CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT in the POSTMODERN ERA
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RT3383X_C000.fmPOSTMODERN ERA in the
RT3383X_title page 4/6/06 11:37 AM Page 1
POSTMODERN ERA in the
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
PATRICK SLATTERY
Second Edition
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
New York London
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint material Excerpt from Choruses from “The Rock” in
Collected Poems
1909-1962 by T.S. Eliot, copyright © 1964, 1963 by T.S. Eliot, reprinted by permission of the publisher. Excerpt from “Little Gidding” in
Four Quartets,
copyright © 1943 by T.S. Eliot and renewed 1971 by Esme Valerie Eliot, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace & Company. Excerpts from
A Lesson Before Dying
, copyright © 1993 by Ernest J. Gaines, reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf. Figure 8.1 on page 220 is taken from figure 8.2 in Donald Oliver and Kathleen W. Gershman,
Education, Modernity, and Fractured Meaning: Toward a Process Theory of Teaching and Learning
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989). Table 9.1 on page 235 is taken from figure 7-3 in William H. Schubert,
Curriculum: Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility
(New York: Macmillan, 1986).
Published in 2006 by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016
Published in Great Britain by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 2 Park Square Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN
© 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-95337-5 (Hardcover) 0-415-95338-3 (Softcover) International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-95337-5 (Hardcover) 978-0-415-95338-2 (Softcover) Library of Congress Card Number 2005035754
No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers.
Trademark Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Slattery, Patrick, 1953- Curriculum development in the postmodern era / Patrick Slattery.-- 2nd ed.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-95337-5 (hb : alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-415-95338-3 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Curriculum planning. 2. Curriculum change. 3. Education--Curricula--Philosophy. 4.
Postmodernism. I. Title.
and the Routledge Web site at http://www.routledge-ny.com
Taylor & Francis Group is the Academic Division of Informa plc.
RT3383X_Discl.fm Page 1 Friday, April 14, 2006 8:45 AM
The fundamental human quest is the search for meaning and the basic capacity for this
search is experienced in the hermeneutic process, the process of interpretation of the text (whether artifact,
natural world, or human action). This is the search (or research) for greater understanding that
motivates and satisfies us. ... The act of theorizing is an act of faith, a religious act ... . It is an expression
of the humanistic vision in life.
—James B. Macdonald
vii
Contents
1 Introduction to Curriculum Development, Reconceptualization, and Postmodernity 17
2 Historical Perspectives on Curriculum as a Field of Study 37 3 The Reconceptualization of Curriculum Studies from
1973 to 2006 57 4 Postmodern Schooling, Curriculum, and the Theological Text 71
Part Two Complicated Conversations in Contemporary Curriculum Development
5 The Hermeneutic Circle and the Interpretive Process 115 6 Gender, Sexuality, Race, and Ethnicity in a Multicultural
and Diverse Milieu 143
viii Contents
7 Postmodern Philosophies in Curriculum Studies 187 8 Curriculum for Interdependence and Ecological
Sustainability 199 9 Utopian Visions, Democracy, and the Egalitarian Ideal 227
10 Aesthetic Inquiry, Arts-Based Research, and the Proleptic Moment 241
Part Three Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era
11 Time and Complexity 271 12 A Vision of Curriculum in the Postmodern Era 281
References 299 Name Index 317 Subject Index 327
RT3383X_bookTOC.fm Page viii Wednesday, March 29, 2006 1:54 PM
ix
Preface
I began my teaching career in 1975 as a naive and exuberant twenty-one-year-old senior at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. The college office of student teaching assigned me to Saint Michael High School to teach two periods of sophomore geometry and one class in theology. This experience not only launched my new career but also initiated an exciting life journey into the world of schooling and curriculum. Thirty years later, as I write this preface to the second edition of Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era, I am still a committed and enthusiastic teacher, now an educational researcher at Texas A&M University in College Station and a lecturer at the summer leadership academy at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. I also enjoy presenting invited lectures at various campuses, such as the University of Manitoba, Teachers College of Columbia University, Saint Joseph’s University in Phila- delphia, Ohio State University, and the University of Alberta. In my early career I had the great fortune to teach and to learn from many diverse students in six different high schools in Arizona, New Mexico, and Louisiana. I held secondary certification in math- ematics and English, but I also occasionally taught computer science (my first under- graduate major, at Louisiana State University in 1971) and theology (my first graduate degree, from Saint Mary’s College of California in 1980).
