Annotated Glossary
for Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era:
Teaching and Learning in an Age of Accountability
by Patrick Slattery
Professor, Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4232 USA
This annotated glossary of concepts in Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era is
provided by the author as an introductory supplement to the text for students who may find some
of the language, concepts, and terms in the book unfamiliar and/or confusing. A short description
of each word or concept is printed in bold at the beginning of each entry and then followed by a
longer analysis for students who desire a more robust discussion. I suggest that some students
would benefit from reading this entire glossary before reading the book.
Aesthetics. Aesthetics is the philosophy of art. Aesthetics investigates ways of seeing and
perceiving the world. In curriculum studies, aesthetics informs the affective domain of
teaching and learning, and it is also intimately linked to cognitive and psychomotor
dimensions of education. In curriculum theory, aesthetics is integral to various concepts
related to imagination, experience, creativity, culture, and public pedagogy (see “public
pedagogy”). Together, aesthetics and ethics form a branch of philosophy called Axiology. Ethics
examines morality, justice, and human behavior; aesthetics examines notions of beauty,
goodness, and perception. Together, aesthetics and ethics are the foundation—or axis—of
beauty, goodness, justice, and judgment. Some define aesthetics as a critical reflection on art,
culture, and nature. Aesthetics commonly is known as the study of sensory and emotional values
(sometimes called judgments of sentiments and tastes). Aesthetics also creates a mutual and
reciprocal interaction between the world and an individual; thus, our lived experience requires
aesthetics. Aesthetics is one of the very important elements of postmodern theory and curriculum
development. Thus, art, architecture, literature, visual culture, film, photography, and natural
landscapes will figure prominently in Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era. The
interdisciplinary nature of curriculum development and aesthetics helps teachers to understand,
for example, that mathematics and art inform each other. Just as the “right brain” and “left brain”
must work together holistically, so must mathematics and art. This goes beyond typical
classroom exercises like looking for geometric shapes in nature in a geometry lesson, or painting
a canvas of geometric shapes in art class. The complexity of aesthetics and curriculum is
discussed in chapters 10 and 11. However, one example might be helpful. Go to a website for
“fractals” and “Julia Sets” and look at the beauty, complexity, and diversity of the images. In an
algebra class, the mathematics instructor will usually teach about iterations of non-linear
algebraic equations using symbolic representation of letters and numbers plotted on a graph. The
instruction often stops here. Some students “get it” and other students are frustrated because they
cannot “see it.” From a postmodern perspective, the mathematics instructor will use multiple
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teaching strategies such as computer generated images of fractals and Julia Sets alongside the
algebraic equation and graph. The images of fractals offer a different way of seeing the equation,
and all students gain deeper understanding. In this example, students can perceive both
mathematics and art—left brain and right brain—working together holistically. There are many
similar interdisciplinary examples in the book. Perhaps a good assignment for your course would
be to develop sample aesthetics activities that incorporate postmodern theories? John Dewey’s
book Art as Experience (1934) provides an important analysis of aesthetics in education.
Autobiography. Autobiography can be understood as a partial narrative or a
comprehensive life history of the self; psychoanalytic investigations of the self; analysis of
identity constructions; investigations of past, present, and future dimensions of the self by
an individual; a written text describing one’s life journey and future goals; or possibly even
distortions, delusions, and embellishments about one’s life history. Curriculum Development
in the Postmodern Era contains many narratives and anecdotes from my personal experiences as
a teacher, school administrator, parent, artist, and social justice activist. I include several
autobiographical narratives in each chapter to explain the curriculum theories presented. Over the
years, students have reported to me that these narratives help them to understand the complex
issues. These narratives are not included in the book simply for entertainment or diversion. They
are carefully crafted and purposely placed in context to maximize understanding. I believe that
autobiographical connection to academic subject matter is essential for learning at any age or in
any course. This concept is not shared by all professors and teachers. As a high school student in
the 1960s, I was taught to use the objective “third person” in all of my essays. I was instructed to
never use the word “I” in my writing. In fact, the goal of good writing was to eliminate the
subjectivity of the author from the essay. Some teachers continue to believe that quantitative and
objective data are the only legitimate source for research papers. Qualitative, arts-based, narrative
analysis, and autobiographical data are still viewed with suspicion in some schools and
universities. Contemporary literary theories, postmodern philosophical theories, and
reconceptualized curriculum theories reject the notion of the author’s neutrality and the subject’s
invisibility in writing and research. Today, literature teachers, historians, art critics, and
curriculum professors around the world insist that subjectivity, narrative, and autobiography are
essential for meaningful teaching and writing. In my text, I cite many philosophers and
curriculum theorists who have written about the central importance of autobiography, experience,
and narrative. You will read about Alfred North Whitehead’s notion of “romance” and
“engagement with subject matter” as the first aim of education. You will also read about Maxine
Greene’s belief that curriculum must “release the imagination,” and you will encounter John
Dewey’s philosophy of “experience” as the basis of a curriculum that leads to growth and values.
Pinar and Grumet developed a four-stage process of autobiographical awareness in their 1978
book “Toward a Poor Curriculum.” They call their curriculum theory currere, and I present a
summary of their work in chapter 2. As you begin to read my book, please remember that
autobiographical theories are central to my understanding of curriculum development. In fact, I
include a long Preface in which I situate myself as the author of this text. It is essential, for
example, to know that I was born and raised in the city of New Orleans. My sensibilities as a
teacher and author are shaped by my life in New Orleans. Perhaps you will want to read about the
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history of Louis Armstrong and jazz music in my hometown? Perhaps you can make
comparisons between the history of segregation in the south of the US and apartheid in South
Africa (or other examples from your particular context) when you read about race and ethnicity
in chapter 6? Perhaps you have seen reports on the levee system that failed in 2005 during
Hurricane Katrina and flooded New Orleans? My autobiographical connections to these and
other experiences in New Orleans inform my writing. For example, in chapter 8 I investigate
ecological issues in order to advance a more robust environmental science curriculum and a more
complex understanding of cultural commons. A second example is found on the cover of the
second edition of the book, and on the companion web page for the third edition. The two images
are of Piazza d’Italia in New Orleans. A central feature of postmodern philosophy is eclectic art
and aesthetics. In addition to the photos of a famous postmodern art plaza in my hometown, I
also include images of art work that I have created to help explain topics in the book. As a visual
artist, my art installations emerge from my autobiographical experiences. My work is highly
influenced by the scholarship of Janet Miller (see, for example, Sounds of Silence Breaking:
Women, Autobiography, Curriculum). I encourage those who read my book to investigate their
own autobiographical context for parallels to the curriculum development.
Bifurcation. I use the word bifurcation along with the word “dualism” (see also) to indicate
the splitting or separating of things into two parts. Bifurcation means the splitting of a
main body into two parts like a fork in a river. In the book I use the concept of bifurcation to
highlight divisions and ruptures in schools and society, as well as dualisms of mind and body,
left brain and right brain, arts and sciences, administrators and teachers, students and teachers,
gifted and remedial, male and female, gay and straight, and an endless series of divisions that no
longer make sense in the postmodern era. The formal definition of bifurcation or bifurcated may
refer to some of the following: the division of issues in a legal trial, for example the division of a
page into two parts; the study of bifurcation in dynamical systems; river bifurcation, the forking
of a river into its tributaries; tongue bifurcation, a type of body modification, or natural
occurrence in some animals; false dilemma or bifurcation, in which two alternative statements
are held to be the only possible options when there are actually more options; bifurcation in
context of clothing that separately covers each leg (such as trousers) is called bifurcated clothing,
while clothing which covers them jointly (such as skirt) is called unbifurcated clothing;
bifurcation of an incompressible flow, modeled by squeeze mapping the fluid flow; or bifurcated
bonding, in which a single hydrogen atom participates in two hydrogen bonds. In recent years I
have stopped using the word “balkanized” in reference to geo-political divisions and
disintegration into fractured parts. Students from the Balkans have reminded me of the struggles
of war and violence in their homeland, and I want to show solidarity by not using the term in a
pejorative sense. Sometimes I show the film Vukovar in my classes and talk about violent
divisions and bifurcations in Croatia and Serbia—especially in the city of Vukovar on the
Danube River at the border connecting these two countries. I am interested in exploring
philosophical and theoretical constructs that offer alternative possibilities for understanding and
experiencing borders, differences, multiplicity, and diversity. The language of bifurcation,
dualism, and “balkanization” contribute to ways of thinking about schools and society that
reinforce and re-inscribe the tragedies of the modern era.
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Bildung. From the German bildungsroman, education is seen as a self striving to become
fully developed and directed toward justice, goodness, and virtue in life. Bildung as
“growth” and “development” is a broader concept of learning beyond formal schooling, and it is
directed toward self-conscious life formation. Curriculum is thus understood more broadly to
include all aspects of the life journey. John Dewey (among many others) is known for advancing
“growth” through experience.
Chaos theory and complexity theory. Chaos theory, popularly referred to as the butterfly
effect, studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial
conditions. Small differences in initial conditions, such as those due to rounding errors in
numerical computation, yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering longterm prediction impossible in general. Weather conditions and human behavior can be observed
and understood within context and within a range of possibilities, but cannot be determined with
certainty. This is true even though their future behavior is fully determined by their initial
conditions if no random elements are involved. In other words, the deterministic nature of these
systems does not make them predictable. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or
simply chaos. Complexity theory is the study of these complex systems. In curriculum theory,
teaching and learning is understood as such a complex dynamical system.
Chthonian. Of or pertaining to the underworld. Beneath the surface. Netherworld. I use
the word chthonian in connection to depth psychology, Jungian dream analysis, and the
unconscious. I also use the word chthonian in relation to ecology and floods (see pages 212–
214). Many novelists use the word chthonian in interesting way. See, for example, Brian
Lumley’s The Burrowers Beneath (1974).
Conscientization. Conscientization is described in the writing of Brazilian educator Paulo
Freire as a process of critical reflection through which people gain insight into the sociopolitical structures of their world as well as the capacity to act to transform oppressive
dimensions of those structures. Freire’s work provides a contribution in understandings
political dimensions of education as his work assumes that education is politics. Freire’s
understanding of conscientization emerges from literacy campaigns conducted in Brazil under
the liberal government of João Goulart. Literacy campaigns directed by Freire focused on the
formation of a critical consciousness of students and teachers, a process of mutual collaboration,
engagement with the world, and learning. Central to this mutual process of conscientization is an
understanding of political history as always in the making, and it becomes the job of teachers and
students to engage in and create historical conditions. One of the early and important texts by
Freire is Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Constructivism. Constructivism is a theory of knowledge often associated with Jerome
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Bruner, John Dewey, Maria Mostessori, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky (among others).
Constructivism is an epistemology (see “epistemology”) that advances the notion that
humans generate knowledge and meaning from their experiences. Constructivist theories
have had a major impact on learning theories and teaching methods in education as well as
education reform movements internationally. Constructivism is most often attributed to Jean
Piaget who advanced the notion that there are mechanisms of accommodation and assimilation
by which knowledge is internalized by learners. Assimilation occurs when individuals
incorporate new experience into an already existing framework. Accommodation is the process
of reframing one’s mental representation of the external world to fit new experiences, thus
allowing for learning from failure. Constructivism describes the process of learning. It is not a
prescriptive pedagogy even though constructivism is often associated with pedagogic approaches
such as active learning, project learning, or experiential learning. I support constructivist
approaches to teaching and learning, and I believe that constructivist epistemologies can advance
positive social change and school renewal. However, curriculum development in the postmodern
era cannot be reduced to simply implementing constructivist practices or experiential
epistemologies.
Critical Theory. There are two meanings of critical theory which derive from two different
intellectual traditions associated with analysis and critique: critical social theory and
literary criticism.
(1) Critical social theory. Critical social theory emerges, in a broad sense, from European
traditions of Marxist scholarship. Marxism, as a body of grand theory, presupposed for much
of the 19th century a dialectical process in which workers along with their leaders would take
part in an historical process enabling a utopian “withering of the state” and a new era of justice
and stability. Early critics of the Marxist grand theory, most vocal of whom was Nietzsche, argue
that Marxism is largely a rewriting of a Christian moral narrative in scientific form. These
criticisms along with failures and oppressions of state communism in Russia, China, and
satellites states create the conditions for two major revisions of Marxist scholarship that provide
for what is called “critical theory.” It is important to remember that critical theory, historically
speaking, is a continual reckoning of the Marxist tradition in the historical present. The two
major rewrites of the Marxian tradition are: (a) the Frankfurt School of Social Science; and (b)
the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies. Both the Frankfurt School and the Birmingham
School are described in the following paragraphs and address these three questions: What is
wrong with the Marxist tradition? What in Marxism needs recapitulation? What would Marx be
writing if he were still alive and working today?
