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Theory Into Practice
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The practical uses of curriculum theory
Elizabeth Vallance
a
a
Director of academic outreach , Assistant professor in Kansas State
University's, Division of Continuing Education
Published online: 05 Nov 2009.
To cite this article: Elizabeth Vallance (1982) The practical uses of curriculum theory, Theory Into Practice,
21:1, 4-10, DOI: 10.1080/00405848209542973
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00405848209542973
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Elizabeth Vallance
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The Practical Uses of Curriculum Theory
It is hard not to feel a certain envy for those profes­
sions whose labels are self-explanatory. People
seem to have a rough idea of what an architect, a
bricklayer, a teacher, a jeweler, a cabaret singer, or a
lawyer (for example) does, and can imagine the
skills required and the kinds of settings in which
these people work. The vividness of these images
seems somehow to legitimize the activity; the prac­
tical uses of bricklaying (or indeed of cabaret sing­
ing) are rarely questioned.
It is much less clear, to people both within and
outside the education professions, just what "cur­
riculum theorists" are or what purpose their prod­
ucts serve. One gets accustomed to polite confusion
and requests for explanation, two popular re­
sponses to describing oneself as a curriculum
theorist; one gets accustomed also to encountering
curriculists with advanced degrees who have never
dealt with curriculum theory (since the course was
not required) and who seem mystified - if not
slightly intimidated - by it. Theory seems to have a
less than enthusiastic reputation, especially among
practitioners; various forms of the word have been
used synonymously with "abstract," "unresolva­
ble," "ideal," or - maybe even worse! "academic." It is almost always divorced from prac­
tice in our discourse about education; the two terms
have become standard fixtures on a frequently used
dichotomy. Theory would seem to be thoroughly
impractical, of questionable direct usefulness ex­
cept perhaps to those erudite people who dabble in
it for various inexplicable reasons of their own.
Elizabeth Vallance is director of academic outreach and
assistant professor in Kansas State University's Division of
Continuing Education.
This situation is unfortunate, though it is under­
standable and certainly not peculiar to the cur­
riculum discipline. But curriculum, to the extent that
it is a discipline, seems to have gotten at least its
share of the confusion resulting from education's
persistent efforts to declare itself a science. For var­
ious reasons, relating both to the complexity of the
curricular enterprise and to the various perspectives
from which its practitioners come, curriculum dis­
course tends to slide easily in various directions
away from the subject at hand, which is the cur­
riculum itself; Schwab observed this over a decade
ago (1969). The flight upward into theory is among
the most tantalizing of the options, and is one to
which many curriculists regularly succumb. This
tendency to move into the realm of the abstract, and
to analyze curricular problems from points of view
which seek conceptual consistency - be they
ideological, political, quantitatively or qualitatively
research-based, historical, or other -seems to be a
regular pursuit of curriculists not embroiled in day­
to-day working with real curricula. Teachers seem to
have little time for it. As a result, most curriculum
theorizing published as such in journals is not done
by practicing teachers or curriculum supervisors; it
is done largely by college professors.
We may argue, however, that this split between
theory and practice is more illusory than real, that
theorizing about the curriculum occurs at many
levels -only a few of them revealed in the journals
- and that curriculum theory is indeed useful in
practical situations. I will argue especially that the
process of theorizing, rather than any particular
theory, is one of the most valuable activities avail­
able to us in understanding the practical, and that
training in the practical is incomplete without train­
ing in the theoretical as well.
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The Several Faces of Theory in Curriculum
Bypassing Aristotle only in an effort to under­
stand more current usage, I refer to the following
five definitions of theory, offered by the Random
House College Dictionary in its last several editions:
1) a coherent group of general propositions used as
principles of explanation for a class of phenomena;
2) a proposed explanation whose status is still con­
jectural; 3) a body of principles, theorems, etc.,
about a subject; 4) that branch of a science or art
that deals with principles and methods; 5) guess or
conjecture.1 Some would argue that we already have
plenty of the fifth definition; indeed some of the
most passionate arguments about schooling are
based on "theories" which seem to take the form of
conjecture (e.g., the assumption that reading "dirty
books" ruins children's morals, an allegation that
has never been proven). We can also argue that we
have a branch of curriculum study that looks for and
worries about principles and methods, thus meeting
the criteria implied by the fourth definition. We have
some proposed explanations still being tested by
research and observation (the second definition).
