Curriculum, Definitions of
That the term ‘curriculum’ has numerous definitions is old news. Some educators see the
numerous and diverse definitions as a problem (confusion perpetuated, chaos within the
field, etc.), while others suggest that when analyzed carefully, these definitions differ
little. So why bother to address this cacophony of curriculum connotations?
In his 1992 interpretation of the field, Jackson offered a clear and straightforward
explanation for multiple curriculum definitions in relation to the growth of the curriculum
field, itself. For him, new definitions represent efforts to change or embellish the
traditional meaning (and the one still commonly used) of ‘course of study.’ Dewey
expanded upon this notion by introducing the learner’s “experience” into the definition.
For Dewey, the child/learner would be helped to encounter the curriculum (school subject
or course of study) in a recursive, ongoing set of reconstructive engagements. In other
words, the child and her or his experience would inevitably provide meaning to the
curriculum. Later, Bobbitt maintained this centrality of experience as part of his
curriculum definition and introduced several new elements that would remain in the
definitional stew: the idea of “location” (in/out of school) and “oversight”
(directed/undirected). Said differently, Bobbitt suggested that a curriculum is an entire
range of experiences in its broadest sense, and that only some of those experiences fall
under the auspices of schooling. Further, these experiences outside of schools are both
directed and undirected in nature. In his analysis of curriculum, Kliebard expanded upon
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Bobbitt’s notions of curriculum by acknowledging undirected curriculum experiences
such as the null or hidden curriculum.
While efforts to alter and embellish the traditional definition of curriculum as course of
study have continued since the turn of the twentieth century, the experience-centered
range established by Dewey and Bobbitt remains largely in tact. As the field of
curriculum studies (like life on our shrinking planet, itself) became more popular and
complex during the past century, curriculum definitions continued to reflect Bobbitt’s
1918 range – from course of study (or permanent school subjects) at one end to all
learning experiences throughout life at the other. For more than a century, curriculum
scholars produced new working definitions of curriculum, creating the field’s definitional
largesse. However, definitions don’t come from curriculum scholars alone: every
pedagogue, parent, pundit, policy maker, and politician has one, too. Today’s conflicting
definitions reflect different vantage points from which curriculum is engaged as well as
different philosophies and foci regarding the relationship between schools and society.
Moreover, the field is complex and understood in contradictory ways. In other words, the
multiplication of curriculum definitions is not an urgent problem to be solved but rather a
state of affairs to be acknowledged as inevitable.
So why should curriculum workers concern themselves with the inevitable? The real
purpose or value of a definition is its ability to clarify and explain one’s understanding or
position regarding curriculum. Of course, the motivation behind setting out one’s position
is to persuade others to choose this position or definition over another one – or at least to
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invite others into a shared understanding of one’s own preferred definition and position
toward some particular end. To accept this premise (i.e., that carefully articulating one’s
understanding of curriculum is done with the hope of persuading others to understand and
embrace it) suggests that a curriculum conversation is constantly taking place among not
only those with differing definitions of curriculum but those with differing vantage points
and forums of engagement with curriculum, itself. And while significant differences exist
among these conversationalists (often based upon the nature of the curriculum work that
they do), the more important questions in relation to curriculum definitions (and their
respective “arguments”) have to do with which curriculum workers are actively
participating in this larger conversation and toward what ends.
Thus, curriculum definitions cannot be seen outside the contexts of the work of those
defining curriculum. How curriculum workers use language to understand what they do
is as critical for the doing as it is for the understanding. Because curriculum definitions
pertain to curriculum work, and because that work is necessarily connected to the field, it
is essential that curriculum workers recognize the vitality (or lack thereof) of
“curriculum” in relation to schools and conversations about work in schools. In short,
curriculum workers must recognize the ways in which their definitions and conversations
invite the participation of others in the field. Without this recognition, definitional
progress and regress does little to expand the continuing conversation’s audience beyond
a collection of entrenched and relatively homogenous partisan enclaves.
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Toward this end, the curriculum scholar with an earnest desire to “define the field” needs
to wrestle with two critical concerns: First, how do the academic conversations within the
field intersect to ensure coherence and potential for future growth as a field? Second, to
what degree do these intellectual conversations intersect with the conversations of
practitioners? In other words, to what degree do intellectual and practical conversations
converge in meaningful ways?