(a) The Frankfurt School sees critical theory as a form of self-reflective knowledge about
our entrapment in systems of domination or dependence, and therefore, critical social
theory seeks to reduce the scope of oppression and injustice in the world. The term critical
theory was defined by Max Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School of Social Science as a social
theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole in contrast to traditional
literary theory oriented only to understanding or explaining it. The term critical theory, in the
sociological and non-literary sense, is the critique of domination in order to advance justice and
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emancipation. This is done by politicizing social problems and situating them in historical and
cultural contexts. Meaning itself is seen as unstable due to the rapid transformation in social
structures. Postmodern critical research is characterized by what is called the crisis of
representation which rejects objective depictions of a stable other. Instead, in research and
writing, many postmodern scholars have adopted alternatives that encourage reflection about
identity, politics, and poetics. An important figure in critical theory is Jurgen Habermas, and I
discuss his work in chapter 9. He believed that critical knowledge enabled human beings to
emancipate themselves from forms of domination through self-reflection, and he took
psychoanalysis as the paradigm of this critical knowledge. This expanded considerably the scope
of what counted as critical theory within the social sciences to include such approaches as
feminist theory, postcolonial theory, critical race theory, performance studies, queer theory,
social ecology, psychoanalysis, and neo-Marxian theory.
(b) The Birmingham School of critical theory embraces Antonio Gramsci’s understanding
of hegemony (see “hegemony”) as a lens for analyzing cultural production. Working along
the same emancipatory pathways established by the Frankfurt School, Birmingham School
scholars such as Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, Dick Hebdige, Richard Dyer, and Paul Willis
couple strong readings of Gramsci’s hegemony with analyses of cultural phenomena, including
school cultures. Specifically, Birmingham School scholars work with hegemony as a lens for
understanding working-class lives and speech, resistances in youth culture, meanings of
alternative cultural styles, and dominant (yet invisible) white, heterosexual, and masculine
cultural representations. Paul Willis’s Learning to Labor, for example, provides an ethnography
of working class students (“lads”) resistances to hegemonic school messages of diligence,
respect, and hard work. The lads, instead of following hegemonic codes established for proper
school behavior and learning, transform schooling into an artful inversion of these codes that
revels in avoiding work, disrespecting authorities, and generally, “having a laff.” Since schools
predominantly serve to reproduce hegemony, the Birmingham School’s use of hegemony as lens
on student resistance is important in understanding what happens in schooling contexts. Overall,
the purpose of knowledges produced, like Willis’s and other Birmingham scholars, is to make
visible and politicize common-sense practices and possible resistances to them.
(2) Literary criticism is a form of hermeneutic interpretation used to understand the
meaning of human texts and symbolic expressions. This version of critical theory seeks to
establish and enhance the understanding of literature in the search for truth and meaning.
Some contend that this form of critical theory is not oriented toward radical social change or even
toward the analysis of society, but instead seeks understanding of novels, short stories, and other
writings. Some consider literary criticism merely an aesthetic process (see entry above) devoid of
critical social concerns. In curriculum studies, most scholars (including myself) believe that
literary criticism and aesthetics do contribute significantly to critical social analysis as well as
individual and social transformation. Inversely, critical social theory examines the role of false
consciousness and ideology in the perpetuation of capitalism by analyzing works of culture,
including literature, music, and art in the “high culture,” “popular culture,” and “mass culture.”
Both versions of critical theory above—critical social theory and literary criticism—have
focused on the processes of synthesis, production, or construction by which the phenomena and
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objects of human communication, culture, and political consciousness come about. Thus, I
conclude that the distinction between literary criticism and critical social theory is less severe
than some would contend. There are many critical theorists working in the field of curriculum
development throughout the world. Both literary criticism and critical social theory figure
prominently in the reconceptualization of curriculum studies in the 1970s. While I incorporate
many concepts from critical social theory and literary criticism in my book and rely heavily on
literary criticism in my work, I do not consider myself to be a critical theorist in a formal sense.
Cultural commons. We might understand the commons, in general, as those material and
cultural spaces that belong to everyone, upon which our survival depends, and which are
not, or should not be, abandoned to the logic of private economic interests. For example, a
healthy environment, a safe food supply, and adequate medical attention are all essential to
human survival and as such might be seen as more appropriately entrusted to public rather than
to corporate control. As language is a cultural production, the use of language is also a “cultural
common” within any particular society. Scholars from various disciplines now speak of “root
metaphors” which are seen to organize a particular language and so perpetuate a historically
established set of connections of a people to each another and to the earth. Comparative study of
differing root metaphors from various cultures suggests that some metaphors represent more
sustainable ecological and interpersonal relationships than others. Such comparisons raise the
question of whether educators might play a role in adapting our cultures/languages toward more
healthy senses of “the commons.” Given the rather dire environmental, economic, and political
predictions for what we will face in the immediate future of life on this planet, I promote the
cultural commons in relations to schools and society in an effort to advance justice, compassion,
and ecological sustainability.
Curriculum. Curriculum in elementary, middle school, secondary, and undergraduate education
is often defined as the lesson plans, textbooks, instructional materials, evaluation strategies,
media, and technology generated by teachers, administrators, school boards, scholars, publishing
companies, and other professionals for student consumption and classroom instruction. In short,
curriculum artifacts contain the things that the community or state expects the students to learn.
Some scholars expand this definition to include formal co-curricular activities such as music and
agriculture programs and/or school sponsored extracurricular activities in the arts and athletics.
Others will expand the definition of curriculum further to also include all formal and informal
learning experiences related to homework assignments, socialization activities, health and
nutrition, field trips, popular culture, community festivals, and youth culture. Finally, some
scholars will challenge all of these definitions of curriculum and expand the definition to include
all formal and informal life experiences that contribute to student growth, social consequence,
and values. (See “currere”.) I use the words “growth” and “values” and “social consequences” as
presented by John Dewey in the texts A Common Faith (1934) and Experience and Education
(1938) and Maxine Greene in the text Releasing the Imagination (1995). These three books are
highly influential in my philosophy of education as presented in Curriculum Development in the
Postmodern Era. Other ways that curriculum is conceptualized are: curriculum as subject
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matter—essential knowledge contained in the academic subjects taught in schools; curriculum as
social adaptation—preparation for employment and community needs; curriculum as planned
activities—schools plan learning and ensure that students retain what is taught; curriculum as all
student experience related to schooling—everything a student learns under the guidance of the
school, planned or not; curriculum as all student experiences in the course of living—learning is
not restricted to schooling.
Curriculum Theory. Curriculum theory is the interdisciplinary study of educational
experience (see Pinar, 2004, What is Curriculum Theory? and Kliebard, 2004, The Struggle for
the American Curriculum, 1893–1958). Curriculum theory is an established academic field of
study that emerged in the 1970s following the reconceptualization movement in curriculum
studies. The focus of curriculum theory is the production of philosophical and theoretical
scholarship for understanding curriculum (see, for example, The International Handbook of
Curriculum Research, edited by William Pinar, 2003; The Encyclopedia of Curriculum, edited
by Craig Kridel, 2010; or Understanding Curriculum by Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, and Taubman,
1995). Today, there is an international professional organization for curriculum theory called
IAACS (International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies) that meets every
three years, most recently in Cape Town, South Africa in September of 2009 and Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil in 2012. Delegates from each national affiliate of IAACS are present at the conferences.
In the US, the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (AAACS)
meets every year for three days just prior to AERA (American Educational Research
Association). Membership in AAACS and attendance at the annual meeting are both free. Each
chapter of my book addresses some aspects of curriculum theory and the project to understand
curriculum.
Currere. Currere is a Latin word that translates “to run the racecourse.” The etymological
history of the word “curriculum” comes from this Latin word currere. Thus, the Latin word
currere is fundamental for understanding the meaning of curriculum development. So how does
currere inform curriculum theory and this book? Professors William Pinar and Madeleine
Grumet developed a four-step process for currere that is explained on pages 67–68. If you want
to know more about currere, I highly recommend reading What is Curriculum Theory? (Pinar,
2004) and Sounds of Silence Breaking: Women, Autobiography, Curriculum (Miller, 2005). The
most important thing to note about currere is that it defines curriculum as a process rather than
simply an object. When asked to define curriculum, most people automatically think of lesson
plans, guide books, textbooks, goals, objectives, teaching materials, tests, mapping schema,
course syllabi, ancillaries, and the like. All of these words used to define curriculum are nouns
and objects. However, the etymological definition of curriculum as currere includes both a noun
(racecourse) and a verb (run). Thus, the curriculum is composed of two parts: objects like
textbooks, lesson plans, and syllabi (nouns) and a process of running, ruminating, reevaluating,
experimenting, experiencing, creating, and analyzing (verbs). Currere reminds us that curriculum
development includes both the process and the product. This simple yet profound concept
contributed to the reconceptualization of curriculum studies in the 1970s (see
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“reconceptualization”). Pinar’s understanding of currere also has penetrating psychological and
sociological implications. It is regressive (exploring the past), progressive (projecting a future),
analytic (examining the present), and synthetical (past, present, and future understood
simultaneously). (See also “proleptic” and “proleptic eschatology”)
Deconstruction. Deconstruction is a sophisticated method of critical analysis of human
artifacts such as written documents, textbooks, artwork, musical compositions, films,
media, and the like. Deconstruction can include contextualizing, evoking, troubling,
historicizing, challenging, analyzing, and interrupting. I describe the method of
deconstruction in detail on pages 2–8 of the text. In schools we need to deconstruct handbooks,
textbooks, curriculum guides, administrative memos, letters to parents, essays written by
students, test questions, visual images, student performances in sports and the arts, and any other
human artifact that is a part of the teaching and learning process. We also need to deconstruct the
complex nuances of human interaction, behavior, and relationships. It is very important that
teachers and school leaders understand and utilize the method of deconstruction. Unfortunately,
popular use of the word deconstruction often implies something sinister or destructive. However,
deconstruction is only a method of critical analysis, and it does not advance destruction of any
kind. Deconstruction seeks deeper understanding of every aspect of the book, film, essay,
performance, event, or document under review. I present ten steps of deconstruction in the
Introduction and a concise overview of deconstruction in chapter 8. I provide an overview of
deconstruction at the very beginning of the Introduction to Curriculum Development in the
Postmodern Era because this is one of the most important concepts in the book. In fact, my entire
book might be considered a lengthy deconstruction of the topics in each chapter. The most
important thing to remember is that deconstruction is a sophisticated method of analysis and
investigation that helps teachers and administrators engage in complicated conversations and
understand the meaning, purpose, history, contradictions, omissions, and complexity of any
human artifact. Consider handbooks, textbooks, notes written on the classroom board, notes
passed between students, test questions, student projects, student videos posted online, words
written on a restroom wall, and many other human artifacts encountered on a daily basis in
schools and society. A wise teacher or leader will critically analyze these written artifacts in order
to be a judicious professional who makes informed decisions about disciplinary action, academic
performance, professional counseling, aesthetic meaning, and curriculum mapping.
Deconstruction is an essential tool for curriculum development, school management, and
classroom teaching.
Dualism and the Cartesian-Newtonian science. The modernist science emerging in the
1600s and 1700s rested on the separation of the knower and the known, a cardinal tenet of
the Cartesian-Newtonian (referring to Rene Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton) way of
organizing the world. Descartes’ analytical method of reasoning, often termed
“reductionism,” asserted that one can appreciate complex phenomena best by reducing
them to their constituent parts and then piecing these elements back together according to
causal laws. This analysis took place within Descartes’ separation of the mind and matter.
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This “Cartesian dualism” divided human experience into two distinct realms: (1) an internal
world of sensation; and (2) an objective world composed of natural phenomena. Drawing on this
dualism, scientists subsequently asserted that one could uncover the laws of physical and social
systems objectively; meanwhile, the systems operated apart from human perception, with no
connection to the act of perceiving. Descartes theorized, in other words, that the internal world
and the natural world were forever separate and the one could never be shown to be a form of the
other. We understand now but could hardly have understood then that despite all the benefits
modernist scientific methods would bring, this rigorous separation of mind and matter would
also bring profound and unfortunate consequences. Our ability to confront problems such as
disease definitely improved as our power to control the “outside world” advanced. However, the
misuse of antibiotics, for example, points to the limits and abuses inherent in modern science. At
the same time, however, we accomplished little in the attempt to comprehend our own
consciousness, our “inner experience.” Any phenomenon that we failed to experience directly
through the senses, scientific realism either ignored or rejected. In schools and classrooms today
we often continue to devalue intuition, insight, autobiographical reflection, and inner experience
and emphasize instead objective lessons, measurable outcomes, and test scores. This is the
continuing legacy of Cartesian dualism. The Cartesian-Newtonian philosophy established a
context for the emergence of both “scientific realism” (see also) and a shift in consciousness
about the human community. Some call this movement to a modern world view a paradigm shift.