But do we have a coherent group of general proposi­
tions, principles, or theorems which explain the
class of phenomena known as the curriculum?
I think not. Consider that a theory, according to
the definition cited above and our collective experi­
ence in the area of curriculum theory, includes at
least the following: an identification of the major
varfables or aspects of the class of phenomena in
question, a proposition as to which of these aspects
are common to all phenomena in this class, a set of
principles and rules which describe the relation­
ships among these elements in explanatory and
predictive ways, and some assurance that the theory
can be applied in a variety of related situations with
equal success. A theory seeks an answer, it seeks
closure, and it attempts to remain stable in the face
of frequent tests against real situations. Because it
seeks to explain, a theory contains "if-then" as­
sumptions and rules; the application of a theory to
any situation is always a dynamic enterprise describ­
ing predictable changes. Thus, "if a child commits
himself to a task which is within his capability, he will
have a successful experience with learning and will
progress better than if he experiences failure" is a
paraphrase of the kind of "if-then" rule inherent in
Glasser's (1969) approach to schooling. In the defin­
ition used here, it is a theoretical statement; it de­
scribes predictable change.
But despite all the self-described theoretical ac­
tivity of the past decade or two, we have no body of
theory which attempts to explain the kinds of varia­
tions we see in the practical phenomena of cur­
riculum - curriculum development, implementa­
tion, teaching, evaluation. There have been a
number of lucid studies of the curriculum from his­
torical and other points of view, plenty of prescrip­
tions and shoulds, many intelligent analyses, a
number of provocative collections of writing dealing
with the full range of curriculum activity, and some
excellent essays treating the relationship of theory
to practice. The field has been active, and it has been
extraordinarily productive. Its ·adherents have wor­
ried a lot about the role of theory. But I don't believe
we have really produced one.
There are probably several reasons for this.
Among the likeliest is that, unlike gravity or genetic
structure, the curriculum is never sufficiently regu­
lar in its practical form to be susceptible to explana­
tion by coherent and regularized principles. Some
aspects of it are, of course, for much of teaching
and learning is regularizable and controllable­
were this not true, schools would not have survived
as long as they have. But not all of it is. Evidence
increasingly argues that the effectiveness of any
curriculum is colored significantly by subtle influ­
ences such as teacher warmth, social class, nutri­
tion, television, and the like, not subject to our con­
trol. Furthermore, we acknowledge that "behind the
classroom door" is an environment which is special,
unique to that teacher and to those kids, and not
completely explainable by principles derived from
research.
Education is, of course, both a science and an
art, which is problematic for theory-builders; it is
difficult to develop rules and principles which apply
equally to both aspects. Consider, by way of illustra­
tion, an analogy to photography: there are princi­
ples of chemistry and physics which explain what
happens to film and photographic paper when ex­
posed to light, chemicals, and time; there is a sci­
ence to photography, its rules are generalizable, and
its rules work. They are useful; any photographer is
well advised to master them. But there is an art to
photography as well, principles of design and intui­
tions about color and composition which are gener­
alizable only to a limited extent; each photographer
uses them differently, discovers new ones, uses
some and not others. The uniqueness and value of
any photographer's vision is ultimately explained by
these rather than by generalizable principles. The
two are rarely if ever combined into a single theory of
photography; indeed, the phrase sounds absurd.
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Our attempts at theory in curriculum or educa­
tion generally tend, however, to be phrased in the
technical terms of a science which seeks regularity
and certainty. So constrained, we tend to focus on
those characteristics which are most susceptible to
replicability, seeking lowest common denominators
to give our discourse some consistency. The result
sometimes is a language relying on terms such as
learner, behavior, interaction, outcome, materials,
and the like -terms which claim neutrality and can
be applied to any situation. But even this attempt at
clarity is deceptive, since the real meanings of the
terms are nearly infinite: depending on the context,
a/earner can be construed either as a "respondent"
(in strict S-R theory) or as a "whole child"; the term
cur riculum materials can refer to either pro­
grammed learning exercises or the great books of
the western world, and so on. To use any of these
terms to refer concurrently to very different settings
reduces their meaningfulness to nearly zero; any
theory which attempts to explain curricular
phenomena in such neutral terms risks oversimplifi­
cation. The result is the stilted jargon many of us
have come to dread in our experimentally oriented
colleagues; it seems utterly remote from the living
fabric of classrooms.
