Flinders, David J. and Thornton, Stephen J. (Editors). (1997). The Curriculum Studies Reader. Reviewed by George Willis

Flinders, David J. and Thornton, Stephen J. (Editors). (1997). The Curriculum Studies Reader. New York: Routledge Pp. x + 362 $25.99 (Paper)         ISBN 0-415-91698-4 $80 (Cloth)         ISBN 0-415-91697-6 Reviewed by George Willis University of Rhode Island February 12, 1999         The late James B. Macdonald, who from the 1960s to the early 1980s was among the most thoughtful and influential contributors to the professional field now known as curriculum studies, often remarked that he found curriculum fascinating as a microcosm of life itself, with all the same complex issues about how to live practically and intellectually, socially and morally, aesthetically and spiritually. In curriculum these issues are not written smaller than in life, however, for whether within school or without, life is always life. As Macdonald (1967, 1975) urged, curriculum issues need to be taken with the seriousness and fullness that life itself demands.         In the aptly named The Curriculum Studies Reader, David J. Flinders and Stephen J. Thornton have responded seriously and fully to this demand, I think, creating a book that conveys the vitality of curriculum studies. Using a different metaphor, they define a "reader" as "a collection of informed and influential writings" chosen "to represent the field, its various regions and familiar landmarks" (p. vii), and they attempt to initiate those unfamiliar with curriculum studies into the complexities Macdonald spoke of. All the selections in the book have been previously published, either on their own or as parts of longer works. All have been influential in one way or another. Most are by authors from the United States. Collectively, these writings have been chosen to allow the reader of the book to get "close to the ideas and debates that have inspired . . . wide interest in curriculum issues" and "to capture some of the contentious discourse and outright disputes for which the curriculum field is known" (p. vii).         One of the strengths of the book is that Flinders and Thornton- in contrast to the authors or editors of many books on curriculum whose goal is to provide frameworks or formulae leading directly to solutions to the practical curriculum problems- correctly understand curriculum studies as a body of academic scholarship that sheds light on practical curriculum problems but does not lead to solutions of any particular kind. Its value to educational policy and practice is in helping those who make practical decisions see the issues involved in the most comprehensive light so that they may enhance their ability to thoughtfully weigh and appropriately select the best possible courses of action from the vast array of plausible alternatives. For instance, in the United States the national dialogue on education is now running very much in favor of policies requiring all students to learn the same things. Were such dialogue well informed by the full range of historical, philosophical, and sociocultural considerations that curriculum studies entails, however, policies promoting sameness might well be regarded quite differently.         Another strength of the book is that Flinders and Thornton demonstrate a thorough understanding of the entire field of curriculum studies and its discourse. The selections, for the most part, do indeed capture the most central and often contentious debates among curriculum scholars, and the necessarily but all too brief introductory commentaries Flinders and Thornton provide ground each selection within the field, pointing out its significance and providing some interpretation.         Given such basic strengths of The Curriculum Studies Reader, there is little not to like about it. It is a worthy addition to the field as a means of introducing novices to curriculum studies. Given Flinders and Thornton's basic task, however, would I- or, for that matter, would anyone else- have made the same selection of readings, organizing and interpreting them in the same ways? Of course not. The possible variations are too numerous. Hence, in the remainder of this review, I wish not to criticize Flinders and Thornton in any negative sense for not creating the book I might have created if I were in their shoes, but mostly to raise some issues and provide some commentary about the book they have created.         The book is divided into four sections, the first of which is titled "Looking Back: A Prologue to Curriculum Studies" and includes Franklin Bobbitt on scientific "curriculum-making," John Dewey's "My Pedagogic Creed," excerpts from George Counts's 1932 "Dare the Schools Build a New Social Order?", and a 1975 commentary by Herbert Kliebard on the rise and the aftermath of the kind of scientific approach Bobbitt popularized. This section of the book begins a historical representation of the development of the field which is picked up and carried out in all three subsequent sections. Here the editors do an admirable job of contrasting Bobbitt's and Dewey's approaches to curriculum, of explaining how Counts focused on a relatively small range of Dewey's ideas, and of pointing out why the scientific approach still prevails today, but I question the degree to which they identify the early development of curriculum studies with the social reform wing of Progressive education, especially in light of the influence of the Hegelian William Torrey Harris around the turn of the century and the prominence of the Herbartians, the forerunners of the later child developmentalists. And downright misleading is their inclusion of a version of "My Pedagogic Creed" identified chronologically only as published in 1929 (as opposed to 1897, the publication date of the original version), thereby implying that it followed Bobbitt's 1918 excerpt by a decade instead of preceding it by two decades.         