or controversial topics.
  • For writing: keep a note of each reading's date, because the book places nineteenth-century and recent texts in a single volume and the dates matter for how a claim should be read.