The AAACS is the United States chapter of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, a worldwide consortium of those with an interest in the field of curriculum studies. Primarily comprised of scholars, students, and other interested parties, the Annual Meeting of the AAACS is currently free of charge and sessions are open to those who wish to attend.

Held just prior to the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, our annual conference is located on a university campus or sponsored cite in the same city as that year’s AERA conference. Each year sessions are organized around a central theme that reflects the tenor, tone, and content of current curricular conversations.

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TWELFTH ANNUAL MEETING AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF CURRICULUM STUDIES

HOTEL KABUKI, SAN FRANSISCO,  April 24-27, 2013

CONFERENCE VENUE & ACCOMMODATION

Our 2013 conference will, as is our tradition, take place on the three days prior to AERA, in the same city.  Our conference is taking place at the Hotel Kabuki.

UPDATED 2013 AAACS CONFERENCE PROGRAM IS AVAILABLE HERE.

INFORMATION TO PARTICIPANTS

If you were appointed Session Chair, please open and end session, distribute time evenly among presenters, reserve appropriate time for discussions, and rigorously respect the time. Sessions must end 3m before the hour. Thank you so much for your collaboration!

1. CONFERENCE COSTS. We would like to remind you that we are asking those who can help to support the costs of this year’s conference by making a donation. We have suggested $52.00, but the amount is up to you, as this is voluntary, given AAACS’s traditional of no membership fees and no conference fees; nevertheless, the unexpected venue switch this year to an expensive city with few AAACS members has led to this special request. You can send a check to Peter Appelbaum, Department of Curriculum, Cultures and Child/Youth Studies, Arcadia University, 450 South Easton Road, Glenside, PA 19038. International participants can also donate at the conference registration table.

2. PLEASE PRINT YOUR PROGRAM. As is our tradition, we will have some copies of the program at the registration table, However, to keep costs down, we request that you bring your own copy if possible.

3. THERE ARE NO PROJECTION UNITS OR COMPUTERS in the rooms, so if you are planning on using any technology, please bring your own.

4. AAACS GOES VIDEO. At our business meeting, we will briefly discuss the idea of expanding our journal to include a YouTube channel of curriculum scholars’ statements on contemporary policy and practice. If you are willing to video a selection of your session in San Francisco, or have interests in helping with this project in other ways, such as being the videographer and interviewing colleagues at our conference with your own equipment (phone, flip, etc.), please contact Hannah Spector, at hannahspector@hotmail.com.

5. BRING BOOKS TO PROMOTE. This year’s book exhibit will be a BOOK SWAP! Bring one or two copies (or more!) of your own book, or a book that you think we in curriculum studies should be reading (new, classic, or otherwise surprising), to put on display and to trade for others at the conference. The more books we bring, the more we learn about each others’ work, the more we can have conversations that include each others’ work, the more we can cite each others’ publications! Reprints of articles are also welcome!

6. ELECTIONS SOON. Keep on alert, please, for announcements about AAACS elections and also for the international IAACS elections, both of which are upcoming.

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CALL FOR PAPERS IS CLOSED – PROPOSAL DEADLINE DECEMBER 1, 2012

Please read the Call for Papers below or download HERE.

Conference Theme: Counter-western curriculum theory: Displacement, Transference, or Action?

That the world is global, cosmopolitan and complex would naturally be fluid music for the ears of curriculum scholars. That such dynamics drive local societies to shocking and Caspian social, economic and cultural paradoxes is a truism of any respectful academic document in general, and curriculum studies in particular. That such conditions are irreversible is, however, a divisive question for some scholars. The unsustainability of the inhuman, local consequences of globalization naturally reinforces its persistence, and pushes the (ethical) struggle for social justice into extreme levels of complexity. The history of our field is rich with narratives of individuals struggling for a more just curriculum and more equitable schools. Many scholars have directly addressed such powerful struggles, routinely denounced hidden and explicit eugenic policies and practices, and constructed new discourses that strive to circumvent problematic practices. The curriculum field has, at the same time, played key roles in the struggle for more relevant curriculum and pedagogies, and curriculum scholars have been responsible for some of the most important intellectual battles that have been fought both diachronically and synchronically within the educational field more broadly.  With the advent of globalization and its cosmopolitan costs, the struggle for social justice needs to take into serious consideration, among other issues, the epistemological genocides perpetrated by ambassadors of Western modernity. We need new theories. We need, in particular, a just theory that attempts to resolve the contradictions of the present historical, cultural, and economic moment. Much critique of globalization now circulating in curriculum studies both nationally, in the United States, and internationally, helps us understand some of the abhorrent effects of globalization. Nevertheless, little of such critique is grounded in a strong commitment to work beyond the Western epistemological perimeter.  Yet, to call for responses to such a situation is no more than another reproduction of center-periphery discourse! At the same time, the formerly silenced discourses struggle to complexify an already intricate conversation beyond this epistemological crisis. The debris of such confusion is the reinforcement of a particular Western position.