Flinders and Thornton's tracing of the beginnings of the field of curriculum studies to this era is accurate, however, and raises the question of how The Curriculum Studies Reader itself fits into the historical picture. Certainly by the 1890s many American educators were groping for ways to consider the purposes of schooling in general and the curriculum in particular other than in terms of the arrangement of subject matter. Bobbitt's book (1918) was considered the first to be devoted solely to curriculum issues, and by the 1920s and 1930s there were serious efforts underway to define curriculum as a professional field of work and study. The problem of that era was merging many practical and theoretical issues in creating the field, whereas Flinders and Thornton's problem is providing a retrospective that identifies and disentangles the issues in order to clarify the present and point toward the future of curriculum studies.         By the 1930s there began to appear books that addressed both types of problem. Schubert (1986) refers to these books as "synoptic curriculum texts," which he defines as comprehensive efforts ". . . to summarize the state of the art of curriculum studies for the professional educator who intends to devote full-time effort to curriculum development and/or scholarship" (p. 82). Such books necessarily include some notion of curriculum history. Early synoptic texts, such as Caswell and Campbell (1935) and Smith, Stanley, and Shores (1950), tended to advocate a specific set of principles for conducting curriculum development, whereas more recent ones, such as Tanner and Tanner (1975), Zais (1976), Schubert (1986), and Walker (1990), tend to be more dispassionate and scholarly, particularly in terms of self- consciously considering the history of the field.         In 1937, the first book appeared in what can now be considered the genre of the curriculum reader. Caswell and Campbell (1937) intended this book to be a supplement to their earlier synoptic text; the synoptic text broadly explained curriculum issues and the principles of curriculum development, and the reader fleshed out issues and principles through concrete examples of curriculum development. But a reader, simply through the examples it contains, also inevitably conveys some historical perspective. Since the inception of the curriculum reader, most have continued to be used as supplementary books in university courses on curriculum. Although relatively few readers were published prior to the 1980s, the trend- as with synoptic texts- has been away from advocacy through exemplification of specific principles for practice and toward comprehensive exemplification of the field itself.         The culmination of this trend may be the work of Pinar et al.(1995), a book that extends the early notion of a reader well beyond a relatively straightforward compendium of useful articles and excerpts. This book merges the breadth of the synoptic text (only now focused on the nature of the field itself) and the specificity of the reader into a major scholarly and interpretive work that attempts to identify, cite, and elucidate virtually every written work that has shaped modern curriculum studies. In one sense, The Curriculum Studies Reader can be considered a much less complete but perhaps nearly as full a look at curriculum studies. To use Flinders and Thornton's metaphor, it contains less detailed maps of the various regions of the field and identifies fewer landmarks than does Pinar et al., but the general perspective it conveys is nonetheless similar. As the field continues to shape itself, it will need to be informed both by scholarly interpretations of its past and by specific exemplifications. Thus new synoptic texts will continue to emerge as well as new readers and new hybrids that combine both genres. The appearance of The Curriculum Studies Reader and other books aimed at portraying the full sweep of curriculum studies is indicative of the current vitality of the field, not just its contentiousness.         The second section of The Curriculum Studies Reader is titled "Curriculum at Education's Center Stage" and represents a historical leap into the post-Sputnik, curriculum reform era of the 1960s. Selections in this section are by John Goodlad on curriculum reform, James Popham and Elliot Eisner on objectives, Lauren Sosniak (in a 1994 retrospective) on taxonomies, Philip Jackson on daily life in schools, and Joseph Schwab on "the practical" as a basis for curriculum deliberations. Flinders and Thornton characterize the era as beginning with the perceived national crisis in education brought on by the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, continuing rather optimistically but naively in the belief that large amounts of money for national curriculum projects in academic subjects would cure most ills, and ending amid controversy mostly over the general failure of reform efforts.         