Perhaps we ask too much of the curriculum field
by expecting theory to explain variations in curricu­
lar situations. We know its limitations, of course, in
our acceptance of the concepts of the hidden cur­
riculum and the behind-the-classroom-door
phenomenon; both of these function as a kind of
"black box" which allows us to acknowledge that
much goes on which we cannot control, and to ac­
knowledge it while retaining some dignity as profes­
sionals. Confronted with the incompleteness of
theory in our field, we have at least two choices, not
mutually exclusive: we can seek something besides
a "theory" in its generalizable sense, and we can
shift our focus from the end product (the theory
itself) to the process by which a theory is sought (the
process of theorizing). For it may be that the most
valuable contributions of curriculum theorists are
the lessons learned in the process of attempting to
identify the common and generalizable facets of the
curriculum. It is my contention that practitioners
engage in this process at least as much as theorists
do.
It is important to note that theorizing results in
more than theories. A related outcome of the proc­
ess of theorizing is the generation not of theoriesper
se but of models. Models, often cast in graphic terms
which attempt to portray situations visually, are
quite common to curriculum discourse, and are far
6
Theory Into Practice
more numerous than theories. Goodlad and Richter
(1966), Duncan and Frymier (1967), the systems­
analysis models of the instructional design ap­
proach, Walker's naturalistic model (1971),
McCutcheon's metaphor of patchwork quilts (1978)
- all are familiar attempts to characterize what is
involved in the curriculum enterprise. They are ar­
guably different from theories, for they lack state­
ments of rules and principles which claim to de­
scribe the relationships between the parts. They
more simply portray a situation (or a class of situa­
tions) by identifying its major elements and locating
them in relation to one another. A model is, in this
view, more static than a theory, for it describes rela­
tive states rather than a change process. It seems to
function more to help us to see what the practical
reality includes than to try to explain why or what to
expect from it. Thus, for example, in Walker's (1971)
and McCutcheon's (1978) cases, models are clearly
presented, though in quite different levels of detail.
The curriculum development process is charac­
terized - as a political process starting from a
shared "platform" (Walker) and as a quilt which may
be more or less systematically constructed
(Mccutcheon). Neither of these two models pur­
ports to predict how the curriculum development
process would be changed by the introduction of
specific conditions (say, a more experienced
teacher) into a given curricular situation (such as a
science curriculum for gifted eighth graders). A
theory would. These models seek rather to describe,
clarify, order our perceptions about, and help us to
see more clearly the forces and conditions affecting
curriculum decisions.
The difference between a model and a theory, in
this view, is not unlike the diff�rence between a Miro
painting and a Calder mobile.2 The one is static,
presenting to the viewer a set of relative positions of
its elements, while the other is dynamic, constantly
testing the change that is possible between the ele­
ments given certain constraints such as length of
wire, balance, weight, and color. Both are delightful.
Both enable us to see the world differently. But they
operate quite differently on our perceptions.
I can think of no particularly better word than
theoiizing (save perhaps modeling) to describe
the process by which both models and theories are
developed, and so will retain it for the sake of consis­
tency. The process of theorizing requires, at a
minimum, a being sensitive to emerging patterns in
the phenomena in question, a seeking of com­
monalities, a willingness to attempt and test several
different constructions of the situation, and most of
all, a close attunement to one's own context. The
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process of theorizing is an effortful one, ultimately
practical in the sense that it is rooted in the im­
mediate data available. It seems hardly necessary to
mention that these data need not take the form of
"research data" nor of anything more esoteric than
the characteristics of the problem at hand. Thus, a
student of linguistics may tentatively theorize about
the process of language acquisition in order to make
sense of a number of articles on language develop­
ment, a photographer may theorize about the rela­
tionship of subject to background in a particular
composition, and a teacher may wonder why the
implementation of a new curriculum package in her
classroom is so much more difficult than she had
expected. Whether any of these individuals eventu­
ally produces a theory or model is less important
than that they become intimately involved in trying
to identify and understand the factors affecting their
work. The linguistics student may not finish the day
in the library with a new theory of language de­
velopment, but she will have had an effortful in­
volvement in working out some parts of what may
later become a theory; the photographer may not
develop a complete theory of portraiture, but she
will have attempted some variations and learned
some basic principles about what not to do; the
teacher may never publish a treatise describing a
model of curriculum implementation, but will have
learned something about the constraints her own
classroom imposes on a pre-packaged set of cur­
riculum materials. All, however, will have ap­
proached a problem from a "theoretical" perspec­
tive, seeking not only answers to an immediate ques­
tion but more general rules that may apply next time.
