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Download the AAACS Proposed Canon Here

The AAACS Curriculum Canon Project February, 2010

The AAACS Proposed Canon is offered by the members of the Curriculum Canon Project Committee: Patrick Roberts (chair), Nina Asher, Erik Malewski, and Janet Miller. The committee was constituted following the 2009 annual meeting and charged with formulating a specific list of “key texts in the intellectual history of curriculum studies” (AAACS Canon Project) that, in the professional judgment of the committee, would constitute “a base-line of curriculum studies expertise” (Pinar, 2008). The committee has fulfilled this charge and hereby submits its work to the AAACS general membership for review and discussion. It is now up to the general membership to: 1) decide whether the proposed list should be endorsed, adopted, revised, and/or amended, and 2) clarify how the curriculum studies canon will be “put into action” in order to help advance the curriculum studies field.

From September 2009 through January 2010, the committee communicated by email and met multiple times by phone. The committee first developed criteria for judging whether or not a particular text merited inclusion on the list:

I. Eligibility Criteria:

a. Published prior to 1970
b. Major contribution that by all reasonable standards falls within the scope of curriculum studies.

II. Evaluative Criteria:

a. Key text that made “a distinctive and necessary contribution” to the field of curriculum studies;
b. Key text that represented a “turning point” in the field of curriculum studies;
c. Key text that “helped change the direction and scope of curriculum studies;”
d. Key text that was generative of new lines of inquiry in the curriculum studies field.

Each member of the committee was tasked with formulating a broad list of curriculum studies texts that in their individual judgment met the Eligibility Criteria and one or more of the Evaluative Criteria. In formulating their lists, committee members consulted Bill Schubert’s 2009 report as well as a number of other sources dealing with the history of the field. These sources are noted in the reference list below. Over the course of a number of meetings the committee members discussed, synthesized, and refined their respective lists into the master list that is presented here.

The committee discussed at length the challenge of being inclusive while avoiding tokenism or broadening the list beyond what was felt to be a useful core. Thus, the committee ran into an inherent conflict: by attempting to name texts that met the criteria for the project it necessarily did not include many important works that might have brought more diversity to the list. While we, the committee, dislike the fact that the intellectual history of the curriculum studies field lacks, among other forms of difference, intellectual, racial, gender, and class diversity, a comparison of that history to the present day field illustrates both how far we have come and how far we have to go. If nothing else, it is the committee’s hope that the curriculum studies canon will encourage, through concrete understanding of the field’s historicity, curriculum scholars to see their own work in complicated conversations with this history, and to imagine and work toward a curriculum canon of the future that will represent a plurality of diverse voices, experiences, and ideas.

Finally, it should be noted that inclusion of a particular work on the list does not equal committee endorsement of the ideas or perspectives expressed in that work.

Resources

Kliebard, H. M. (1995). The struggle for the American curriculum, 1893-1958. 2nd Ed. New York: Routledge.

Kridel, C. (2000). Books of the century catalog: The curriculum collection. Columbia, SC: Museum of Education, University of South Carolina.

Marshall, J.D., Schubert, W.H. and Sears, J.T. (1994). Turning points survey. A compilation of different areas of professional preference of and influences on curriculum scholars. Columbia, S.C.: College of Education, University of South Carolina, Funded by the Curriculum Teachers Network of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 45 pps.

Marshal, J. D., Sears, J. T., Allen, L. A., Roberts, P. A., & Schubert, W. H. (2007). Turning points in curriculum: A contemporary American memoir, 2nd Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Pinar, W. F., Reynolds, W. M., Slattery, P., Taubman, P. M. (1995). Understanding curriculum: An introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. New York: Peter Lang.

Schubert, W. H. (2009). “Possibilities, recommendations, and suggestions for the AAACS project to advance curriculum studies through disciplinarity.”

Schubert, W. H., Lopez Schubert, A. L., Thomas, T. P., & Carroll, W. M. (2002). Curriculum books: The first hundred years, 2nd Ed. New York: Peter Lang.