There were times in my early career as a teacher when I became very frustrated working in schools. The complex bureaucratic structure, lack of resources, overcrowded classrooms, stacks of assignments to grade, multiple class preparations with few prepa- ration periods, insubordinate students, burnt-out colleagues, inadequate facilities, and inane curriculum materials drove me crazy. But I never quit. Why? I was energized by the academic and extracurricular activities in the schools and my friendships with colleagues. Throughout my years of teaching, I sustained a passion for literature, theol- ogy, mathematics, and the arts. Counseling students provided a sense of mission and purpose in my life. The school was my community, and the faculty and students were my extended family. I found tremendous satisfaction in my extracurricular assignments as a coach, moderator, and chaperone. I loved counseling, coaching, and connections with students, so I refused to quit when times got tough. I do not think I even realized the injustice of the paltry salary and limited benefits I received.
RT3383X_C000.fm Page ix Wednesday, March 29, 2006 5:46 PM
x Preface
Instead of changing careers when overwhelmed by frustration, I decided to return to college for a master’s degree in educational leadership. I thought I could fix the prob- lems I had observed in schools. I received certification as a K–12 administrator and served as a principal in two schools for the next seven years. I found that the principal- ship was even more frustrating than classroom teaching, especially since I was only thirty years old when I started and still a novice at understanding complex school sys- tems. I was often caught between competing interests among the faculty and the demands of the school board. Limited resources prevented implementation of curricu- lum and instruction plans. I felt trapped in the conflicting politics of parent organiza- tions, athletic boards, district bureaucracies, and faculty contracts. I made plenty of mistakes! But I also found great satisfaction in working with faculty and parents on important projects to educate students and transform communities. One of my schools even received national recognition: we were invited to an awards ceremony with Presi- dent Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Education William Bennett at the White House in 1985.
I experience life as an adventure in learning. The philosophy of curriculum develop- ment that I describe in this text is committed to lifelong learning for students, teachers, and indeed, all citizens. For educators, our philosophy of education and our openness to new ideas dramatically affects our teaching and learning. How would you describe your philosophy, interests, and passions? Here are a few of mine: reading Southern nov- els and postmodern philosophy texts; listening to live music; traveling to historic and cultural sites; studying political ideologies; watching SEC college football and NHL hockey; attending independent film festivals; viewing contemporary art installations and exhibits at museums; marching in protest rallies against the Iraq war, against capital punishment, for environmental justice, for gay rights, and for living wage initiatives; playing chess at grungy coffee houses; cooking gumbo for my family and friends; doing yoga; attending the Austin City Limits music festival, Tanglewood music performances in Massachusetts, the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival; creating provocative art installations; playing disc golf with my son in Austin; talking about architecture with my mother, stepfather, and oldest daugh- ter; relaxing and reading to my grandchildren with their mom and dad; researching educational issues for lectures and papers; working out at the gym; attending Broadway musicals and plays; meeting friends and engaging in interesting and provocative con- versations; discovering new adventures of the mind. I also love Mardi Gras in my hometown, New Orleans. I have seldom missed the Mardi Gras, and I hope that the joi de vivre will soon return to my city as we recover from the floods of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
With this commitment to lifelong learning, it was only natural that I returned to college for a doctoral degree at thirty-two. I was living in Phoenix at the time, and I began a program in philosophy and theology at Arizona State University. A job transfer to Louisiana prevented me from completing the degree, but I continued my studies at LSU in Baton Rouge. Practical considerations led me to pursue the PhD in educational administration rather than philosophy, but with the arrival of William Pinar at LSU in
RT3383X_C000.fm Page x Wednesday, March 29, 2006 5:46 PM
Preface xi
1985 as chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, I decided to change my degree program to the doctorate in curriculum studies. My life and career changed forever.