The effortful involvement in finding common ele­
ments in situations which will surely be repeated
(certainly the teacher must face another day) has a
value which can properly be described as a "theoret­
ical" one.
Theorizing of this kind clearly has a practical,
indeed a survival, value. In the examples cited here it
is not very abstract, though any of the three situa­
tions could well be carried into more abstract levels;
the linguistics graduate student probably stands the
best chance of this. For the teacher especially, it is a
question of grappling with a significant number of
complex classroom and content variables and of
seeing some order in them. The pattern perceived
may well shift, and indeed it can be rewarding when
it does. Just as a photographer may create several
quite different compositions from a single subject, a
teacher may see several different constructions of a
given problem and learn something from consider­
ing them. The sensitivity to these possibilities is cru-
cial. The sense of and ability to order one's experi­
ence so as to make sense of it is critical to any art; it
is equally critical to understanding the problems
posed by curriculum development and use. It is
perhaps more critical in education and curricular
situations than it is in less varying settings, for if
scientifically-construed educational theory cannot
explain and predict every nuance to which we must
be sensitive, then it is the job of the practitioner to fill
in those gaps with individual an'd perhaps incom­
plete "theories" of his or her own.
To return now to an earlier point: curriculum
theory and its practical uses seem to be mis­
construed by many educators for at least two rea­
sons: 1) it tends to be done at universities, by
academics who call it theory3 and who speak mainly
to each other, and 2) because the tradition of re­
search in education has borrowed heavily from the
natural sciences, its results - both research appli­
cations and theoretical formulations - tend to be
freighted with greater expectations than they can
always meet. Our purpose, in working in the area of
curriculum theory, might better be to recognize the
value of theorizing even when it does not result in
complete and coherent theories. We may thereby
find a different kind of value in formulations which
now pass for "curriculum theory" work but whlch
may also be read as political or ideological interpre­
tations of schooling (which the reconceptualists so
lucidly offer), alternative approaches to understand­
ing the workings of the curriculum (including argu­
ments for qualitative evaluation, aesthetic criticism,
"new journalism," or other re-interpretations of the
central problems of curriculum research), or rules
for curriculum development itself (the Tyler [1950]
rationale being preeminent among these). While not
all curriculists engaged in these formulations claim
that they are "doing theory," discourse among cur­
riculists tends generally to group these analytical
and conceptual studies of the curriculum in a cate­
gory loosely configured as theory. Its adherents be­
come theorists by definition; the list of contributors
to this issue of TIP illustrates the point.
Nor is theorizing solely the domain of academic
curriculists. Indeed, it is engaged in by practitioners
at all levels, though few would call it theorizing and
almost none of them publish words about it. The
need to identify commonalities, to unearth underly­
ing assumptions, to propose tentative hypotheses
and test them and revise them, to build informal
"models" describing situations-all are common to
practitioners involved in work which requires
problem-solving. We know from classroom observa­
tions and interviews with teachers that they are
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doing these things more or less constantly; it is
generally viewed, however, as an aspect of practice.
For example, a number of studies, including the
Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study at the Far West
Laboratory (Morine and Vallance, 1976) and some
research being carried out at Michigan State's Insti­
tute for Research on Teaching, are succeeding in
identifying teachers' perceptions of their own teach­
ing and especially of the regularities and patterns in
it. This work, done largely by people who describe it
as "research on teaching," is rarely if ever charac­
terized as curriculum theory. Such studies are gen­
erally considered to be analyses of practice, re­
search on teaching, evaluation studies, and various
other things besides curriculum theorizing. They do
not explicitly address curriculum theory problems
as we typically understand them.