We know about at least two paradigm shifts in human history: first, the move from isolated
nomadic communities of hunters and gatherers to feudal societies with city-states and agrarian
support systems; and second, the move from tribal and feudal societies to a capitalist industry
based economy relying on scientific technology, unregulated resource consumption, social
progress, unrestrained economic growth, and rational thought. The first, called the premodern
period or the neolithic revolution, dates from about 1,000 BCE (before the common era) to about
1450 CE (the common era). The second, called the modern period or the scientific and industrial
revolution, dates from about 1450 CE to about 1960 CE and continuing to the present—even
during the emergence of the postmodern era.
Ecofeminism. Ecofeminism is committed to interrogating and transforming domination
that has historically been linked to sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, ageism, and
religious intolerance and extends the commitment to justice to the unjustified domination
and ecological devastation of nature. Ecofeminism has roots in critical feminism, liberal
feminism, radical and socialist feminisms, and black and third world feminisms. Karen Warren
articulates the ecofeminist agenda as follows: “[Ecofeminism] not only recognizes the multiple
voices of women; located differently by race, class, age, and ethnic considerations, it centralizes
those voices. Ecofeminism builds on the multiple perspectives of those whose perspectives are
typically omitted or undervalued in dominate discourses, for example Chipko women, in
developing a global perspective on the role of male domination in the exploitation of women and
nature. An Ecofeminist perspective is thereby structurally pluralistic, inclusivist, and
contextualist, emphasizing through concrete example the crucial role context plays in
understanding sexist and naturalist practice” (1997, p. 7).
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Ecumenism. Ecumenism typically refers to dialogue and cooperation among Christian
denomination aimed at unity among diverse churches but not unification of all sects into a
single church. Sometimes ecumenism is understood more narrowly to indicate relations in a
strictly orthodox sense. For example, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox dialogue or Roman
Catholic and Anglican dialogue constitutes ecumenism because Roman, Anglican, and Orthodox
Christians all recognize each other as validly baptized Christians. In this orthodox definition of
ecumenism, Catholic–Islamic dialogue or Catholic–Hindu dialogue is not ecumenical because
Muslims and Hindus do not share a common spiritual baptism with Christians. The Roman,
Orthodox, and Anglican churches describe this kind of spiritual communication with nonChristian religions as “interfaith dialogue” rather than “ecumenism.” Etymologically, ecumenism
refers to the inhabited world or global in extent or influence. Any cooperative activity that
encompasses the world or involves the inhabitants of the world can be described as ecumenical. I
use ecumenism in this broader sense by advocating for dialogue and cooperation across
differences of any kind in a global context. However, I also use ecumenism in chapter 4 to
describe interfaith dialogues and spiritual diversity.
Environmental racism. Poor, migrant, undocumented, and homeless people, along with
abandoned children, AIDS orphans, and working-class adults at the lower end of the
economic ladder—who are most often people of color, indigenous people, and other racial
minorities—live on the most environmentally polluted lands in the most neglected and
dangerous neighborhoods with rotting infrastructure and festering poison from lead pipes
and paint, toxic emissions, contaminated soil and groundwater, and poisonous landfills. In
some countries, this is the result of forced segregation and isolation of minority and poor
populations. However, in the contemporary US context, it is the result of economic policies,
availability of housing for the poor, exploitation of poor and minority communities by large
corporations and business interests, and/or the lingering effects of racial politics, slavery,
segregation, share-cropping, ownership of land, and Jim Crow laws.
Epistemology. Epistemology is the study of knowledge and knowing. It is concerned with
finding the truth or the meaning of the idea of the truth. Epistemologists want to understand
the answer to the question “What is true?” Is truth the same in every circumstance? Is knowledge
and truth preordained by a God or gods or nature? Is knowledge inert or is it constructed? (See
“constructivism”.) In recent years some scholars have questioned whether any absolute truth that
we can know with certainty exists. But these scholars are also asking epistemological questions;
they are hardly denying the epistemological approach.
Essentialism. Essentialism is a theory of education which holds that foundational concepts
and basic skills are critically important to a culture and should be taught to all students.
The best techniques for teaching these essential skills are by time-tested and historically
validated methods. Essentialism is also a philosophical theory ascribing ultimate reality to
essence embodied in a thing and perceptible to the senses (in contrast to the philosophy of
nominalism). Essentialism is also the practice of regarding a person as having innate existence or
universal validity rather than as being a social, ideological, or intellectual construct. Essentialists
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believe that there is a common core of knowledge that needs to be transmitted to students in a
systematic, disciplined way. The emphasis is on intellectual and moral standards that schools
should teach. The core of the curriculum is essential knowledge and skills and academic rigor.
Schooling should be practical, preparing students to become valuable members of society. It
should focus on objective facts and “the basics,” training students to read, write, speak, and
compute clearly and logically. Schools should not try to set or influence policies. Students should
be taught hard work, respect for authority, and discipline. Teachers help students keep their nonproductive instincts in check, such as aggression or mindlessness. Essentialism emerged
primarily as a reaction against progressivist approaches.
Faculty psychology. In the early nineteenth century an influential movement called faculty
psychology (or mental discipline) emerged from the findings of many scholarly reports—
including The Yale Report on the Defense of the Classics in 1828 which is sometimes considered
the beginning of the US curriculum field. The Yale Report expressed two key concepts in faculty
psychology: discipline and furniture. The aim of the curriculum, it said, was to expand the
capacity of the mind and store it with knowledge. This curriculum philosophy sought to
arrange the information the memory gathers as one would arrange furniture in a room.
Additionally, it proposed that one exercise the muscles of the brain routinely like the other
body parts. In many classrooms today, teachers require memorization assuming that reciting
poetry, formulas, math tables, and spelling lists stimulates brain functioning. These teachers
believe that mental exercises create intelligence and enhance learning. The faculty psychology
movement holds that the brain is a muscle in need of rote memorization exercises and mental
drills to enhance the functioning of the mind, which can then accumulate more information and
rearrange the data. Critics of faculty psychology such as Caine and Caine (1991) contend that “A
physiological model of memory calls into question the notion that learning must take place
through rote memorization. In addition, by understanding properties of our spatial memory
system, educators can understand that teaching behavioral objectives ignores other functions of
the brain and other aspects of memory and learning. Indeed, we have come to the conclusion that
educators, by being too specific about facts to be remembered and outcomes to be produced, may
prohibit students’ genuine understanding and transfer of learning” (p. vii). This research contends
that learning and teaching involve multifaceted human beings in complex interactions of creative
thinking and critical analysis. Contemporary curriculum scholars, alert to this complexity,
support the vision of curriculum that embraces complexity, tolerance of ambiguity, acceptance of
uncertainty, and authentic, situated assessments. From a postmodern perspective, evaluation
becomes contextualized for the individual teaching environment, and evaluators reject formal,
standardized instruments designed for universal application.
Gnosticism. I write about Gnosticism in relation to theological issues in chapter 4. Gnosticism is
a philosophical and religious movement which started in pre-Christian times. The
movement and its literature were essentially wiped out at the end of the 5th century CE by
Catholic heresy hunters and the Roman army. The name is derived from the Greek word
gnosis which literally translates as knowledge. The English words insight and enlightenment
also capture the meaning of gnosis. Gnosticism is not factual, intellectual, rational knowledge.
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Rather, Gnosticism involves the relational or experiential knowledge of God and of the divine or
spiritual nature within us. Gnosticism can be understood as a collective name for a large number
of pantheistic and idealistic sects which flourished from some time before the Christian era down
to the 5th century. Gnostics believed that matter was a deterioration of spirit and the whole
universe a depravation of the Deity. They taught that the ultimate end of all being was
overcoming the decay of matter and the return to the “Parent-Spirit,” a return which they
believed to be inaugurated and facilitated by the appearance of a God-sent Savior. Gnostics
believe that they have secret knowledge (insight) about God, humanity, and the rest of the
universe of which the general population is unaware. It became one of the three main belief
systems within 1st-century Christianity. Gnostic beliefs are currently experiencing a rebirth
throughout the world, triggered in part by the discovery of an ancient Gnostic library at Nag
Hammadi, Egypt in the 1940s, the finding of the Gospel of Judas at El Minya, Egypt, in the
1970s, and literature and films in popular culture such as The Da Vinci Code. Two books by
professor Elaine Pagels influence my philosophy of curriculum studies: The Gnostic Gospels
(1979) and Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (2005).
Governmentality. Governmentality is a term developed by the French philosopher Michel
Foucault in the late 1970s to investigate the notion of power. Foucault argues that power is
not only a top-down hierarchical structure of the state, but also any form of social control in
disciplinary institutions such as schools, hospitals, prisons, and psychiatric wards. Power can also
manifest itself positively by producing internalized knowledge within individuals that can guide
behavior. Governmentality applies to a variety of historical periods and to specific power
regimes. However, Foucault often used it in reference to neoliberal practices of advanced liberal
democracies. In this case, the notion of governmentality refers to societies where power is decentered and its members play an active role in their own self-government. This necessitates an
active role by individuals for self-regulation. Neoliberal governmentality is based on the
predominance of market mechanisms and restrictions on the action of the state
Hegemony. Hegemony is a word used to describe domination through the creation of
consensual social practices and cultural norms. Powerful elites use institutions—especially
schools, churches, and the media—to win consent from the masses of people who are
dominated and oppressed. Hegemony is a word that describes the social, cultural, ideological,
theological, and economic influence exerted by a dominant group over a population or one social
group over another. The ruling group or “hegemon” acquires some degree of consent from the
subordinates, as opposed to dominance purely by force. The leaders of a religious sect can gain
emotional and financial consent from members using fear, guilt, and threats of excommunication
and/or eternal damnation. The school administration can gain complete compliance and
domination over the faculty by using one or more of the following tactics: surveillance,
evaluation instruments full of minutia, intimidation, false accusations, budget reallocations,
exhaustive working conditions, “good old boy” networking with superintendents and board
members to bolster her or his grip on power, threats of job loss for faculty, arbitrary changes in
the schedule or room assignments that create conflicts and emotional duress for teachers,
overloading problem students in classrooms with teachers who exhibit any resistance to the
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dominance of the administration, public humiliation through belittling, and ultimately silent
complicity from a totally disheartened staff. (Have you ever worked in a situation like this?) Of
course, teachers can use these same tactics to create domination and hegemony in the classroom
with students. A nation can extend its influence over the entire globe through the export of
cultural artifacts. Some examples of a hegemonic state in history would be the united Germany
from 1871 to 1945, or the Dutch, Spanish, and British Empires of the modern era, or the US after
World War II. Hegemony is used broadly to mean any kind of dominance, and narrowly to refer
to cultural and non-military dominance. In international relations, a hegemon may be defined as a
power that can dictate the policies of all other powers in its vicinity, or one that is able to defeat
any other power or combination of powers that it might be at war with. Some examples of
processes that are used to gain dominance and hegemony are as follows: the use of institutions to
formalize power, the elevation of a charismatic religious or entertainment figure to mesmerize
the population, the creation of desire for products and style through media, the employment of a
bureaucracy to make power seem abstract rather than a function of any one individual or political
group, the inculcation of the populace in the ideals of the hegemonic group through education,
advertising, religion, or the media, and the mobilization of a police force and military personnel
to subdue opposition. I discuss hegemony at length at the beginning of chapter 2, and I provide
concrete examples of how hegemony operates in schools. I also address the concept of hegemony
in relation to race and ethnicity in chapter 6.
Hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation. Judges and lawyers
interpret constitutions and legal documents. Museum docents interpret works of art. Religious
authorities and individual believers interpret the meaning of the Koran, Bible, Hindu Scriptures,
Gita, Torah, and other sacred texts. Literature teachers and students interpret the themes,
metaphors, and character traits in short stories and novels. Math and science teachers interpret
formulas, symbols, and directions for experiments. Athletes interpret the game plan, signals from
the coach, field conditions, and the formations of opponents as they call a play or prepare a
winning strategy for the game. School leaders interpret the school handbook and assign
consequences and punishments when rules are broken. Teachers interpret the quality of an essay
and assign a grade based on a rubric, a comparison to other essays, and/or a subjective judgment.