I met Bill Pinar while registering for classes at a branch campus of LSU, set amid the rice fields and crawfish ponds of Eunice, Louisiana, in the fall of 1985. I had never heard of Pinar; I did not know that he was the new chair of Curriculum and Instruction at LSU and a famous curriculum theorist. While waiting for materials to arrive at the registration table, Bill and I engaged in a lively discussion about theology, art, psychol- ogy, and literature. Bill had studied feminist theology and black theology at Colgate Rochester Divinity School; I had studied liberation theology and eschatology in Cali- fornia. Bill had written a paper on Jackson Pollock’s painting The White Cockatoo; I had experienced an epiphany in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City while viewing Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm. Bill had done extensive research in Jungian psychol- ogy; I was attending weekly Jungian dream analysis and reading books about Jung’s notion of the shadow. Bill began his career as a high school English teacher and had a particular affinity for Virginia Woolf; I taught American literature in high schools and had a strong affinity for William Faulkner. We passionately discussed our interpretation of themes in Woolf ’s A Room of One’s Own and To the Lighthouse and Faulkner’s The Bear and The Sound and the Fury. We talked about other authors who had inspired us: Marcel Proust, Zora Neale Hurston, Walt Whitman, Toni Morrison, and Oscar Wilde. Bill shared his anticipation and apprehension about being an antiracist white male moving to the South from his native Ohio and adopted New York; I explained my posi- tion as a progressive Catholic Southern white male from a prominent conservative family in Louisiana. We both pondered the complex implications that racism, religion, geography, and sexism had for our lives.
I barely noticed the long wait, and I was disappointed when our conversation had to end. Meeting this new professor was magical and inspiring: it had been my first lesson in curriculum development in the postmodern era.
I did not meet Bill Pinar again until the next semester. I was the principal of a school in Crowley, Louisiana, about an hour’s drive west of Baton Rouge, and Bill was busy with his new leadership position at LSU. However, his final question at the end of our conversation haunted me for the next six months. I had mentioned to Bill that I was a doctoral student in educational administration, working on a study comparing test scores in two Louisiana school districts. I was investigating the relationship of the size of district staffing to scores on standardized tests. Would a larger leadership staff in the central office help to improve test scores, or would site-based spending on testing mate- rials be a more efficient use of scarce resources? To be honest, it was a pretty boring study, and my heart was not in the project, but I wanted to complete the dissertation in educational administration so that I could eventually become a superintendent and make more money — I had three babies under the age of three in 1985.
At his invitation, I met Bill Pinar for lunch at the stately LSU Faculty Club during the next semester. He asked me again how I planned to incorporate Jungian psychology, eschatological theology, Southern literature, and abstract expressionist painting into my dissertation research. I was dumbfounded. I had no idea what he meant. I had not been
RT3383X_C000.fm Page xi Wednesday, March 29, 2006 5:46 PM
xii Preface
introduced to any forms of research other than quantitative methodologies. What did these things have to do with data analysis, statistics, and quantitative measures? Bill began to explain his work in autobiography, qualitative methodologies, and reconcep- tualized understandings of curriculum and instruction. I was fascinated.
Why had no one ever told me this? Why did I assume that curriculum develop- ment was simply setting goals, writing behavioral objectives, implementing lesson plans, and evaluating results? Why did I assume that curriculum was simply the lesson plans, textbooks, curriculum maps, teacher guides, interdisciplinary units, chapter tests, student handouts, course objectives, group projects, manipulatives and ancillaries, curriculum maps, and scope and sequence charts provided by my school district and the publishing companies? Why did I allow myself to believe my English teachers in high school and college who insisted that good writing was always done in the objective third person and never contaminated with the autobiographical subjectivity of the author? Why was I never exposed to the connections between the arts and mathemat- ics? Why did I assume that test scores were the most appropriate measure of successful teaching and learning? Why did I assume that curriculum only happened in cinder- block schoolrooms when students were silent and compliant? Why did I assume that quantitative research was the only valid and reliable form of inquiry? Why? Why? Why?