But this is nothing new! Were you lulled to sleep by the previous paragraph? Why have we grown so complacent? Why do we repeat and repeat (and repeat …) these critiques of our own work? The psychoanalytic interpretation is clear: because, by doing so, we find pleasure in our work. Or so it seems. Explanation number one, following Said: those in power in curriculum studies maintain a perceived gap between Western and “other”  in order to perpetuate an orientalism of the other, and therefore to hold off the completion of a fantasy of merging with those erotic, oriental theories.  Explanation number two: We unconsciously believe that the other theories are “bad” for us; then, seeking them out and never actually interacting with them is a perseveration neurosis of our field, something like walking dark streets where prostitutes are known to be found, only to never actually pay for a prostitute; if we were to truly experience what the “other” indigenous epistemes had to offer, the thrill of the desire would be gone, so we need to never carry out the dream in order to maintain the fantasy of exquisite ecstasy. It is only good to truly want to undermine the Western dominance of the field, and only feels good, ironically, when we desire it; to fulfill the desire would mean the end of the fantasy and thus the end of the dream. Ending the dream would lead to an end of searches for ways to learn about alternative, culture-shocking curriculum theorizing that we seem to need to know about. Explanation three: the avoidance of cross-cultural and inter-cultural literacy in the field of education meets a fundamental psychoanalytic need of most curriculum scholars. What is this need? It might be the seemly satisfying promises more  than the fulfillment of the dream , for this devalues the dream, which is doubly embarrassing in undermining two dreams at once.  The need is so powerful, it means ignoring research, not paying attention to recommendations by colleagues who have tried it. AAACS XII proposes that we highlight work in our program that is moving toward a new field. Each proposal will be expected to meet several of the following criteria for this new mode of theorizing:

1. A read of your proposal and a reviewer’s imagination about what will happen at the conference based on what you wrote, includes most of the following as symptoms of a sick world in need of a prescribed cure: internationalization, nation- and local-based curriculum theories and practices, generation of parallel or independent lines of itinerant flights, challenging in the process powerful legacies of colonialism and neocolonialism at the very core of globalization. Such curriculum routes need to be sentient of convoluted social issues such as urbanization, development, rural education, apprenticeship, place, space, time and migration. Of course, as is our AAACS tradition, proposals for current research projects not directly tied to the yearly theme are also welcome.
2. In view of this, our 2013 AAACS conference call for papers asks curriculum scholars and educators to re-examine and consider curriculum theory beyond the Western, Anglo-Saxon epistemological terrain. This means making substantial if not central use of a curriculum research publication from at least one different curriculum scholar from those whom would never be considered a scholar within your own extended family of citations, i.e.,  of influences and influencers of influences in your work.
3. Symposia proposed should make a greater than average effort meet to these criteria. At the same time, other issues and concerns of interest to our members are welcome on this year’s program, and experimental formats are encouraged.
4. Proposals should include a plan for making the controversial work of the session explicit and to make sure that the audience understands what is controversial and how that is transformative.
5. When possible, invite a well-known school or policy-maker who would  be embarrassed or professionally damaged by your work, if it were to be taken seriously, to participate in the AAACS conference, either as part of your session or as an independent rebuttal session to be feature on a future AAACS YouTube channel.

As an association affiliated with the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies [IAACS] we seek to address the following issues: How can we fight for a just society and just school, and just curriculum with a just theory? How can we engage and create a just theory? A question we are tempted to ask, “Who determines the we?” can only be asked in a discourses that already has those included and those excluded by criteria. Who defines a just theory? Who sets the limits? When we ask these questions, we construct an ideological neutral teacher, student, and policy designer who would not experience their own understanding of their social and cultural reality as having common elements; meaning the limits would be experienced differently as would the justice of a particular theory. If to interpret society is to change it,  how can we produce any change with blemished theoretical tools? Can we head on a global theory?  What do we really want? Do we want to change the field? Do we want to change curriculum theory? Do we want to change society? Do we want to challenge the Western modern discrepancy between social experience and social expectations? What are we doing now? What now is helping us to participate in the great conversation that is curriculum theory, and what are you doing to help AAACS make these kind of thin   How can we engage in a theory that is aware of different historical patterns within the West and beyond the West and between West and non-West platforms? How can we produce a theory that doesn’t seek a predominant pattern? In what ways does the lack of such a theory make the pleasure of wanting such a theory even more pleasurable than any seemingly perfect theory could be?

If you are submitting a proposal or planning to attend the conference but are not currently a member, please complete the membership registration available under the“Membership” tab at http://www.aaacs.org. The membership list is the primary way that we communicate with conference attendees, so if you submit a proposal but are not on the membership list you will likely not receive important information about the conference. If you are already a member but have not received membership communications within the past year that probably means that we do not have your correct email address, and so we respectfully ask that you complete another membership registration.

Please submit your papers to João Paraskeva & Maria Alfredo Moreira [Program Chair andProgram Co-Chair] aaacsam@yahoo.com

PROPOSAL DEADLINE

Proposals received by December 1, 2012 will be given priority in terms of placement on the program. Because of the peer review and schedule development processes, proposals received after this date may not be guaranteed a spot.

AAACS 2013 Proposal Guide

As described in this year’s conference theme, you are encouraged to contribute to the complicated conversation that creates meaningful curriculum study through any of the great variety of passions and perspectives that have informed your work to date. Any proposal is welcomed and encouraged. For the past several years we have been experimenting with the format of “working groups” that meet several times over the course of the conference to draft policy recommendations, research summaries, or other suitable media to be voted on by the members of AAACS as officially endorsed public position statements. At the 2012 meeting, the membership organized task forces on the internationalization of curriculum studies, and on the potential for curriculum studies scholars to speak to issues of policy, public pedagogy, and political discourse. Proposals addressing such groups and initiatives are encouraged, and will be given special attention in the approval process, as will proposals that feature arts, performance, interaction and community participation, and new formats that might become models for our future meetings.

We ask that each presenter donate at least one book for the book exhibit. This book (or more) should be one that you believe others should know about and want to add to their professional library. It could be a new copy of your own book; a used copy of a favorite that you read every year, etc. At the end of the conference, on our last day, we will have our freecycle trading of these books. First choice goes to volunteers who helped with registration, social event planning, and other hostly duties, followed by the rest of the conference participants.