Romantic partners interpret the moods, facial expressions, words, and touches of their lover to
ascertain arousal and make judgments about sincerity, commitment, or fidelity. Parents interpret
the seriousness of a child’s cry. Interpretation is an art and a science that is critically important in
classrooms, courtrooms, bedrooms, museums, athletic fields, places of worship, and everyday
social contacts. Chapter 5 is about hermeneutics and presents the history, methods, and potential
pitfalls of interpretation. Chapter 5 is possibly the most difficult—but most important—chapter
in the book. You will encounter challenging theories and complicated philosophies, but you will
also read many accessible and engaging narratives about interpretation. Understanding the
possibilities and perils of hermeneutics is essential for any teacher or school leader, but it is not
easy. There are many errors in interpretation that can be made when disciplining a student,
investigating charges of sexual harassment or child abuse, assigning a grade, constructing a test
question, judging a facial expression, calling a play in an athletic contest, reading directions for a
dangerous experiment in the science lab, or calculating the mood of a class, a colleague, or
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administrator before saying something important. Hermeneutics is the very delicate and
controversial art and science of interpretation.
Heterosexism and homophobia. Heterosexism is the assumption that all persons are
heterosexual. Heterosexism (or Hetero-normativity) is a privileging of economic systems
(i.e., insurance, tax codes, inheritance laws), cultural institutions (i.e., marriage, adoption),
and social organizations (i.e., clubs, religions, schools) for the benefit of heterosexual
persons and heterosexual relationships, as well as those persons who are perceived to be
heterosexual. Heterosexism can also refer to negative attitudes, bias, and discrimination
against gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals (as well as transgender, transsexual, and intersex
persons who are assumed to be homosexual) in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and
relationships. (See “intersex”.) Heterosexism can include the presumption that everyone is
heterosexual and/or the presumption that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the norm
and therefore superior. In my book, I argue that heterosexism is more about institutionalized
power and less about individual discrimination. Just like racism, sexism, ableism, classism, and
xenophobia, I argue that heterosexism is a systemic structural system of power and domination
that is sustained by hegemony (see “hegemony”). Thus, only those who hold the privilege of the
dominant power group can be heterosexist, sexist, racist, classist, etc. This is supported by a
researcher and forensic psychologist that I admire very much, Karen Franklin. In her interviews
with perpetrators of anti-gay violence, Franklin contends that heterosexism is not just a personal
value system, but it is a tool in the maintenance of gender dichotomy. She believes that assaults
on homosexuals and other individuals who deviate from sex role norms are the result of
teachings, preachings, and attitudes in schools, religious institutions, and societal organizations.
Attacks on LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer) persons is a learned
form of social control of deviance rather than a defensive response to personal threat. I present
my arguments on this topic in chapter 6, and I realize that this line of thinking meets with much
resistance. As you read chapter 6, remember that I also argue that all persons from any ethnic,
religious, racial, sexual, gender, or socio-economic background can be prejudice, bias, and
discriminatory. But prejudice and bias are not the same as institutional power and privilege that
create and reinforce the pervasive structures of privilege for the dominant group. Given this
semantic controversy, researchers, critical theorists, and LGBTIQ activists have proposed and use
related terms such as institutionalized homophobia, state-sponsored homophobia, sexual
prejudice, anti-gay bigotry, straight privilege, heterosexual bias, compulsory heterosexuality,
heterocentrism, homonegativity, and from gender theory and queer theory, heteronormativity.
Homophobia refers to antipathy towards homosexuality and/or fear of gay men and
lesbians that stems from the essentialist cultural notion that maleness-masculinity and
femaleness-femininity are complementary and normative. Homophobia as a fear of
homosexuality can be internalized in gay men and lesbians as well as heterosexuals and
bisexuals and persons of any gender or sexual identity. Thus, homophobia can be a
sedimented perceptor (see “sedimented perceptors”) that influences the psychology and behavior
or all persons and dominates all cultural institutions.
Hidden Curriculum (see also Null Curriculum). Many scholars in recent years have
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challenged the idea that the explicit curriculum—that which is published by the school as the
official curriculum—is the only important dimension of the schooling process. Critics insist that
the discrete parcels of information and knowledge schools present for categorization,
memorization, analysis, and recitation are only one small part of the curriculum. In short,
scholars find a “hidden curriculum” behind the explicit, stated, and published curriculum.
For example, Michael Apple (1979) suggested that schools and classrooms socialize
students to the values that are a part of the culture of the school and society. More
specifically, Jackson (1968, 1992) noticed that the current structure of classrooms, with large
numbers of students, socializes those students to delay gratification and sharing their successes
because teachers cannot satisfy all of the needs of all the children simultaneously. Many of these
critics of the explicit curriculum also contend that schools foster compliant behavior rather than
cultivating initiative and critical thinking, as they generally claim to do. The hidden curriculum
often works like a subliminal message. Advertisers create subliminal (below the threshold of
consciousness) messages to sell their products. Naked women fall from the sky in beer
commercials; muscular men promote exercise equipment and cigarettes. Images of presumed
beauty or promises of wealth and happiness are used to sell products. Some merchants use
subliminal messages to discourage shoplifting. Inaudible voices announce under the soft music
that “shoplifters will be prosecuted.” Until the practice was banned in the 1960s, movie theaters
would insert and flash film frames of popcorn or sodas to lure viewers to the concession stand.
These frames flashed by too quickly to register overtly with the viewer, thus they were subliminal
or hidden. Schools and classrooms can be places where certain behaviors are normalized and
subliminally suggested through the expectations, rewards, and visual culture of the school (see
“visual culture”).
Historicize. To historicize is to locate a text in historical, cultural, etymological, socio-political,
and theological contexts. This is a method of deconstruction that attempts to understand and
evaluate a text within its historical context. I use historicization throughout the book to locate
each issue in a historical context so that fresh insights and robust understandings may emerge.
Identity politics. Identity politics refers to actions by members of a specific identity group
to unite together in solidarity in order to advance political, economic, or social change.
Oppressed or marginalized persons in these groups seek to articulate their oppression,
raise awareness of the oppressive structures and institutions against which they struggle,
and advance their self-interest. Largely an outgrowth of the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights
movements of the 1960s, identity politics has expanded beyond racial or gender divisions and
extends into sexual orientation, ethnicity, citizenship, gender identity, and other identities today.
In the 1960s, marginalized and oppressed groups sought recognition for their differences, not in
spite of them. By identifying herself or himself as an African-American or Afro-American, a
Hispanic or Latina/o, or a feminist, for example, a person could focus all of her or his energies on
a specific political cause for the identity group with singularity of purpose for progressive social
change. There are many significant social changes with a heritage in the Civil Rights, Woman’s
Rights, Labor Rights, and Gay Rights movements of the 1960s. There are those who see identity
politics in a less positive light today. By focusing so much energy on a specific political agenda,
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critics argue, practitioners of identity politics can become just as closed minded or exclusionary
as those they claim are oppressing or marginalizing their group. Other critics point out the
complexity, for example, of a bisexual woman with African American and Hispanic biological
heritage who has unique and complicated intersections of various identities. The idea that an
individual must choose a single identity category is considered problematic, unjust, and illogical
for critics of identity politics. Additionally, the idea that an outsider cannot understand the history
or needs of a specific group can create more problems in the political arena by closing the
possibility of solidarity across and beyond identities. African-Americans who were oppressed by
a majority white government in the 1960s, for example, collaborated with conservative white
legislators for passage of the Civil Rights Act. Under the focused umbrella of identity politics,
such a compromise would have been much more difficult—if not impossible—to achieve. This is
why many organized minority political groups have largely abandoned the identity politics model
for a more holistic approach to common goals. Cornel West, for example, advances the notion of
moral reasoning. Others look to engaged Buddhism and/or universal human rights for guidance.
In my scholarship, I prefer a more integrated and holistic philosophy in the tradition of liberation
theology (see “liberation theology”) and Engaged Buddhism. As an example, Coretta Scott King
in November 2000 at the Creating Change Conference in Atlanta said: “My husband, Martin
Luther King, Jr., once said ‘We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny ... an
inescapable network of mutuality, ... I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be
what you ought to be.’ Therefore, I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
dream to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian an gay people.” The
scholarship of Stuart Hall, Adrian Piper, Sherman Alexie, and Eric Michael Dyson are all
significant in this discussion. I am informed by poststructural theoretical positions that
interrogate and interrupt binary arrangements in favor of notions of identity as fluid, partial,
contested, multiple, and complex. Michel Foucault advances a notion of discourse as an analytic
method. He contends that discursive structure established the binary arrangement between
heterosexual and homosexual, for example, to assign a deviant label to the latter and to all
expressions of gender and sexuality that do not fit within the normalizing descriptors of
heterosexual. Observing that meaning is generated through difference rather than identity, St.
Pierre (2000) expresses a poststructural feminist concern: “Once differences are erased by
identity, people can be more easily slotted into a hierarchy or grid and then manipulated,
dismissed, or oppressed” (p. 480). The modern constructions of “homosexual,” or “woman,” or
“African American,” or “immigrant,” or “Jewish,” or “Muslim,” for example, become the
condition through which a person can be read primarily or even exclusively through an
essentialized—and often derogatory—identity. This allows for further oppression because a
“woman” can be subordinated as the “weaker sex” or “helpmate” or “nurturer” in place of
complex possibilities of multiple strengths, occupations, or leadership; lesbian or gay identities
can be essentialized for notions of desire and particular acts of the body, in place of multiple,
partial, and fluid identities; various racial categories can be used to associate traits and skills as
inherent and essential to a class of people. In all of these examples, persons are transferred from
subject to object of discrimination and subordination. For Foucault, discourse is a web of
language, culture, and values—meaning that language functions according to socially constructed
norms that allow certain statements about persons to be made but do not allow for the possibility
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of other statements. Additionally, discursive identity structures such as the creation of racial,
gendered, sexual, class, and ethnic dichotomies actually advance oppression because individuals
are labeled by identity stereotypes and socially constructed norms that do not allow for mixed
race, bisexual, queer, intersex, religious ecumenical, and other complex, fluid, and multiple
identities. Also, as noted above, identities include race, gender, ethnicity, citizenship, sexuality,
and many other categories that do not allow for a singular notion of self. Jacques Derrida extends
the discussion further by repudiating views of identity as essence or its effect. He insisted that the
identity of a person is always implicated in its apparent opposite. William Pinar (1998) writes
“Because identification is identification with an other it is never identical to itself. This alienation
of identity from the self it constructs—a structural recapitulation of a primary psychic selfalienation?—does not mean only that any proclamation of identity is necessarily partial, that it
will also be exceeded by other elements of identity. ... Identity is always a relation, never simply
positivity” (p. 9). Queer theory (see also) seeks to bridge the gap between identity politics and
poststructural critique with a reconceptualizing of the very notion of the self (see
Autobiography).
Interdisciplinary curriculum. The entry for “curriculum theory” defines it as the
interdisciplinary study of educational experience. So what does “interdisciplinary” mean?
Interdisciplinary curriculum is applied within education and pedagogies to describe
teaching practices and curriculum development models that use methods and insights of
several established disciplines or traditional fields of study. Interdisciplinarity engages
researchers, students, and teachers in the goals of connecting and integrating knowledge and
understanding from several academic schools of thought, professions, or technologies—along
with their specific perspectives—in the pursuit of a common task, a cross-disciplinary
understanding, or a more robust and meaningful understanding of a theme. The research of Heidi
Hays Jacobs, James A. Beane, and Veronica Boix Mansilla is associated with integrated
curriculum and interdisciplinary practices in schools. However, there is disagreement among
scholars about the nature of interdisciplinarity. Mansilla contends that interdisciplinary
interaction generates understanding that may not be accessible within the limits of a single
discipline. I contend that in order to accomplish an interdisciplinary curriculum, a teacher or
student must first become an interdisciplinary person. Autobiographical engagement with a wide
range of cultural, academic, social, aesthetic, and intellectual endeavors is essential for all
educators—indeed all citizens. Interdisciplinary persons are most capable of understanding
interdisciplinary curriculum. We must be engaged in interdisciplinary scholarship, integrated
personal growth, and multi-disciplinary practices in our personal and professional lives in order
to effectively advance an interdisciplinary curriculum in schools and classrooms. However, the
entire interdisciplinary project is problematized and deconstructed by postmodern scholars
who contend that modern disciplines are actually metanarratives that maintain binary
oppositions and intellectual regulation. Thus, a post-disciplinary, trans-diciplinary, or even
or non-disciplinary curriculum where teaching and learning is more holistic across
boundaries is preferred. Hybridity and eclecticism best describe interdisciplinarity for many
postmodern scholars.