Over the next three years at LSU, I began to answer these questions as I studied curriculum theory and became immersed in the literature of the reconceptualization of curriculum studies with professors William Doll, Cameron McCarthy, Rosalyn Charles- worth, Jacques Daignault, Diana Pounder, Tony Whitson, Spencer Maxcy, Leslie Roman, and, of course, Bill Pinar.
The first edition of this text was my first book, and it has been adopted steadily for ten years by college instructors and has been translated into three languages. I wrote the first edition in the early 1990s after I had completed my dissertation, “Toward an Eschatological Curriculum Theory” (Slattery, 1989). People often tell me that Curricu- lum Development in the Postmodern Era, more than anything else I have written, dramatically affected their pedagogy and research. Students and scholars have sent me private e-mail messages and have written journal reviews that praise it as engaging, evocative, and even life-changing. Many people particularly appreciate my discussions of hermeneutics, ecology, theology, proleptic eschatology, antiracist education, auto- biography, and philosophy of education.
The critics have not been silent, either. Some complained that many of my sen- tences in the first edition were too long and convoluted. They contended that many complex ideas — such as critical hermeneutics, proleptic eschatology, reconceptualiza- tion, sedimented perceptors, postmodernism, and identity politics — were not clearly defined or explained. A few critics complained that my discussion of race, gender, and sexuality in the first edition was too short, and some of my historical analysis of the curriculum field was flawed. I have listened to these critics, and this second edition addresses their legitimate concerns. Other critics cautioned that I did not present a robust analysis of the Tylerian Rationale, progressive education, Whiteheadian bifurca- tions, and scientific management. I have been attentive to this critique in the second
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Preface xiii
edition, but my historical interpretation, like all historical interpretations, remains open to debate. I believe that I have done a better job of foregrounding my subjectivities and biases in this second edition. I have attempted to present a more robust portrait of authors like Ralph Tyler by including discussions of my enthusiasm for his leadership in the Eight-Year Study of the Progressive Education Association in the 1930s (Aikin, 1942; Smith & Tyler, 1942; Kridel, 1998) in addition to my critique of his Basic Princi- ples of Curriculum and Instruction (Tyler, 1949).
What has changed in the curriculum field since the first edition of this book appeared in 1995? First, and most important, I have matured along with the field of curriculum studies. I have read hundreds of curriculum books and journal articles, taught thousands of inquisitive students, debated curriculum theory at conferences such as American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Educational Studies Association (AESA), Bergamo, Curriculum & Pedagogy (C&P), University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), Philosophy of Education Society (PES), and American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (AAACS) with thoughtful colleagues. I have reevaluated many theories of postmodern- ism, politics, and philosophy, edited two major journals, traveled to many universities internationally, experienced provocative art, music, and theater, and suffered several poignant losses. As John Dewey (1934a, 1938) urged educators, I have attempted to allow all of these experiences to lead me to growth and values.
In the curriculum field there have been exciting developments. Two new annual conferences, American Association of Teachers of Curriculum (AATC) and Curricu- lum and Pedagogy (C&P), two new journals, the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy (JCP) and Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, the journal of the International Associa- tion for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (IAACS), and the Proceedings of the Curriculum and Pedagogy Conference have emerged on the scene. An international association of curriculum studies (IAACS) began meeting in 2002. Philip Jackson’s important Handbook of Research in Curriculum has been widely cited in the field (Jack- son, 1992), and a synoptic text titled Understanding Curriculum: An Introduction to the Study of Historical and Contemporary Curriculum Discourses has made a significant contribution (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 1995). Two international curricu- lum encyclopedias have been published; one was edited by William Pinar (2003), and the other was edited by Michael Connelly at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Educa- tion (OISE) and is scheduled for publication in 2007.
Significant new research has been published in the curriculum field by authors of diverse scholarship and philosophies. Students of curriculum development might want to become familiar with the work of some of these scholars by reviewing the presenta- tions at AERA Division B and the publications of members of Professors of Curriculum.