It has been to academic curriculists to take
these studies and later reassess them in curriculum
theory terms, demonstrating their value to our un­
derstanding of how the curriculum-in-use (cur­
riculists' occasional term for "teaching") works or
to other problems. A few curriculists identified as
curriculum theorists - notably Anyon (1980), Simon
(1980), Walker (1980), Mccutcheon (1980) - con­
duct classroom-based research themselves, and
use these data as the basis of cogent analyses of
various aspects of the curriculum. Yet even the re­
search of curriculum theorists rarely results in ac­
tual theories, by the strict definition. What we have in
the writing of curriculum theorists include interpre­
tations of curricular phenomena in certain
methodological or ideological lights, and some­
times models or portraits of curriculum develop­
ment or use. All such studies contribute to our un­
derstanding of schooling and to our own ability to
"theorize" about it.
The Practical Uses of Curriculum Theory
The uses of curriculum theory, then, are several,
varying with the specific meaning of the word. Most
appropriate to our task is "curriculum theory"
loosely construed, which involves careful scholarly
thought leading to many different formulations, and
describes a body of activity whose purpose is gener­
ally to illuminate the workings of the curriculum.
Much of what we conveniently call theory might
more accurately be described as "thoughtful
study," "analysis and synthesis," "carefully de­
veloped interpretation," or other phrases relating to
the gradual and rather painstaking development of
new knowledge about the curriculum. This loose
version of the rubric admits studies of the history of
8
Theory Into Practice
curriculum change, socio-political studies of cur­
riculum context, explorations of standard and alter­
native research methodologies, interpretations of
classroom research, interpretations of analyses of
curriculum materials, and other work which at­
tempts to shed light on the curriculum as a generic
concept. It would also admit curriculum models,
principles, formulations of how-to-do-it rules, and
other attempts to describe these qualities of
curriculum-making and curriculum use which are
recurring. The practical uses of this version of cur­
riculum theory are for the most part not immediate,
for they depend on accumulation, testing, and
gradual integration. But they do finally contribute to
our collective knowledge, shaping the ways in which
we view classrooms, textbooks, specific curriculum
reforms, and the like. Some may argue that this
aggregate body of analyses and conceptual studies
is not curriculum theory; it is more interesting, how­
ever, to consider that it is.
The practical uses of curriculum theory when
defined as a coherent body of principles would be
quite immediate if such theory existed in the disci­
pline. That it doesn't is the major contributor to its
bad reputation, for many of us talk as though it did.
We certainly seem to wish it did. This most powerful
conception of theory accords it an explanatory and
predictive power which would allow us to manipu­
late situations. The principles of physics and
chemistry allow the photographer to create a spe­
cific desired photograph from a given subject by
manipulating time and exposure settings. They are
immediately applicable. They are also accepted as
true, for if the result is not as expected, it is assumed
that the photographer erred in applying the princi­
ples, not that the rules themselves were at fault. A
similarly predictive set of rules in curriculum would
yield similarly clear interpretations of error. Few if
any such rules have been demonstrated in cur­
riculum, however, and they would likely be as tem­
pered by the ineffable qualities of artistry as they are
in photography. If theory is conceived of as a search
for coherent and stable principles, and if such a
theory existed, its practical uses would be welcome;
it is reasonable to argue that they would also be
limited.
If "curriculum theory" is confused with "cur­
riculum models" (or the making thereof), as I believe
it frequently is, then its practical uses are at least
two. 1) The application of existing models to specific
real situations can help the practitioner to more
clearly see the patterns operating within his/her
classroom or curriculum-development setting. I
have watched practicing teachers study the basic
/
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model implied i n Conflicting Conceptions of Cur­
riculum (Eisner and Vallance, 1 974) as in Huebner's
(1 966) argu ment for different modes of "valuing"
cu rricular activity. In both cases, the frameworks
suggested by those "existing" studies illuminated
heretofore subtle distinctions within the teachers'
own situations and helped them to o rganize their
own perceptions more clearly (this by their own ad­
mission). 2) But models are not only to be applied
from without; p ractitioners regularly sort through
their own p ractical experiences so as to perceive
them i n i nformal categories, h i e rarchies, flow
charts, or other forms of models. While they rarely
call these perceptions "models," the order created
in them serves the same function : it simplifies and it
makes possible tentative descriptions of the rela­
tionships among the various categories. The gener­
ation of models by practitioners has a fairly im­
mediate use; it identifies variables that may be ma­
nipulable, and it warns of constants that may be
immutable. It invites a testi ng of the limits of change
and interpretation in one's own practical setti ng. A
model suggests (implicitly) what actions may be
possi ble; it colors our understanding of what has
al ready happened.