AAACS Proposed Canon

1. Aikin, W. M. (1942). The story of the eight year study, with conclusions and recommendations. New York: Harper & Brothers.
2. Alberty, H. B. & Alberty, E. J. (1962). Reorganizing the high school curriculum. New York: Macmillan.
3. Beauchamp, G. A. (1961). Curriculum theory. Wilmette, IL: Kagg Press.
4. Berman, L. M. (1968). New priorities in the curriculum. Columbus, OH: C. E. Merrill.
5. Bobbitt, F. (1918). The curriculum. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.
6. Bode, B. H. (1938). Progressive education at the crossroads. New York: Newson & Co.
7. Bond, H. M. (1934). The education of the Negro in the American social order. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prenctice-Hall.
8. Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
9. Counts, G. S. (1932). Dare the schools build a new social order? New York: John Day Company.
10. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: The Macmillan Company.
11. Dubois, W. E. B. (1935). Does the Negro need separate schools? The Journal of Negro Education, 4: 3 (July), 328-335.
12. Freire, P. (1968). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury.
13. Goodlad, J. (1964). School curriculum reform in the United States. New York: Fund for the Advancement of Education.
14. Greene, M. (1965). The public school and the private vision: A search for America in education and literature. New York: Random House, Inc.
15. Herrick, V. E., & Tyler, R. W. (Eds.). (1950). Toward improved curriculum theory: Papers presented at the Conference on Curriculum Theory, 1947, University of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
16. Huebner, D. (1967). Curriculum as concern for man’s temporality. Theory into practice 6 (4), 172-179.
17. Kilpatrick, W. (1918). The project method: The use of the purposeful act in the educative process. New York: Teachers College Press.
18. Macdonald, J. (1967). An example of disciplined curriculum thinking. Theory Into Practice, 6(4), 166-171.
19. Miel, A. (1946). Changing the curriculum: A social process. New York: Appleton-Century.
20. National Education Association (1894). Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies. New York: The American Book Company.
21. National Education Association (1895). Report of the Committee of Fifteen on Elementary Education. New York: The American Book Company.
22. National Education Association (1918). Cardinal principles of secondary education: A report of the commission on the reorganization of secondary education. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office.
23. National Society for the Study of Education Committee on Curriculum-Making (1927). The foundations of curriculum-making. In G. M. Whipple (Ed.), The Twenty-Sixth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education: The foundations and technique of curriculum-construction (pp. 11-28). Bloomington, IL, Public School Publishing Company.
24. Phenix, P. (1964). Realms of meaning: A philosophy of the curriculum for general education. New York: McGraw-Hill.
25. Schwab, J. J. (1970). The practical: A language for curriculum. Washington D.C.: National Education Association.
26. Seguel, M. (1966). The curriculum field: Its formative years. New York: Teachers College Press.
27. Smith, B. O., Stanley, W. O., & Shores, J. H. (1957). Fundamentals of curriculum development. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World.
28. Spencer, H. (1966). What knowledge is of most worth. In A. M. Kazamias, (Ed.), Herbert Spencer on education (pp. 121-159). New York: Teachers College Press. (Original work published in 1860)
29. Taba, H. (1962). Curriculum development: Theory and practice. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc.
30. Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
31. Washington, B. T. (1901/2010). The Atlanta Exposition Address [1895]. In Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. New York: Signet Classics.
32. Woodson, C. G. (1933/1990). The mis-education of the Negro. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

Call for Manuscripts: Special Issue of the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing

Working Title:  Sensual Curriculum: Understanding Curriculum of and Through
the Senses

Guest Editor: Walter S. Gershon, Kent State University

Human beings understand themselves and their environments through the senses—they are the ways in which we perceive our lives and ourselves in relation to others. We therefore “make sense” of our worlds literally and figuratively. However, the meanings we make through sight, smell, sound, taste and touch are context dependent, predicated as much on local and more broad norms and values as our own personal preferences. As such, where sensory perception is information that we attain through our senses, the meanings ascribed to those perceptions are simultaneously deeply personal as well as ideologically and aesthetically dependent. In short, sense making is political, one possible interpretation among many possibilities.

There has been increasing attention to arts-based/influenced understandings within education and to sensory ways of knowing in fields outside of education. Although there certainly is a history of work that considers curriculum and the senses, work that examines curriculum through the senses is far less common. This is in part due to the strength of reading human interactions and social phenomenon as “big t” Text and in part to an emphasis in curriculum studies to understanding curricular phenomenon as Text. Yet, while reading interactions and phenomena as text can be critically informative and creates the space for their deconstruction and other important kinds of examinations, this interpretive move can also serve to remove the very kinds of non-text-based sensual understandings that render bodies (as but one example) so rich in meaning and possibility.

This special issue seeks to push at current conceptual boundaries in the relationships between curriculum and the senses. Contributions to this special issue have been framed in the following manner. Roughly half of the issue will correspond to each of the five senses, examining the ways in which that particular sense intersects with questions of curriculum, writ broadly. The remaining entries will address the relationship between curriculum and the senses in a more holistic, general fashion; these pieces can, however, foreground a particular sense in order to illustrate more general curricular, sensory understandings. Attention will be paid to help ensure a diversity of fields, methods, institutions, and sensual perspectives.

Authors wishing to submit manuscripts in response to this call must have their work submitted via the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing website no later than October 1, 2010. All manuscripts will be subject to a double-blind review process. Potential authors will be notified of their acceptance to this issue by December 1, 2010 with an expected publication date of September 2011. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the author’s guideline posted on the JCT website.

Please note that these requirements include that the manuscript ascribe to the following guidelines:
1)   No more than 25 pages in length including references
2)   Double-spaced throughout
3)   1-inch margins on all sides
4)   Written in 12 point, Times New Roman
5)   Footnotes should be gathered at the end of the paper
6)   Utilize the 6th edition of the American Psychological Association

Finally, while questions of quality are of paramount importance to the inclusion of manuscripts for this special issue, given the nature of this special issue topic, alternative and innovative uses of JCT’s online formatting are encouraged. Questions pertaining to this call for manuscripts should be addressed to Walter S. Gershon, the guest editor for this special issue, via email at wgershon@kent.edu.