Arts-based curriculum research has become an important new subdiscipline, led by scholars and artists such as Rita Irwin, James Sanders, Donald Blumenfeld-Jones, Tom Barone, Stephanie Springgay, Stephen Carpenter, Susan Finley, Elijah Mirochnik, Carol Mullen, Alex de…
RT3383X_title page 4/6/06 11:37 AM Page 1
POSTMODERN ERA in the
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
PATRICK SLATTERY
Second Edition
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
New York London
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint material Excerpt from Choruses from “The Rock” in
Collected Poems
1909-1962 by T.S. Eliot, copyright © 1964, 1963 by T.S. Eliot, reprinted by permission of the publisher. Excerpt from “Little Gidding” in
Four Quartets,
copyright © 1943 by T.S. Eliot and renewed 1971 by Esme Valerie Eliot, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace & Company. Excerpts from
A Lesson Before Dying
, copyright © 1993 by Ernest J. Gaines, reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf. Figure 8.1 on page 220 is taken from figure 8.2 in Donald Oliver and Kathleen W. Gershman,
Education, Modernity, and Fractured Meaning: Toward a Process Theory of Teaching and Learning
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989). Table 9.1 on page 235 is taken from figure 7-3 in William H. Schubert,
Curriculum: Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility
(New York: Macmillan, 1986).
Published in 2006 by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016
Published in Great Britain by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 2 Park Square Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN
© 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-95337-5 (Hardcover) 0-415-95338-3 (Softcover) International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-95337-5 (Hardcover) 978-0-415-95338-2 (Softcover) Library of Congress Card Number 2005035754
No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers.
Trademark Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Slattery, Patrick, 1953- Curriculum development in the postmodern era / Patrick Slattery.-- 2nd ed.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-95337-5 (hb : alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-415-95338-3 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Curriculum planning. 2. Curriculum change. 3. Education--Curricula--Philosophy. 4.
Postmodernism. I. Title.
and the Routledge Web site at http://www.routledge-ny.com
Taylor & Francis Group is the Academic Division of Informa plc.
RT3383X_Discl.fm Page 1 Friday, April 14, 2006 8:45 AM
The fundamental human quest is the search for meaning and the basic capacity for this
search is experienced in the hermeneutic process, the process of interpretation of the text (whether artifact,
natural world, or human action). This is the search (or research) for greater understanding that
motivates and satisfies us. ... The act of theorizing is an act of faith, a religious act ... . It is an expression
of the humanistic vision in life.
—James B. Macdonald
vii
Contents
1 Introduction to Curriculum Development, Reconceptualization, and Postmodernity 17
2 Historical Perspectives on Curriculum as a Field of Study 37 3 The Reconceptualization of Curriculum Studies from
1973 to 2006 57 4 Postmodern Schooling, Curriculum, and the Theological Text 71
Part Two Complicated Conversations in Contemporary Curriculum Development
5 The Hermeneutic Circle and the Interpretive Process 115 6 Gender, Sexuality, Race, and Ethnicity in a Multicultural
and Diverse Milieu 143
viii Contents
7 Postmodern Philosophies in Curriculum Studies 187 8 Curriculum for Interdependence and Ecological
Sustainability 199 9 Utopian Visions, Democracy, and the Egalitarian Ideal 227
10 Aesthetic Inquiry, Arts-Based Research, and the Proleptic Moment 241
Part Three Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era
11 Time and Complexity 271 12 A Vision of Curriculum in the Postmodern Era 281
References 299 Name Index 317 Subject Index 327
RT3383X_bookTOC.fm Page viii Wednesday, March 29, 2006 1:54 PM
ix
Preface
I began my teaching career in 1975 as a naive and exuberant twenty-one-year-old senior at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. The college office of student teaching assigned me to Saint Michael High School to teach two periods of sophomore geometry and one class in theology. This experience not only launched my new career but also initiated an exciting life journey into the world of schooling and curriculum. Thirty years later, as I write this preface to the second edition of Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era, I am still a committed and enthusiastic teacher, now an educational researcher at Texas A&M University in College Station and a lecturer at the summer leadership academy at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. I also enjoy presenting invited lectures at various campuses, such as the University of Manitoba, Teachers College of Columbia University, Saint Joseph’s University in Phila- delphia, Ohio State University, and the University of Alberta. In my early career I had the great fortune to teach and to learn from many diverse students in six different high schools in Arizona, New Mexico, and Louisiana. I held secondary certification in math- ematics and English, but I also occasionally taught computer science (my first under- graduate major, at Louisiana State University in 1971) and theology (my first graduate degree, from Saint Mary’s College of California in 1980).