Within curriculum studies during this era, approaches to curriculum development based on a technological rationality (characterized by Popham's article and much akin to Bobbitt's notion of science) seemed to maintain the upper hand in a struggle with more humane approaches (such as Dewey's) that had arisen with progressive education and would soon be taken with renewed seriousness by the curriculum field, if not by the general public. Much of the coming debate in curriculum studies was to focus on the significance of the work of Ralph Tyler, particularly his book Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Tyler, 1949) and the influence of its technical rationality on curriculum thought and practice. While Flinders and Thornton mention the importance of Tyler in their commentaries on sections two and three of their book, I think some excerpt from Tyler himself would have been a particularly useful addition. This relative omission is surprising, especially since the editors suggest how Tyler is connected with a longstanding tradition ". . . among curriculum scholars to provide teachers and other educational practitioners with forms of technical assistance" (p. 43).         Now this tradition is itself a source of controversy and confusion within the field and is highly relevant to the story The Curriculum Studies Reader relates. For the last half century, Tyler and approaches based on his technical rationality have reinforced the notion that curriculum studies should lead directly to the solution of school problems. Such approaches foster a kind of "tool kit" mentality; that is, that teachers, for instance, should be trained in a series of discrete skills of diagnosis and correction. If, for instance, a student is not learning well, the teacher should be able to identify the cause (such as lack of motivation) and be able to pull out the right "tool" (such as reorganizing the curriculum so that lessons relate to the student's current interests) in order to fix the problem. In this view, the curriculum scholar is a specialist narrowly focused on when and how to use only the curriculum tools- but not the many other tools- that the average educator's kit should contain. This role is rather different from the far more longstanding role of the curriculum scholar as a seeker of wisdom about how to answer such basic curriculum questions as: What knowledge is of most worth?         Despite Tyler's major influence, the development of curriculum studies has actually moved in a very different direction since the 1960s (a point made clear by Flinders and Thornton's selections for, and commentary on, parts three and four of the book). A century ago, a major concern of the forming curriculum field may indeed have been school trouble-shooting, a concern shaped first by such people as Bobbitt and later by Tyler into the technical problem- solving typical of the 1960s, but in recent decades the field of curriculum studies has developed a much broader perspective. Therefore, not only do modern curriculum studies include investigation of both practical and theoretical issues concerning curriculum development, the field also now includes a rapidly growing body of attendant scholarship (such as historical studies) aimed at understanding the nature of the field itself and how its basic topics, issues, ideas and procedures are similar to those in numerous other social scientific and humanistic disciplines. For instance, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and critical theory are very much alive in the curriculum field. The seriousness and comprehensiveness of Macdonald's vision are becoming a reality, and, in general, the aim of modern curriculum studies is no longer to provide practitioners with technical, problem-solving tool kits, but through a full range of academic studies to help them develop a deep intuitive understanding from which they can make their own informed decisions that do justice to the complexity and vitality of curriculum.         The third and fourth sections of The Curriculum Studies Reader contribute directly to such investigation. The third section, entitled "Pondering the Curriculum," exemplifies the broadening vision of the 1970s and 1980s through articles by William Pinar, Dwayne Huebner, Maxine Greene, Paulo Freire, Eisner, Milbrey Wallin McLaughlin, F. M. Connelly and Miriam Ben-Peretz, Gail McCutcheon, and Diane Ravitch. With the exception of Ravitch, who mounts a traditional defense of the liberal arts but without much sense of the history of curriculum studies, all of these authors can be identified in one way or another as "reconceptualists." The term "reconceptualist"- although in some ways problematical- was coined by Pinar (Pinar, 1975) in the 1970s to identify the large scale breaking away by curriculum scholars from the legacy of Bobbitt, Tyler, and the strictures of the 1960s.         Flinders and Thornton correctly attribute a great deal of influence to authors who were central to this movement. Although I agree with their assessment of its significance, my concern here is with precisely how Flinders and Thornton describe- or, more accurately, do not describe- the movement. In fact, this movement has been made up of scholars with two different but nonetheless complementary interests. The predominant interest of one group has been in enhancing the personal experience of the individual, particularly by investigating how individuals create meaning within the specific situations in which they find themselves. This push toward personal meaning and individual liberation is consistent with Dewey's notion of the curriculum as found within the experience of the individual and education as the enhancement of its quality (Dewey, 1938). The predominant interest of the other group of scholars is political. This group is primarily concerned with investigating how curriculum issues tie in with issues of equity and social justice, particularly on a large scale. This push toward social meaning and collective liberation is consistent with Dewey's notions of democracy and of how the curriculum is both influenced by and influences the social context within which the school exists (Dewey, 1916).         