Fi nally, though, the practical use of curriculum
theory is simply that it requires us to un dertake an
analysis of real situations. Th e "theorizing" in cur­
ricu l u m theory occurs at every l evel and in every
meaning of "theory." In this sense, theorizi ng is not
the flight upward i nto the abstract which Schwab
noted and decried (1 969), but rather the attempt to
su rvey, analyze, synthesize, and test the knowledge
avai lable about curriculum p roblems. It requ i res
that we look at the data available and make sense of
it. The data may be the parts of a new cu rricu lum
package, the textbooks mandated by the state or
district, students' performance so far, the pol itical
cli mate of the school, research data available on a
particular kind of problem, competing conceptuali­
zations of what the curriculum includes, and a
nearly infinite list of others. The data available to a
classroom teacher may be different from the data
available to a g raduate student working on a litera­
ture review. The process of theorizing, in the two
cases, is simi lar nonetheless. It is this process, and
the wi llingness and eagerness to approach it, which
seems i ntegral to all cu rriculum work.
In this view of the uses of "theory," the disti nc­
tion between theoretical work and p ractical work all
but vanishes; the work and effort i nvolved in theoriz­
ing in either setti ng is the same. More, the pu rpose in
both is to understand what the curriculum includes
and how it operates. U nder this conception of
"theory," it is reasonable to argue that all students
of education, both g raduate and underg raduate,
should syste mat i cally study c u rri c u l u m theory
through a study of p ractical situations; for various
reasons it wou ld seem that this work should come
near the end of their formal training so that it can
serve the proper function of synthesis and orderi ng.
Ulti mately, the p ractical uses of cu rriculum
theory depend on the i ndivi dual using the term and
on his or her interp retation of its possibilities. The
narrower conception of theory serves us relatively
little; the broader version allows us many more av­
en ues legitimately called "theory." Perhaps we
don't need the term at all ; but since we seem to hold
some allegiance to it, perhaps the best we can do is
to shake up our own conceptions as to what it is and
allow it to include some of the very p ractical reason­
i ng that goes on regularly among all curri culists.
I wonder if any of this solves the p roblem of the
blank stares from colleagues. Perhaps not; it is sti ll
hard to imagine most of them g reeting the label
"curriculum theorist" with shouts of recognition
and delight. Perhaps we need a closet to retreat into,
camouflaging our activities with other nomencla­
tu res which have more recogn izable legiti macy
among edu cators and others. We should perhaps
determine which version of curricu lum theory we
mean when we lay it on an unsuspecti ng educa­
tional psychologist colleague, and demonstrate an
understandi n g of the confusions and li mitations of
the term - all of which may be more than our col­
league wanted to know about it. In any event, hon­
esty still seems to be the best poli cy. A curricu lum
theorist who is also a p hotographer might d o well
si mply to describe herself as a photographer.
Notes
1 . The same di ctionary provided several definitions of
practice, all having to do with performance, action, and
process.
2. The comparison really happened. A well docu mented
story has it that Alexander Calder, visiting the studio of his
colleague, the painter Joan Miro, looked at Mire's paint­
ings and their arrangements of color and said, "Wouldn't it
be fun if they could move?"
3. Hence, we have had journals called Curriculum Theory
Network and Journal of Curriculum Theorizing.
References
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work. Journal of Education, 162 (1), Winter 1 980,
67-92.
Duncan, J.K. and Frymier, J.R. Explorations in the systema­
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tober 1 967, 1 80-199.
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Eisner, Elliot and Vallance, Elizabeth. Conflicting concep­
tions of curriculum. Berkeley: Mccutchan, 1 974.
Glasser, William. Schools without failure. New York:
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meaning. In Macdonald, J.B. and Leeper, R.R. (Eds.)
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q u i lt? Educational Leaders hip, 36 (2), November
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Schwab, Joseph. The P ractical : A language for curriculum.
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Simon, Roger. Programme portrayal and reflexive inquiry.
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