There were times in my early career as a teacher when I became very frustrated working in schools. The complex bureaucratic structure, lack of resources, overcrowded classrooms, stacks of assignments to grade, multiple class preparations with few prepa- ration periods, insubordinate students, burnt-out colleagues, inadequate facilities, and inane curriculum materials drove me crazy. But I never quit. Why? I was energized by the academic and extracurricular activities in the schools and my friendships with colleagues. Throughout my years of teaching, I sustained a passion for literature, theol- ogy, mathematics, and the arts. Counseling students provided a sense of mission and purpose in my life. The school was my community, and the faculty and students were my extended family. I found tremendous satisfaction in my extracurricular assignments as a coach, moderator, and chaperone. I loved counseling, coaching, and connections with students, so I refused to quit when times got tough. I do not think I even realized the injustice of the paltry salary and limited benefits I received.
RT3383X_C000.fm Page ix Wednesday, March 29, 2006 5:46 PM
x Preface
Instead of changing careers when overwhelmed by frustration, I decided to return to college for a master’s degree in educational leadership. I thought I could fix the prob- lems I had observed in schools. I received certification as a K–12 administrator and served as a principal in two schools for the next seven years. I found that the principal- ship was even more frustrating than classroom teaching, especially since I was only thirty years old when I started and still a novice at understanding complex school sys- tems. I was often caught between competing interests among the faculty and the demands of the school board. Limited resources prevented implementation of curricu- lum and instruction plans. I felt trapped in the conflicting politics of parent organiza- tions, athletic boards, district bureaucracies, and faculty contracts. I made plenty of mistakes! But I also found great satisfaction in working with faculty and parents on important projects to educate students and transform communities. One of my schools even received national recognition: we were invited to an awards ceremony with Presi- dent Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Education William Bennett at the White House in 1985.
I experience life as an adventure in learning. The philosophy of curriculum develop- ment that I describe in this text is committed to lifelong learning for students, teachers, and indeed, all citizens. For educators, our philosophy of education and our openness to new ideas dramatically affects our teaching and learning. How would you describe your philosophy, interests, and passions? Here are a few of mine: reading Southern nov- els and postmodern philosophy texts; listening to live music; traveling to historic and cultural sites; studying political ideologies; watching SEC college football and NHL hockey; attending independent film festivals; viewing contemporary art installations and exhibits at museums; marching in protest rallies against the Iraq war, against capital punishment, for environmental justice, for gay rights, and for living wage initiatives; playing chess at grungy coffee houses; cooking gumbo for my family and friends; doing yoga; attending the Austin City Limits music festival, Tanglewood music performances in Massachusetts, the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival; creating provocative art installations; playing disc golf with my son in Austin; talking about architecture with my mother, stepfather, and oldest daugh- ter; relaxing and reading to my grandchildren with their mom and dad; researching educational issues for lectures and papers; working out at the gym; attending Broadway musicals and plays; meeting friends and engaging in interesting and provocative con- versations; discovering new adventures of the mind. I also love Mardi Gras in my hometown, New Orleans. I have seldom missed the Mardi Gras, and I hope that the joi de vivre will soon return to my city as we recover from the floods of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
With this commitment to lifelong learning, it was only natural that I returned to college for a doctoral degree at thirty-two. I was living in Phoenix at the time, and I began a program in philosophy and theology at Arizona State University. A job transfer to Louisiana prevented me from completing the degree, but I continued my studies at LSU in Baton Rouge. Practical considerations led me to pursue the PhD in educational administration rather than philosophy, but with the arrival of William Pinar at LSU in
RT3383X_C000.fm Page x Wednesday, March 29, 2006 5:46 PM
Preface xi
1985 as chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, I decided to change my degree program to the doctorate in curriculum studies. My life and career changed forever.