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Intersex. A person whose chromosomes, genitalia, and/or hormones do not align with a
medical dictionary definition of a “standard” male or “standard” female form. For
example, intersex can range from the very rare hermaphroditism to the occasional chromosomal
anomalies such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS),
Turner syndrome, and Klinefelter syndrome. In other words, some children are not born with the
“standard” XY chromosome pattern for males and XX chromosome pattern for females. There is
considerable debate in the medical and sociological communities about the frequency of
chromosomal pattern diversity and the methods of defining intersex patterns. Often times these
debates enter public discussion in relation to debates about classification of males and females in
athletic competition. See, for example, the story Stella Walsh of Poland in the 1932 Olympics, or
the Spanish hurdler Maria Patino in the 1988 Olympics, or Caster Semenya of South Africa in
2009. Additionally, some people are born with ambiguous genitalia, an extra Y chromosome, an
additional X chromosome, inner testes, an ovo-testis, or a number of other intersex differences.
This is what the Intersex Society of North America says about these issues in chapter 6: “The
Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) is devoted to systemic change to end the shame,
secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is
not standard for male or female. We have learned from listening to individuals and families
dealing with intersex people that: Intersexuality is primarily a problem of stigma and trauma, not
gender; Parents’ distress must not be treated by surgery on the child; Professional mental health
care is essential; Honest, complete disclosure is good medicine; All children should be assigned
as boy or girl, without early surgery.” (www.isna.org/) I recommend several films on this topic
for further understanding: XXXY (a 2002 documentary by the Intersex Society of North America
and available on their website), XXY (a 2008 narrative film made in Argentinia), and Sex Games:
Gender and the Olympics (a documentary about Maria Patino).
Liberation theology. Liberation theology has a long history in Latin American theological
and resistance movements that drew on various traditions of Catholic humanism
(Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit) in the aftermath of the Spanish Conquest. Contemporary
expressions of liberation theology emerged in Latin America in the 1960s as a critical,
theological response to overwhelming conditions of poverty and oppression. Grounded in a
century of focused development in Roman Catholic social teaching, beginning with the 1891
papal encyclical Rerum Novarum and culminating with the Second Vatican Council’s 1965
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, numerous Latin American
theologians began to articulate a distinct theological method identified as critical reflection on
praxis in light of the Word. This method highlights the primacy of experience as a source for
theological reflection, noting that experience precedes theological formulation, and advances a
preferential option for the lived experience of the poor. Liberation theology has both been
informed by and informed the critical pedagogical work of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire,
with liberation theologians evidencing particular reliance on Freire’s understanding of
conscientization as critical participation in emancipatory, transformative action within history.
Curriculum studies scholars have explored parallels between liberation theology and the method
of currere as developed by William Pinar and identified a language of possibility and
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transformation within liberation theology that can inform a practice of critical pedagogy.
Articulating a theology of the periphery, in contrast to a European and North American theology
of the center, liberation theologians emphasize solidarity with God and others that acts against
oppression within the current historical moment. Concerned primarily with the circumstances of
those living in poverty, expressions of this theology have also considered political, cultural, and
gendered oppression. It identifies temporal liberation within history as a sign of the
eschatological liberation to come beyond history. Critiques within the Roman Catholic hierarchy
in the late 1970s led to institutional restrictions by Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) on the practice and role of liberation theology centering on
two related concerns: 1) the view that its emphasis on the pursuit of liberation within history
negated anticipation of the fullness of liberation in the Kingdom of Heaven; and 2) the perception
that its use of Marxist analysis, particularly in relation to class struggle, prioritized political
revolution. Liberation theologies have been articulated by scholars working from a range of
distinct perspectives, including Rubem Alves’ analysis from within Protestant Christianity,
Sharon Welch’s proposal of a feminist theology of liberation, Cornell West’s discussion of black
liberation theology, and Marc Ellis’ development of a Jewish theology of liberation.
Metanarrative. A narrative is a story, and the prefix “meta” means “beyond” or “about.”
Therefore, a metanarrative is a story about a story, encompassing and explaining other
smaller or local stories within totalizing narrative schemes. In critical theory and
postmodernism, a metanarrative (sometimes also called a master narrative or grand narrative) is
an abstract idea that claims to be a comprehensive explanation of all historical experience or
knowledge. Some philosophers contend that a metanarrative is a global or totalizing cultural
narrative schema which orders and explains all knowledge. In my book I cite from many
postmodern authors who criticize metanarrative, for example Jean-Franççois Lyotard. In his 1979
book The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Lyotard refers to what he describes as
the “postmodern condition,” which he characterized as increasing skepticism toward the
totalizing nature of metanarratives or grand narratives that attempt to organize all knowledge into
some form of transcendent and universal “Truth.” Critics of postmodernism contend that there
are some important metanarratives that do reveal transcendent and universal Truths. Critics
believe that postmodernism is extreme nihilism and relativism which denies and destroys
universal Truth. I counter this argument in my book and contend that postmodernism is not
nihilism and relativism. Postmodernism with the method of “deconstruction” (see also) is not a
denial of truths (small “t”)—as the French postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault writes—but
rather the deconstruction of metanarratives of a single, universal Truth (capital “T”) that
transcends time and context. This debate is tempered somewhat by the constructive
postmodernists introduced in chapter 1. After you read the entire book, perhaps you can return to
the question of metanarratives and consider your own position in this intense debate. As I write
in chapter 6 on page 149, I see a world where people kill each other in battles over their assumed
universal Truth in religion, politics, race, gender, and culture. In my book I present a way out of
this madness through education in an attempt to affirm multiple truths rather than clinging to an
untenable universal Truth of a metanarrative. I explain my position throughout the book with
particular attention to matanarratives in chapters 4, 6, and 9. I present my vision for curriculum in
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chapters 11 and 12.
Metaphysics. Metaphysics addresses questions of reality. Metaphysicians study the condition
of being and existing in the world (ontology) as well as the structure of the universe itself
(cosmology). They also investigate the nature of first principles and ultimate forces in the
universe in order to answer the question “What is real?” Metaphysics is one of the three branches
of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology and axiology. As we saw in the glossary entry
“aesthetics” above, axiology has two dimensions: ethics and aesthetics.
Modernism. Modernism can refer to the time period after the Enlightenment and up to the
20th century, including industrialization and the technological age. Modernism is also a
cultural movement in the arts that encourages self-consciousness. Modernism can also refer
to a way of thinking about the world that is scientific and rational and advances human
progress and development. In philosophy, modernism follows from Rene Descarte whose
writings provided support for notions of dualism and rationalism in the modern era (see
“bifurcation”). The term modernism encompasses the activities and output of those who felt the
“traditional” forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization, and daily
life were becoming outdated in the new economic, social, and political conditions of an emerging
fully industrialized world. Modernism rejected the lingering certainty of the Enlightenment and
also the existence of an all powerful creator. By the early 20th century, the Roman Catholic
Church wrote an encyclical letter warning of the dangers of modernism to faith. However, by the
end of the 20th century, many people of faith embraced the culture and science of modernism
while still remaining within their religious traditions. This is not to say that all modernists or
modernist movements rejected either religion or all aspects of Enlightenment thought, rather that
modernism can be viewed as a questioning of the axioms of the previous age. As you will read in
chapter 1, some contend that postmodernism is a break with modernism, and others contend that
postmodernism is an extension of modernism. There are many complex and contradictory
understandings of both modernism and postmodernism discussed in chapters 1–3.
Null curriculum (see also “hidden curriculum”). The null curriculum refers to what is
omitted or left out of the curriculum—that is to say, those authors, ideas, topics, chapters of
texts, and controversial issues that go undiscussed in schools. Educators might ask these
questions: What authors or topics reflect your own knowledge and interests, and do you
emphasize these authors and topics in your lessons to the exclusion of others? How much time
do you allocate to each topic, chapter, experiment, or assignment in the textbook? Which ones do
you skip and why? What issues are too controversial to discuss? Ecology? HIV/AIDS?
Pregnancy? Religion? Politics? Race? Gender? Evolution? Civil War? LGBT themes? What
books are banned? What well-known books and films are absent from the school library or
forbidden outright? Many school districts and teachers ignore or gloss over these topics; this is
the null curriculum in action. The null curriculum becomes institutionalized when textbook
companies and testing agencies avoid controversial topics, sanitize literature and humanities,
erase history, eliminate the arts, and narrow science to scientism in order to appeal to the widest
possible audience and increase sales. Students suffer when they receive incomplete information
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in the belief that silence protects them from suffering. Jonathan Silen (1995) wrote an insightful
book, Sex, Death, and Children: Our Passion for Ignorance in the Age of AIDS, in which he
documented the devastating consequences of the null curriculum.
Perennialism. Perennialism believes that the aim of education is to ensure that students
acquire understandings about the great ideas of Western civilization. These ideas have the
potential for solving problems in any era. The focus is to teach ideas that are everlasting, to seek
enduring truths which are constant, not changing. Perennialists believe that the natural and
human worlds at their most essential level do not change. Teaching these unchanging principles
is critical. Humans are rational beings, and their minds need to be developed. Thus, cultivation of
the intellect is the highest priority in a worthwhile education. The curriculum focuses on attaining
cultural literacy in the loftiest accomplishments of humankind in the great works of literature and
art and the laws or principles of science. Advocates of this educational philosophy are Robert
Maynard Hutchins who developed a ‘Great Books’ program in 1963 and Mortimer Adler, who
further developed this curriculum based on his list of 100 great books of Western civilization.
Positivism. The 19th century French philosopher August Comte popularized the word
“positivism.” He argued that human thought had evolved through three stages: the theological
stage, where truth rested on God’s revelation; the metaphysical stage, where truth derived from
abstract reasoning and argument; and the positivistic stage, where truth arises out of scientifically
produced knowledge. Comte sought to discredit the legitimacy of non-scientific thinking that
failed to take “sense knowledge” (knowledge obtained through the senses and empirically
verifiable) into account. He saw no difference between the ways knowledge should be produced
in the physical sciences and in the human sciences, and he believed one should study sociology
just like biology. Society like nature, he argued, is nothing more than a body of neutral facts
governed by immutable laws. Therefore, social actions should proceed with law-like
predictability. In such a context as Comte’s, education would also be governed by unchanging
laws; the role of the educator is to uncover these laws and then act in accordance with them. For
example, educational laws would include universal statements on how students learn and how
students should be taught. The positivist educator, in other words, sees only one correct way to
teach, and scientific study can reveal these methods if we search for them diligently.
Phenomenology. Phenomenology is a philosophy of consciousness that seeks description of
how the world is experienced by persons. The purpose of phenomenology is not just the
description of phenomena, but the understanding of what lies behind them.
Phenomenological understanding of curriculum replaces the modern obsession with standardized
interpretation, predetermined methodologies and styles for writing and researching, and universal
metanarratives that can be applied to knowledge acquisition. For Maurice Merleau-Ponty
perception is primary. Yvonna Lincoln expands on this concept of phenomenological perception
and relates it to lived experience: “Phenomenology enjoys a status today as a soundly conceived
philosophical school, the bent of which is to return experience to the lived rather than the
instrumental or conceptual world and to view the conceptual world as one given meaning and
mediated by the lived, present being and temporal experience. Phenomenologists are themselves
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increasingly alarmed by the abstractions represented by the scientific, technological, and
instrumental approaches to curriculum that prevailed during the first half of the twentieth
century. The notion of the curriculum as a set of concepts, ideas, and facts to be mastered;
students as empty vessels to be filled with those concepts; and pedagogy as a set of techniques to
be acquired by teachers is often rejected by contemporary curricularists.” Max van Manen
supports this rejection of traditional techniques. There is a growing body of evidence and a set of
moral suasions that students themselves are capable of rich inner lives, that their experience is
worth eliciting and building on, and that pedagogy is a form of interactive relationship rather than
a bag of tricks to be assembled in the teaching process. Phenomenology is an important part of
the discussion of aesthetics in chapter 10.