One of the most intriguing stories within curriculum studies of the last two decades is how reconceptualist scholars of both interests have been able to create a common intellectual front that builds upon both sides of Dewey's thinking yet permits a radical pluralism of methods and ideas. This is still another sign of the vitality of the field. While Flinders and Thornton's selection of articles for the third section of the book in some ways exemplify both predominant interests among reconceptualists, they unduly avoid, I think, telling any of this story. Instead, in their introduction to this section, they fall back on the statement: "Just as the meaning of reconceptualism itself has always been open to varying interpretations, . . . it is easier to distinguish it from earlier traditions of curriculum thought than to identify who is and who is not a reconceptualist" (p. 118).         Despite having provided little direct definition of the reconceptualist movement or where it is taking the field, Flinders and Thornton pack their fourth and final section (titled "After a Century of Curriculum Thought: Contemporary Issues and Continuing Debates') with a wide variety of articles that illustrate the present diversity of curriculum studies. Some of the authors in this section are not curriculum scholars (nor would some identify themselves as such), yet each of the articles elaborates some kind of issue that scholars and theorists of the field are currently surveying and attempting to locate accurately. The first eight articles in this section are by David Jardine; Jonathan Silin; Jeannie Oaks; John Jennings; Nathan Glazer; Christine Sleeter and Carl Grant; Mary Field Belenky, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule; and Nel Noddings. They include such topics as environmental and health concerns, tracking, school reform, multiculturalism, race, class, and the education of women.         The last three articles are by Eisner, Michael Apple, and Ann Lieberman, all of whom are well known contributors to curriculum studies. Collectively, these articles comprise a specific sub-section of the fourth section devoted to the relationship between curriculum scholarship and what is taught in school and to assessment of the field at large and where it should be headed. Interestingly, while these three articles are not identified as reconceptualist, they address both of the predominant interests of the reconceptualists and thus provide an overview of the field that I would like to have seen addressed more directly in the introduction to the previous section of the book.         All in all, although The Curriculum Studies Reader that Flinders and Thornton have created is not the same reader I would have created, my quibbles with it are strictly minor. I have suggested it is not complete but it is comprehensive; that is to say that the inherent limitation of any book in this genre is that it cannot include everything, but given what it does include, it samples and interprets seriously a full range of issues and approaches that define the field. I think The Curriculum Studies Reader captures the true vitality of curriculum studies. I think it does so in a way that James Macdonald would approve. References Bobbitt, J.F. (1918). The curriculum. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Caswell, H.L., & Caswell, D.S. (1935). Curriculum development. New York: American Book Company. Caswell, H.L., & Caswell, D.S. (Eds.). (1937). Readings in curriculum development. New York: American Book Company. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan. Macdonald, J.B. (1967). An example of disciplined curriculum thinking. Theory into Practice, 6 (4), 166-171. Macdonald, J.B. (1975). Curriculum theory. In W. Pinar (Ed.), Curriculum theorizing: The reconceptualists. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan, 283-294. Pinar, W.F. (1975). Curriculum theorizing: The Reconceptualists. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan. Pinar, W.F., Reynolds, W.M., Slattery, P., & Taubman, Peter M. (1995). Understanding curriculum: An introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. New York: Peter Lang. Schubert, W.H. (1986). Curriculum: Perspective, paradigm, and possibility. New York: Macmillan. Smith, B.O., Stanley, W.O., & Shores, J.H. (1950). Fundamentals of curriculum development. Yonkers-on-the- Hudson, NY: World Book. Tanner, D., & Tanner, L.N. (1975). Curriculum Development: Theory into practice. New York: Macmillan. Tyler, R.W. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Walker, D.F. (1990). Fundamentals of curriculum. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Zais, R.S. (1976). Curriculum: Principles and foundations. New York: Thomas W. Crowell. About the Reviewer George Willis University of Rhode Island George Willis has written on curriculum studies and qualitative research. He is co-author (with Colin J. Marsh) of Curriculum: Alternative Approaches, Ongoing Issues (Merrill/Prentice-Hall, 1999).