I met Bill Pinar while registering for classes at a branch campus of LSU, set amid the rice fields and crawfish ponds of Eunice, Louisiana, in the fall of 1985. I had never heard of Pinar; I did not know that he was the new chair of Curriculum and Instruction at LSU and a famous curriculum theorist. While waiting for materials to arrive at the registration table, Bill and I engaged in a lively discussion about theology, art, psychol- ogy, and literature. Bill had studied feminist theology and black theology at Colgate Rochester Divinity School; I had studied liberation theology and eschatology in Cali- fornia. Bill had written a paper on Jackson Pollock’s painting The White Cockatoo; I had experienced an epiphany in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City while viewing Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm. Bill had done extensive research in Jungian psychol- ogy; I was attending weekly Jungian dream analysis and reading books about Jung’s notion of the shadow. Bill began his career as a high school English teacher and had a particular affinity for Virginia Woolf; I taught American literature in high schools and had a strong affinity for William Faulkner. We passionately discussed our interpretation of themes in Woolf ’s A Room of One’s Own and To the Lighthouse and Faulkner’s The Bear and The Sound and the Fury. We talked about other authors who had inspired us: Marcel Proust, Zora Neale Hurston, Walt Whitman, Toni Morrison, and Oscar Wilde. Bill shared his anticipation and apprehension about being an antiracist white male moving to the South from his native Ohio and adopted New York; I explained my posi- tion as a progressive Catholic Southern white male from a prominent conservative family in Louisiana. We both pondered the complex implications that racism, religion, geography, and sexism had for our lives.
I barely noticed the long wait, and I was disappointed when our conversation had to end. Meeting this new professor was magical and inspiring: it had been my first lesson in curriculum development in the postmodern era.
I did not meet Bill Pinar again until the next semester. I was the principal of a school in Crowley, Louisiana, about an hour’s drive west of Baton Rouge, and Bill was busy with his new leadership position at LSU. However, his final question at the end of our conversation haunted me for the next six months. I had mentioned to Bill that I was a doctoral student in educational administration, working on a study comparing test scores in two Louisiana school districts. I was investigating the relationship of the size of district staffing to scores on standardized tests. Would a larger leadership staff in the central office help to improve test scores, or would site-based spending on testing mate- rials be a more efficient use of scarce resources? To be honest, it was a pretty boring study, and my heart was not in the project, but I wanted to complete the dissertation in educational administration so that I could eventually become a superintendent and make more money — I had three babies under the age of three in 1985.
At his invitation, I met Bill Pinar for lunch at the stately LSU Faculty Club during the next semester. He asked me again how I planned to incorporate Jungian psychology, eschatological theology, Southern literature, and abstract expressionist painting into my dissertation research. I was dumbfounded. I had no idea what he meant. I had not been
RT3383X_C000.fm Page xi Wednesday, March 29, 2006 5:46 PM
xii Preface
introduced to any forms of research other than quantitative methodologies. What did these things have to do with data analysis, statistics, and quantitative measures? Bill began to explain his work in autobiography, qualitative methodologies, and reconcep- tualized understandings of curriculum and instruction. I was fascinated.
Why had no one ever told me this? Why did I assume that curriculum develop- ment was simply setting goals, writing behavioral objectives, implementing lesson plans, and evaluating results? Why did I assume that curriculum was simply the lesson plans, textbooks, curriculum maps, teacher guides, interdisciplinary units, chapter tests, student handouts, course objectives, group projects, manipulatives and ancillaries, curriculum maps, and scope and sequence charts provided by my school district and the publishing companies? Why did I allow myself to believe my English teachers in high school and college who insisted that good writing was always done in the objective third person and never contaminated with the autobiographical subjectivity of the author? Why was I never exposed to the connections between the arts and mathemat- ics? Why did I assume that test scores were the most appropriate measure of successful teaching and learning? Why did I assume that curriculum only happened in cinder- block schoolrooms when students were silent and compliant? Why did I assume that quantitative research was the only valid and reliable form of inquiry? Why? Why? Why?