Postmodernism. There are many ways to describe postmodernism, but there is no single
definition. Most of the time I think of postmodernism as our contemporary time period—as in
“the postmodern era”—but not “after the modern era” nor “anti-modernism” because it
incorporates the best features of the modern era and overcomes the worst features of the modern
era. I title the book Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era and not “Postmodern
Curriculum Development.” Why? Because I am not offering a plan or method for doing
curriculum development that is new or different or “postmodern.” Rather, I am investigating
issues and ideas that have been a part of curriculum development discussions over the past 50
years since the emergence of the word postmodern in art, architecture, and literary theory. I
describe postmodernity in great detail in the Introduction and chapter 1. Ultimately, I
understand postmodernism to be a mood, an attitude, and a way of experiencing the world
in the time period since 1950. Finally, please do not get stuck when you read all of the names of
professors and titles of books in chapter 1 and chapter 2. I encourage students to skim through
the lists of names and titles and just read the big ideas for general meaning. You will only need to
know these lists of names and book titles if you are writing a research paper on postmodernism
or if you advance to a doctoral degree program.
Poststructuralism and structuralism. It might be helpful to know that poststructuralism,
deconstruction, and postmodernism are often used interchangeably to describe the critique of
modernity (see “modernism”). Poststructuralism refers to those theoretical movements
emerging in France that had grown out of and then opposed the philosophies of
structuralism which purported to discover invariant structures in society, the human
psyche, history, consciousness, and culture. Poststructuralism is thus an assault on
structuralism as well as an outgrowth of it. Structuralism might be best understood as an analysis
that privileges structures, systems, or sets of relations over the specific phenomena that emerge
in, are constituted by, and derive their identity from those structures and sets of relations.
Structuralism has sought to identify the systems that create meaning; poststructuralism has
sought to dismantle the system in order to expose the variable and contingent nature of
systems. Deborah Britzman writes about poststructural views of identity in which the notion of a
unitary, cohesive self is deconstructed. Britzman challenges the idea that individuals have an
authentic core or essence that has been repressed by society. Rather than appeal to a timeless and
transcendent human nature, poststructural thought traces the constitution of the subject within a
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historical framework. There is concern with how subjectivities become configured as an effect of
history and how they are then produced. In poststructural analysis, meaning is never fixed or
stable. Nor is reality, in any sense, understood as objectively “out there” or simply apprehended
through language. Instead, meaning becomes the site of departure, a place where reality is
constructed, truth is produced, and power is effected. Poststructuralist approaches are concerned
with the inherited and constructed meanings that position our understanding of social life.
Jacques Derrida’s book On Grammatology is an important text for understanding
poststructuralism.
Process philosophy. Process philosophy teaches that reality is conceived as a process of
creative advance in which many past events are integrated in the events of the present, and
in turn are taken up by future events. I am a member of the Center for Process Studies in
California, and my book is highly influenced by process thought. This is how we describe
process philosophy on our web page: With a foundation in the metaphysical system of Alfred
North Whitehead (among others), and a methodology that integrates both speculation and
empirical verification, process thought brings its unique metaphysical perspective to bear on
many fields of reflection and action. Ultimately, process thought seeks to integrate and reconcile
the diverse facets of human experience (i.e. ethical, religious, aesthetic, and scientific intuitions)
into one coherent explanatory scheme. The most common applications of process thought are in
the fields of philosophy and theology. However, process has also found a meaningful foothold in
many other discussions, including ecology, economics, physics, biology, education, psychology,
feminism, and cultural studies. Process thinking, in general, seeks to elucidate the
developmental nature of reality, emphasizing becoming rather than static existence or
being. It also stresses the interrelatedness of all entities. Process describes reality as ultimately
made up of experiential events rather than enduring inert substances. The particular character of
every event, and consequently the world, is the result of a selective process where the relevant
past is creatively brought together to become that new event. The universe proceeds as “the many
become one, and are increased by one” in a sequence of integrations at every level and moment
of existence. Process thought thus replaces the traditional Western “substance metaphysic” with
an “event metaphysic.” Terms that further characterize process thought are interrelatedness,
unity-in-diversity, non-dualism, panentheism, mutual transformation, person-in-community, and
panexperientialism. When you read Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era, it should
be clear that process thought permeates each of the chapters.
Progressivism. Progressive education is a pedagogical movement that began in the 19th
century and has persisted in various forms to the present. John Dewey was its foremost
proponent in the early 20th century. One of his tenets was that the education should
improve the way of life of citizens through experiencing freedom and democracy in schools.
It is an alternative to the accountability movement reflected in Race to the Top or No Child Left
Behind. The term progressive is used to distinguish this pedagogical movement from the
traditional curriculum which was rooted in classical preparation for the university and strongly
differentiated by socio-economic level. Progressive education values present experience and
employs place-based learning projects, experiential learning, integrated curriculum focused on
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thematic units, problem solving and critical thinking, development of social skills, collaborative
and cooperative learning projects, social responsibility for democracy, and integration of
community service and service learning projects into the curriculum. Progressivism places less
focus on textbooks and more emphasis on community and social experiences. The ultimate goal
is the development of life-long learning and social skills that lead to growth. Progressivists
believe that education should focus on the whole child, rather than on the content or the teacher.
They stress that students should test ideas by active experimentation. Learning is rooted in the
questions of learners that arise through experiencing the world. It is active, not passive. The
learner is a problem solver and thinker who makes meaning through her or his individual
experience in the physical and cultural context. Effective teachers provide experiences so that
students can learn by doing. Curriculum content is derived from student interests and questions.
The scientific method is used by progressivist educators so that students can study matter and
events systematically and first hand.
Proleptic. A proleptic moment is any experience that transcends linear segmentation of
time and creates a holistic understanding of the past, present, and future simultaneously.
The word proleptic (or prolepsis) is unfamiliar to many people outside of literary or theological
studies. Literary scholars and English teachers will recognize this word as describing the moment
in a short story or novel when the reader becomes fully cognizant of past, present, and future
events all in one instant. It is the moment when all of the events of the narrative coalesce.
Christian theologians have also used the word proleptic to describe the fullness of time—past,
present, and future—in the person of Jesus Christ. William Pinar uses the term synthetical
moment to describe the prolepsis. (See “currere” above.) In psychology, proleptic is parallel to
the notion of gestalt. I use this important word to indicate the fullness of time and experience—
past, present, and future—in a single instant.
Proleptic eschatology. Eschatology is a theological term that is used to refer to the “end
times” of the earth and the hope for future things unseen. Proleptic eschatology is different
because it understands that future events are already unfolding and embedded in the
present moment and past events. I believe that eschatology is, perhaps, the most urgent
dimension of theology and culture that I address in my book. Violence, ecological destruction,
and political conflicts are often related to (mis)understandings of time and eschatology. There are
at least three possible approaches to eschatology: realized eschatology, futuristic eschatology,
and proleptic eschatology. I explain all three definitions of eschatology in chapter 4. However, by
the end of the book I advocate for proleptic eschatology in chapters 11 and 12.
Public pedagogy. Public pedagogy is a theoretical construct focusing on various forms and
sites of education and learning occurring beyond formal schooling practices; in institutions
other than schools, such as museums, zoos, libraries, and public parks; in informal
educational sites such as popular culture, media, commercial spaces, and the Internet; and
in/through figures and sites of activism, including public intellectuals, grassroots social
activism, and various social movements. Public pedagogy theorizing and research is largely
informed by the contributions of cultural studies; accordingly, public pedagogy is concerned with
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both the socially reproductive and counter-hegemonic dimensions of pedagogical sites that are
distinct from formal schooling. In taking up curriculum studies’ core epistemological question of
“what knowledge is of the most worth?”, public pedagogy interprets educational institutions as
fluid, open systems that are themselves nested within multiple, overlapping, and contested sites
of learning. Public pedagogy research thus investigates social contexts for informal pedagogical
practices that advance either dominant oppressive structures or possibilities for democratic
resistance and reconfiguration, yet much of the work that has occurred focusing on the public
pedagogy of popular culture, in particular, has focused mainly on its hegemonic aspects. Multiple
and distinct articulations of public pedagogy exist within the literature, with various scholars
emphasizing its feminist, informal, critical, performative, and/or activist dimensions.
Additionally, some strands of public pedagogy inquiry seek to broaden and de-institutionalize
conceptualizations of teaching, learning, and curriculum across the discipline of education. A
more widespread usage of public pedagogy was developed by Henry A. Giroux, who popularized
the linkage of public pedagogy with the study of popular culture, a strand of public pedagogy
scholarship that has, in various forms, dominated the field since the mid-1990s. Giroux perhaps
most clearly articulates his utilization of cultural studies and public pedagogy in his discussion of
the relationship between culture and politics in the essay Public Pedagogy as Cultural Politics:
Stuart Hall and the “Crisis” of Culture (2000). Rejecting right- and left-wing theorists who
criticize inquiry into culture as tangential to any real humanist or political curriculum, Giroux
instead takes up Stuart Hall’s notion of culture as central to political discourse. Giroux argues
that inquiry into culture provides theorists with a possibility for locating political agency within
totalizing institutional structures; however, this possibility is both made remote and consistently
obscured by the pedagogical, hegemonic moves of culture, which collectively provide a limited,
normalized language and imagination for political citizenship. In his early work, Giroux provided
specific examples of popular culture’s hegemonic pedagogy through his analyses of Disney, and
films such as Fight Club, Ghost World, and Dangerous Minds. Other scholars such as Karen
Anijar and Joe Kincheloe took up this strand of work, producing critical analyses of popular
culture sites such as Barbie, McDonald’s, and Oprah. Emerging curriculum scholars such as
Jennifer Sandlin, Jennifer Milam, Jake Burdick, and Michael O’Malley, among others, have
argued that scholarship focusing on the public pedagogy of popular culture should expand
beyond what Glenn Savage calls the “enveloping negativity” that surrounds much work on public
pedagogy, and should try to explore more resistant forms of public pedagogy. Taking up this call,
researchers interested in popular culture as public pedagogy have begun to focus more attention
on the ways in which popular culture acts as a terrain of contestation, and have explored the
notion of cultural resistance as public pedagogy. While some researchers use the term “public
pedagogy” to refer to such resistance, others use the term “critical public pedagogy,” explaining
that they seek to move past the focus on the reproductive aspects of popular culture and are
explicitly conceptualizing popular culture as a site where hegemony is fought against, and are
framing popular culture as a critical and emancipatory pedagogy. John Weaver and Toby Daspit,
for instance, urge curriculum scholars to pay more attention to alternative readings of popular
culture texts in an effort to uncover the more provocative and resistant uses of popular culture.
Scholars who take this route focus on how popular culture operates as an arena of resistance.
Through a focus on resistance, they thus seek to expand the concept of critical public pedagogy,
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as it specifically relates to the ways in which cultural resistance located within the realm of
popular culture can be a force for progressive social change (e.g. see the work of Kevin Tavin,
David Darts, Robin Redmon Wright, and James Gee and Betty Hayes). To counteract this
hegemonic culture of neoliberalism, Giroux proposes the possibility of educators and other
cultural workers as oppositional public intellectuals acting collectively to create critical,
democratic public spaces that engage and transform social problems. This radical public
pedagogy conceptualizes public intellectuals as educators, community activists, actors, public
health employees, journalists and others who work within institutions and informal sites of
learning to counter hegemonic constructions and to advance democratic transformation. Giroux’s
understanding of public intellectuals and intellectualism largely centers on the Antonio Gramsci
and Edward Said discourse that he employs throughout his writing. In this position, the role of
the intellectual is established as a critical response to the pervasive and predatory culture that
emerges from media and political discourse. Giroux’s figuration of the intellectual—related in
his eulogy for Said—still is an artifact of the institution, a construct of and from the academy,
gifted with the capacity to somehow stand apart from culture and reinscribe its meaning. Said’s
metaphor of the exile then becomes a central figure in the work on public intellectualism—a
figure who transcends the discursive boundaries of public and academic spheres, and in doing so,
is no longer “at home” in either. Giroux’s emphasis on the public intellectual as a key site of
contestation against neoliberal ideology has been reconceptualized towards a more communal,
decentered sense of activism in recent scholarship. In advancing public pedagogy as a challenge
to neoliberalism that is oriented toward democratic projects and politically engaged communities,
Jeanne Brady focuses on activist individuals and community groups as public pedagogues who
collectively interrupt inequality in public and private institutions and within everyday practices.