Complex, conflicting and sometimes contradictory curriculum conversations can generate
meaningful definitions to inform the field. There are common denominators across time
and curricular orientations that emerge as defining elements of this thing called
“curriculum” when those definitions are normative. To the degree that definitions of
curriculum have meaning and these meanings have significance in relation to schools, the
definitions say something about the field, and they say something to the field.
Conversely, to the degree that definitions merely categorize work in schools and offer no
normative moorings, they serve no purpose beyond themselves. Curriculum workers can
look to Dewey’s work in Democracy and Education regarding communities to recognize
the importance of meaning in curriculum work. When curriculum definitions have
meaning to a wide range of curriculum workers, they invite meaningful actions.
One such common denominator for the field stems from the foundational works of
Dewey and Bobbitt, both in terms of definitions and work: curriculum as experience.
While Dewey stated that curriculum was a course of study, he argued that there should be
no gap between this course of study and the child’s experiences. Bobbitt’s focus shifted
from current to future desired experiences (of adult life). The distinctions he saw
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emerging within the field (intended, unintended, null, enacted, etc.) further characterize
the kinds of experiences learners have, while Caswell and Campbell defined curriculum
as all of the experiences children have under the guidance of teachers. Tyler focused on
selecting, organizing, and evaluating experiences based upon deliberate purposes.
Schwab challenged curriculum scholars in particular to renounce the field’s retreat into
theory and to create experiences through the art of the practical. Reconceptualist
orientations have extended notions of curriculum to focus on the individual’s encounter
with experiences as critical theorists in the field focused more on the social context of
experiences and how relations of power influence curriculum work. Those in the field
who hold to a school-based focus for curriculum also addressed experiences - often
within the context of democracy.
Contemporary definitions of curriculum as well as their absence from much of the
practitioners’ conversations in recent years pose challenges to the field. While the word
curriculum was closely tied to schooling through the 80’s, its use in the work of schools
has declined over the past three decades. Regardless of the definition, the term
“curriculum” itself has been seen less and less in the most popular professional journal
for practitioners, Educational Leadership, over the past thirty years. Between 1974 and
2006, Educational Leadership had a 74% drop in the number of articles addressing
curriculum matters. Further, those articles written by curriculum scholars representing
the Professors of Curriculum group declined by 86% during that time. Finally, while
earlier published articles focus more on curriculum theory, those appearing since the late
1980’s focus largely on “what works” applications with little to no attention given to
substantive principles and theory.
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Percentages aside, the nature of curriculum conversations in leading practitioner journals
and books – and by association, in schools themselves – is now focused on curriculum
standards, reform models, and prescriptive practices of mapping and aligning. The
normative grounding of the field – its very ideological soul – appears absent from schooloriented curriculum conversations. The contemporary absence of meaningful definitions
of curriculum from the work of schools has implications for curriculum scholars and
practitioners alike. With this in mind, the significance of the field’s experienced-based
definitions (or more importantly, the lack thereof) is far more important to ponder at this
point in our field’s maturation than the multiplicity of curriculum definitions per se.
Cross References: Caswell, Hollis; Democracy and Education (J.Dewey); Jackson,
Philip; Kliebard, Herbert; Reconceptualist/Reconceptualizaiton; Schwab, Joseph
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Further Reading
Bobbitt, F. (1918/1972). The curriculum. New York: Arno Press.
Caswell, H. and Campbell, D. (1935). Curriculum development. New York: American
Book Company.
Dewey, J. (1902). The child and the curriculum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jackson, P. (1992). “Conceptions of curriculum and curriculum specialists” in P. Jackson
(Ed.), Handbook of Research on Curriculum. New York: Macmillan.
Kliebard, H. (1992). Forging the American curriculum. New York: Routlege.
Marsh, C. and Willis, G. (2007). Curriculum: Alternative approaches, ongoing issues.
4th Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Pinar, W. (Ed). (1975). Curriculum theorizing: The reconceptualists. Berkeley, CA:
McCutchan.
Pinar, W., Reynolds, W., Slattery, P., Taubman, P. (1995). Understanding curriculum.
New York: Peter Lang.
Tanner, D. and Tanner, L. (1995). Curriculum development: Theory into practice. 3rd. Ed.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Tyler, R. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Donna Adair Breault
J. Dan Marshall
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