Over the next three years at LSU, I began to answer these questions as I studied curriculum theory and became immersed in the literature of the reconceptualization of curriculum studies with professors William Doll, Cameron McCarthy, Rosalyn Charles- worth, Jacques Daignault, Diana Pounder, Tony Whitson, Spencer Maxcy, Leslie Roman, and, of course, Bill Pinar.
The first edition of this text was my first book, and it has been adopted steadily for ten years by college instructors and has been translated into three languages. I wrote the first edition in the early 1990s after I had completed my dissertation, “Toward an Eschatological Curriculum Theory” (Slattery, 1989). People often tell me that Curricu- lum Development in the Postmodern Era, more than anything else I have written, dramatically affected their pedagogy and research. Students and scholars have sent me private e-mail messages and have written journal reviews that praise it as engaging, evocative, and even life-changing. Many people particularly appreciate my discussions of hermeneutics, ecology, theology, proleptic eschatology, antiracist education, auto- biography, and philosophy of education.
The critics have not been silent, either. Some complained that many of my sen- tences in the first edition were too long and convoluted. They contended that many complex ideas — such as critical hermeneutics, proleptic eschatology, reconceptualiza- tion, sedimented perceptors, postmodernism, and identity politics — were not clearly defined or explained. A few critics complained that my discussion of race, gender, and sexuality in the first edition was too short, and some of my historical analysis of the curriculum field was flawed. I have listened to these critics, and this second edition addresses their legitimate concerns. Other critics cautioned that I did not present a robust analysis of the Tylerian Rationale, progressive education, Whiteheadian bifurca- tions, and scientific management. I have been attentive to this critique in the second
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edition, but my historical interpretation, like all historical interpretations, remains open to debate. I believe that I have done a better job of foregrounding my subjectivities and biases in this second edition. I have attempted to present a more robust portrait of authors like Ralph Tyler by including discussions of my enthusiasm for his leadership in the Eight-Year Study of the Progressive Education Association in the 1930s (Aikin, 1942; Smith & Tyler, 1942; Kridel, 1998) in addition to my critique of his Basic Princi- ples of Curriculum and Instruction (Tyler, 1949).
What has changed in the curriculum field since the first edition of this book appeared in 1995? First, and most important, I have matured along with the field of curriculum studies. I have read hundreds of curriculum books and journal articles, taught thousands of inquisitive students, debated curriculum theory at conferences such as American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Educational Studies Association (AESA), Bergamo, Curriculum & Pedagogy (C&P), University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), Philosophy of Education Society (PES), and American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (AAACS) with thoughtful colleagues. I have reevaluated many theories of postmodern- ism, politics, and philosophy, edited two major journals, traveled to many universities internationally, experienced provocative art, music, and theater, and suffered several poignant losses. As John Dewey (1934a, 1938) urged educators, I have attempted to allow all of these experiences to lead me to growth and values.
In the curriculum field there have been exciting developments. Two new annual conferences, American Association of Teachers of Curriculum (AATC) and Curricu- lum and Pedagogy (C&P), two new journals, the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy (JCP) and Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, the journal of the International Associa- tion for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (IAACS), and the Proceedings of the Curriculum and Pedagogy Conference have emerged on the scene. An international association of curriculum studies (IAACS) began meeting in 2002. Philip Jackson’s important Handbook of Research in Curriculum has been widely cited in the field (Jack- son, 1992), and a synoptic text titled Understanding Curriculum: An Introduction to the Study of Historical and Contemporary Curriculum Discourses has made a significant contribution (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 1995). Two international curricu- lum encyclopedias have been published; one was edited by William Pinar (2003), and the other was edited by Michael Connelly at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Educa- tion (OISE) and is scheduled for publication in 2007.
Significant new research has been published in the curriculum field by authors of diverse scholarship and philosophies. Students of curriculum development might want to become familiar with the work of some of these scholars by reviewing the presenta- tions at AERA Division B and the publications of members of Professors of Curriculum.
Arts-based curriculum research has become an important new subdiscipline, led by scholars and artists such as Rita Irwin, James Sanders, Donald Blumenfeld-Jones, Tom Barone, Stephanie Springgay, Stephen Carpenter, Susan Finley, Elijah Mirochnik, Carol Mullen, Alex de…
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