This public pedagogy is framed by the strategy of constructing alternative discourses focused on
alliances rather than identities and recognizes critical self-examination as integral to democratic
social action. Brady suggests that research efforts should take seriously the pedagogical nature of
sites that neither necessarily employ nor require the intervention of an institutionally or
hierarchically located public intellectual to maintain their efforts toward realizing a more just
social order. Working from feminist and cultural studies perspectives, Brady explicates her
conceptualization of performative and activist public pedagogy through analysis of the Guerrilla
Girls project, self-identified as a group of anonymous females who work to expose sexism and
racism in politics, art, and film through activist interventions within public spaces. Audrey
Dentith pursues similar themes in her study of how girls and young women growing up on the
Las Vegas strip negotiate and resist a prevailing tenor of exploitation based on gender and
sexuality. A growing number of curriculum studies scholars are exploring the performative and
activist dimensions of public pedagogy as possibilities for advancing democratic projects, and in
so doing continue to locate the public intellectual in grassroots collective alliances formed
beyond defined institutional roles and structures. Examples include Jennifer Sandlin and Jennifer
Milam’s study of the anti-consumerist activist interventions of Reverend Billy and the Church of
Stop Shopping; Michael O’Malley’s exploration of Chilean secondary school students’ strike for
educational equity; and Brian Schultz’s work with Chicago students-turned-neighborhoodactivists. In this manner, public pedagogy inquiry, coupled with Giroux’s approach of integrating
cultural studies into the study of pedagogies, provides curriculum and educational scholars with
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new ways of understanding their practice, both within and outside traditional schooling. A
comprehensive review of public pedagogy is found in Review of Educational Research and
described as follows:
The term public pedagogy first appeared in 1894 and has been widely deployed as a theoretical
construct in education research to focus on processes and sites of education beyond formal
schooling, with a proliferation of its use by feminist and critical theorists occurring since the
mid-1990s. Finding that the public pedagogy construct is often undertheorized and ambiguously
presented in education research literature, the study identifies five primary categories of extant
public pedagogy research: (a) citizenship within and beyond schools, (b) popular culture and
everyday life, (c) informal institutions and public spaces, (d) dominant cultural discourses, and
(e) public intellectualism and social activism. These categories provide researchers critical
specificity in research that employs the public pedagogy construct and for empirical studies that
investigate the processes of public pedagogy, particularly in terms of the learner’s perspective.
(Sandlin et al., 2011, p. 338)
Queer theory. Queer theory is an investigation of gender and sexuality that emerged in the
early 1990s out of the fields of gay and lesbian studies and feminist studies. Heavily
influenced by the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault and his three volume History
of Sexuality, queer theory builds upon feminist challenges to the conceptualization of gender as a
marker of the “essential self” and upon the close examination of the socially constructed nature
of sexual acts and identities in gay and lesbian studies. Foucault’s investigation of the
interrelationship between knowledge and power is an important theoretical foundation of queer
theory. Two important texts are Eve Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet and Judith Butler’s
Gender Trouble. I recommend the more recent editions of Gender Trouble that include
discussions of intersex issues (see “intersex”). Gay and lesbian studies focused its inquiries into
“natural” and “unnatural” behavior with respect to homosexual behavior, and queer theory
expands its focus to encompass any kind of sexual activity or identity and the ways that societies
classify these identities as normative or deviant. Whether we understand queer theory as a
deconstructive subversion of identity categories or a deliberate transgressive identity, it is
important to remember that the explosion of understandings of gender and sexuality in the
postmodern global community render modern normative categories obsolete. I believe that queer
theory is a cultural and academic phenomenon that will expand in complex and interesting ways
in the years ahead—and no amount of legislation or religious proselytizing will convert queer
subjects into normalized automatons. In chapter 6, I write about the interesting ways that gender
and sexuality are beginning to be understood in the postmodern era.
Reconceptualization. In the early 1970s, a movement in the field of curriculum studies
began to shift the focus of curriculum from scientific management and the Tylerian
Rationale to a process of understanding curriculum as an interdisciplinary study of
educational experience. Curriculum theorists in the 1970s relied upon critical theory, gender
and sexuality studies, feminist theories, critical race theory, literary criticism, aesthetics, political
theories, theology, phenomenology, psychoanalytic theory, autobiography, and cultural studies as
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the foundation of the movement. The reconceptualization is described in detail in Chapter 3.
Relativism. Relativism is the philosophical doctrine that all criteria of judgment are
relative to the individuals and situations involved. Truth, moral judgment, and aesthetic
values are not universal or absolute but may differ between individuals or cultures. This
should not be confused with relativity in physics and astronomy. The theory of relativity
overturned the concept of motion from Newton’s day, by positing that all motion is relative.
Time was no longer uniform and absolute. Physics could no longer be understood as space by
itself. Instead, an added dimension had to be taken into account with curved space-time. Time
now depended on velocity, and contraction became a fundamental consequence at appropriate
speed.
Research Paradigms. I use five categories to evaluate educational research methodologies:
Predict (i.e., positivism, statistical social science research, and empirical science); understand
(i.e., interpretive, naturalistic, constructivist, phenomenological, hermeneutic, multicultural,
ethnographic, symbolic interaction, semiotics, and case study); emanicipate (i.e., critical theory,
neo-Marxist, feminist, praxis, Freire, critical race theory, paticipatory action research, queer
theory, identity politics); deconstruct (postmodern deconstruction, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, post-nationalism, post-paradigmatic research); evoke (critical arts-based research,
constructive postmodernism, autoethnography, and currere).
Schools of Philosophy. Throughout the text I refer to several schools of philosophy. I will
briefly outline these schools of philosophy and the curriculum methodologies associated with
each one. These nine statements can be found in longer form in chapter 1 of my book
Contextualizing Teaching, published by Addison Wesley Longman in 2000.
a. Idealism. Idealism proposes a metaphysics that sees the world of ideas of the mind as
reality. To exist, something must be perceived by the mind. Reality thus appears in the realm
of the spiritual or ideas, or one finds true knowledge (epistemology) by “seeing with the mind’s
eye” and seeing the consistency of ideas. Ethics should reflect the perfect ideal model of the self,
and aesthetics reflects the ideals of perfect beauty set forth by the great masters of the arts. The
educational philosophy of perennialism exemplifies the application of idealism in schooling.
Perennialism, in short, stresses that which is lasting in the search for ideal truth in the hope that
students become philosophers who can articulate these truths and build a great society. Plato
even wrote about his goal of the “philosopher king,” an intellectual who could guide societies in
the highest ideals. The curriculum is the subject matter of the mind: literature, intellectual
history, philosophy, and theology as found in the great or sublime books such as Shakespeare’s
plays, Judeo-Christian scriptures, the works of Homer and the Koran. Students are encouraged to
imitate those people who have been enshrined as admirable by past authorities. Lectures,
discussions, and interpretations of great works dominate the teaching style.
b. Realism. Realism shares much in common with idealism, particularly the belief that
truth is unchanging. Realists, however, look outward to the physical world using their
senses to discover and affirm truth. Natural Law—a belief that absolute laws of nature exist
and should govern human behavior—forms the ethics of realism. Beautiful art, therefore, must
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replicate nature. The educational philosophy of essentialism (not to be confused with
existentialism) reflects realism. Essentialism mandates lessons that teach basic factual knowledge
in reading, writing and mathematics—the so-called three Rs—and science, history, and foreign
languages. It emphasizes the scientific method of hypothesis, testing, and generalization, but it
tends to encourage structured learning environments designed to achieve mastery of basic
information and skills. Students must obey, comply with authority and learn the rules of conduct
and decorum. Realists promote efficient school structures that advance these goals.
c. Thomism. Rational acts determine what is good, and creative intuition about what is
reasonable determines what is beautiful. Logical reason and revelation guide people to the
truth and to God. Thomism dates back to the Dominican Catholic priest Thomas Aquinas in
13th century France. Aquinas combined his philosophical study of Plato and Aristotle with his
religious training to help explain Christian faith and the notion of an immortal soul. His
followers expanded Aquinas’ philosophy and developed a Thomistic metaphysics that sees the
world as the realm of reason and of God. Teachers are encouraged to include subject matter of
both the intellect and the spirit in the curriculum, and particularly religious doctrines. Thomists
tend to “drill” students in reason—sometimes relying on a catechism for religion and
memorization for other subjects. Disciplining the mind and controlling behavior to conform with
natural law is, they contend, the proper goal of education. I review the religious philosophies that
influenced early American education in chapter Four.
d. Pragmatism. Pragmatism is a uniquely American philosophy associated with William
James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey, among others, and differs markedly from
the first three philosophies in that it emphasizes a need for change and adaptation. Its
metaphysics pictures a world of experience in which one must test hypotheses to see what works.
Truth is based on this experience; morality is determined by society rather than natural law; and
beauty changes according to the public taste. Two educational philosophies are associated with
the philosophy of pragmatism: progressivism and reconstructionism. Progressive educators base
their subject matter on social experiences. Thus, they value a social studies curriculum highly.
They ask students to solve practical problems using groups and projects, and everyone’s
participation is critical. The reconstructionists take this participation one step further by
proposing that education reconstruct society by addressing current events and social problems.
Believing that education extends beyond the information in books to include outside involvement
in the community, reconstructionists promote social activism for change. Ultimately,
reconstructionists and many progressive educators believe that the teacher should guide students
in projects and activities that will improve society rather than simply teach lessons that conform
to the status quo social arrangements that are unjust in so many ways.
e. Existentialism. There are many varieties of existentialism—from Christian existentialists
who find hope in the examination of the present, to nihilists who find that the present
world is absurd. There are philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus who
protest traditional formulations of philosophy and emphasize the tragic, sometimes absurd
nature of life; other philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir and Maxine Greene
emphasize the importance of social action to combat the tragedies of the modern world.
Literature and the arts become central to this process of understanding and acting.
Existentialism (with the closely related phenomenology) may be a straightforward theory, but
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because its practitioners make it sound esoteric, many people consider it impossible to
understand. Existentialists believe that existence precedes essence; phenomenologists believe
that immediate subjective understandings of events are the source of reality. In other words, we
find truth when we examine our present existence rather than some preconceived notion of the
essential characteristics of the world and human beings. Existentialists promote human freedom
and the need for people to take responsibility for creating goodness and beauty in the world.
Nevertheless, ethics and aesthetics are subjective. Each person exercises his or her freedom and
responsibility to discover the truth. Since existentialists reject any absolute public norm,
existentialism as an educational philosophy promotes alternative approaches to teaching and
learning. Students have lots of choices and electives, especially in art, moral philosophy,
literature and other studies that encourage them to become inner directed. Students should
discover for themselves the best methods for learning, and ultimately develop personal
responses. Following the Greek philosopher Socrates, who taught in the marketplace by
gathering students around him for discussion in a dialectical process of investigation that often
challenged traditional assumptions, students are encouraged to enter dialogue and to ask a lot of
probing questions.
f. Marxism. Like existentialism, Marxism is a difficult philosophical position to describe briefly
because there are so many “Marxisms” with conflicting interpretations. Often in Western
societies the mere mention of the name Karl Marx evokes intense negative reaction and
precludes productive discussion of Marxist educational philosophies. Marxist analysis is not
equivalent to describing the social and political system of China or the former Soviet Union. It
involves primarily the protest against the bourgeois—having to do with the conventional,
selfish materialistic capitalist class—society produced by the advent of industrialization. In
this context, Marx argued that social and political phenomena have their genesis in the material
(economic) aspects of everyday life. His notion of dialectical materialism asserted that
institutions must be studied in their historical context to trace the ways that economic production
has shaped them. This material base determines the class structure of a society, which, in turn,
affects all aspects of everyday life, especially the division of classes into those who own the
factories and businesses (the means of production) and those who have only their labor to offer
(the workers). When workers become politically conscious of their exploitation, they will
transform into revolutionaries who will work to change the unfair socio-economic reality.
Schooling and education within the class-divided society, Marx argued, is a farce because
schools only serve to further the interests of the dominant class. Pedagogical activity in such a
climate is an act of terror against the workers and their children, he reasoned. Once the revolution
had succeeded, then schooling could begin to raise consciousness and serve the needs of the
working class. Such schools, as envisioned by Marx, would combine productive labor with
academic learning and physical education for the purpose of producing well rounded and fully
developed human beings.
g. Behaviorism. Behaviorists believe that behavior is fundamental to understanding mental
phenomenon, and thus behaviorism might best be described as a psychological theory
rather than a philosophy. Scientific behaviorism is associated with J. B. Watson and B. F.
Skinner who searched for independent variables (stimuli) of which behavior (reactions) was a
function. Thus, environmental conditions play an important—some behaviorists would say
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exclusive—role in determining mental activities and physical responses. Schools can teach
students by reinforcing positive stimuli and modify student behavior by withholding the
reinforcing stimuli. To demonstrate how all human behavior, including cognition and
intelligence, can be shaped by the process of selective reinforcement and extinction of responses
by prolonged disassociation from an old stimuli was the ultimate goal of behaviorism. We
introduce scientific behaviorism here because it exerted such an immense influence on
educational theories, testing and assessment practices, classroom management and organizational
practices in schools in the 20th century. However, by the end of the century cognitive theories
and constructivism had replaced theories of behaviorism as the dominant ways of thinking about
teaching and learning. Behaviorism is much more complex than this brief introduction can
encompass—including philosophical behaviorism that explores the meaning of mental
expression.
h. Feminism. Feminists challenge traditional philosophies because they fail to seriously
examine women’s interests, issues, and identities and because they fail to recognize
women’s ways of being, knowing, and acting. For example, the 18th century French
philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) wrote a book about the education of young men
titled Emile in which males are to be allowed to guide their own education so that they will grow
to be free, responsible, and loving adults but Emile’s female counterpart, Sophie, must please
men, rear the young, and live a life that is “pleasant and charming at all times.” Following the
lead of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and 20th century philosopher Simone de Beauvoir
in her important book The Second Sex, many feminists argue against essentialism—the belief that
women are essentially and naturally docile, subservient, vain, frivolous, and less intelligent than
men. Wollstonecraft argued that education and socialization had made women dependent and
docile, but that given the chance, women could prove themselves just as morally and
intellectually capable as men. I join feminist philosophers in faulting traditional metaphysics for
splitting the self from the other, the mind from the body, and personal identity into separate
categories of memories and physical characteristics. This is especially damaging when
“masculinity” is identified with rationality and “femininity” with emotionality, and women are
then assumed to be less human and less intelligent than men. Feminists would prefer to stress the
ways that all persons possess rationality and emotionality. They also believe that individuals
interpenetrate each other’s lives through empathy, with the mind and body working together in
harmony. Feminist philosophers also join postmodernists in the critique of the assumed
objectivity of positivist science. While some feminists prefer to emphasize the problems
associated with gender stereotyping and bias, others focus on the subjugation and oppression of
women and the ways that exterior social forces shape women’s consciousness. The literature
describes three waves of feminism: (1) First-wave feminism refers to an extended period of
feminist activity during the 19th century and early 20th century in the UK and the US. Originally
it focused on the promotion of equal contract and property rights for women and the opposition
to chattel marriage and ownership of married women (and their children) by their husbands.
However, by the end of the 19th century, activism focused primarily on gaining political power,
particularly the right of women’s suffrage. Yet, feminists such as Voltairine de Cleyre and
Margaret Sanger were still active in campaigning for women’s sexual, reproductive, and
economic rights at this time; (2) Second-wave feminism refers to the period of activity in the
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early 1960s and lasting through the late 1980s and often marked with the publication of the 1963
book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Friedan co-founded the National Organization for
Women in 1966 which aimed to bring women into the mainstream of American society as fully
equal partners with men. The scholar Imelda Whelehan suggests that the second wave was a
continuation of the earlier phase of feminism involving the suffragettes in the UK and US.
Second-wave feminism has continued to exist since that time and coexists with what is termed
third-wave feminism. The scholar Estelle Freedman compares first- and second-wave feminism
saying that the first wave focused on rights such as suffrage, whereas the second wave was
largely concerned with other issues of equality, such as ending discrimination. The feminist
activist and author Carol Hanisch coined the slogan “The Personal is Political,” which became
synonymous with the second wave. Second-wave feminists saw women’s cultural and political
inequalities as inextricably linked and encouraged women to understand aspects of their personal
lives as deeply politicized and as reflecting sexist power structures; (3) Third-wave feminism
began in the early 1990s, arising as a response to perceived failures of the second wave and also
as a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second wave.
Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave’s essentialist
definitions of femininity, which they contend overemphasized the experiences of upper middleclass white women. A post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is central to much
of the third wave’s ideology. Third-wave feminists often focus on “micro-politics” and challenge
the second wave’s paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for females. The third wave has its
origins in the mid-1980s. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave such as Gloria Anzaldua,
bell hooks, Chela Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many
other black feminists, sought to negotiate a space within feminist thought for consideration of
race-related subjectivities. Third-wave feminism also contains internal debates between
difference feminists such as the psychologist Carol Gilligan (who believes that there are
important differences between the sexes) and those who believe that there are no inherent
differences between the sexes and contend that gender roles are due to social conditioning.
i. Eastern philosophies. Many prominent Eastern philosophies are traced to China, Japan,
India, and the Middle East. While each of these cultures contributes unique perspectives, it
is common in Eastern philosophy to focus on the inner life rather than outer experience. In
fact, philosophy in the Eastern tradition is more of a way of life rather than a subject to be
studied. Intuition, inner peace, tranquility, attitudinal development, and, in some cases,
mysticism are all emphasized—with religion and philosophy being more intimately
intertwined than in Western philosophy. Some have assumed—either overtly or by
omission—that philosophy is limited to the contributions of European and North American
thinkers. Such an ethnocentric attitude contributes to the narrow-minded bigotry that divides
peoples and even fosters oppression and violence. It is true that Western philosophy with roots in
ancient Greece dramatically shapes the worldview of Western societies in Europe and North
America. However, it is important to note that Eastern philosophies have also influenced
Western social, political, and religious ideas—and vice versa. For example, there is a growing
interest in Yoga, New Age spirituality and Buddhism in the West, and a growing interest in
naturalism, postmodernism, progressivism, and the philosophy of John Dewey in the East. We
should remember that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have their origins in Eastern cultural
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settings. One important dimension of the Eastern philosophical tradition is the emphasis not only
upon knowing but also on teaching others. Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Mohammed were all
teachers. The Sumarian goddess Inanna, the Hindu goddess Saraswathi, and the Vedic goddess
Maya-Shakti-Devi all inspire teaching and learning. Inanna is a goddess that undergoes death and
resurrection and teaches ways of being that necessitate sacrifice, humility, and reunification.
Saraswathi is the goddess of wisdom who is always shown with a book in one of her hands;
Hindu children are taught to pray to her for the gift of education and success in school. Devi (the
Indian name for woman) is the teacher of the Vedic gods themselves concerning the ultimate
ground and source of their own powers and being. Since these prophets, teachers, gods, and
goddesses from Eastern cultures inspire the religious and social mythology of many cultures,
teachers should be inspired to examine Eastern philosophy more closely. For example, Taoism
(which means way or path) is an influential philosophy in China that reflects on the movement of
the universe and the way of harmony. Lao-Tzu set down such teachings in the Tao Te Ching in
the 5th century BCE—the same time as Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, and the pinnacle of Greek
philosophy—that guides individuals in the development of their inner life so that they can meet
the challenge of any difficulty in life. Many New Age spirituality movements teach that the ebb
and flow of the universe should inspire us to seek a rhythm and balance in our lives. This sense
of harmony is found in the popular belief in the Yin and Yang of all life experiences where
opposites exist in balance with each other. I address these issues in chapters 4 and 8, and the
diagram on page 220 might be helpful for deeper understanding.
j. Humanism. The roots of humanism are found in the thinking of Erasmus (1466–1536),
who attacked the religious teaching and thought prevalent in his time to focus on free
inquiry and rediscovery of the classical Greek and Roman traditions. Erasmus believed in
the essential goodness of children. He contended that humans have free will, moral conscience,
the ability to reason, aesthetic sensibilities, and religious instinct. He advocated that the young
should be treated with respect and that learning should not be forced or rushed because it
proceeds in stages. Humanism was developed as an educational philosophy by Jean Jacques
Rousseau (1712–1778) and Johann Pestalozzi, (1746–1827) who emphasized the basic goodness
of humans, understanding through the senses, and education as a gradual and unhurried process
in the natural development of human character. Humanists believe that the learner should be in
control of his or her own destiny. Since the learner should become a fully autonomous person,
personal freedom, choice, and responsibility are the focus. The learner is self-motivated to
achieve, and the desire to learn is intrinsic. Recent applications of humanist philosophy in
education focus on the social and emotional well-being of the child, as well as cognitive
development. Teachers emphasize freedom from threat, emotional well-being, and selffulfillment as espoused in the theories of Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Alfred Adler.
Sedimented perceptor. A sedimented perceptor is an entrenched bias or assumption that is
deeply buried in a person’s unconscious. Sedimented perceptors can result from cultural
conditioning, religious upbringing, social taboos, academic indoctrination, informal schooling,
peer pressure, psychological fear, and parental manipulation. People often act or react in
situations based on these deeply held biases and assumptions which are often irrational, bigoted,
or unexamined. Sometimes people will profess a positive conscious belief, but act upon a deeply
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held bias that they cannot consciously identify. Bullying in schools and prejudice in society are
both the result of sedimented perceptors in action.
Scientific management. Scientific management is associated with the theories of Frederich
Taylor and Max Weber that sought to analyze and synthesize workflow to improve labor
productivity. Taylor investigated ways for workers to increase their efficiency when he was the
foreperson at the Midvale Steele Company in 1875. Taylor believed that decisions based upon
tradition and rules of thumb should be replaced by precise procedures developed after careful
study of an individual at work. The application of scientific management is contingent on a high
level of managerial control over employee work practices. The purpose is to increase efficiency,
decrease waste, and base all decisions on empirical evidence. Some educational accountability
programs model these management theories. Pushed to its logical extreme, scientific
management deskills workers and students and dehumanizes classrooms and the workplace.
Taylorism is often associated with Fordism because of the emphasis on mass production with
optimal task-oriented, repetitive, tedious, and menial labor practices. There is considerable
debate in educational literature and research about the benefits and problems that may result from
scientific management, efficiency, and/or accountability movements. The work of Franklin
Bobbitt applies many of these efficiency principles to schools and curriculum. Bobbitt published
The Elimination of Waste in Education in 1912 and The Curriculum and How to Make a
Curriculum in 1918 and 1924, respectively. Some credit Bobbitt with the discursive shift from
methods to curriculum, and his 1918 text as a significant legitimizing events in the history of the
field of curriculum studies.
Scientific realism. The European love affair with scientific realism began five centuries ago
when philosophers and scientists began to understand that medieval ways of seeing the world no
longer answered the complex problems of the time. When bubonic plague, the Black Death,
swept across Europe in the 14th century killing one of every four people, rulers found themselves
powerless to control it. Every traditional medieval response—prayer, mysticism, scapegoating,
and magic—failed. When a society cannot understand let alone solve a challenge to its existence,
its conception of reality collapses or a new guiding vision rushes forward. Under the threat of the
Black Death, Western society began to develop a new way of seeing the world that would lead
directly to scientific realism. The Black Death ushered in what historians refer to as modernity or
the era of scientific revolution. Science helped Western society understand and control a bit
better the outside environment, the world of matter and energy. From the Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy we read:
Scientific realists hold that the characteristic product of successful scientific research is
knowledge of largely theory-independent phenomena and that such knowledge is possible
(indeed actual) even in those cases in which the relevant phenomena are not, in any nonquestion-begging sense, observable. According to scientific realists, for example, if you obtain a
good contemporary chemistry textbook you will have good reason to believe (because the
scientists whose work the book reports had good scientific evidence for) the (approximate) truth
of the claims it contains about the existence and properties of atoms, molecules, sub-atomic
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particles, energy levels, reaction mechanisms, etc. Moreover, you have good reason to think that
such phenomena have the properties attributed to them in the textbook independently of our
theoretical conceptions in chemistry. Scientific realism is thus the common sense (or common
science) conception that, subject to a recognition that scientific methods are fallible and that most
scientific knowledge is approximate, we are justified in accepting the most secure findings of
scientists “at face value.”
Semiotics. Semiotics might be understood as the study of signs and symbols that are used as
means of language or communication and how literary forms and conventions affect the
meaning of language. Semiotics can also be understood as the study of signs, symbols, and
design elements of visual texts that work together to produce meaning (see “visual culture”).
Semioticians include Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Sanders Pierce, Claude Levi-Strauss,
Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, and Julia Kristeva. There are
three branches of the study of semiotics: (1) semantics is the relation between signs and the
things to which they refer; (2) syntactics is the relations among signs in formal structure; and (3)
pragmatics is the relation between signs and their effects on those people who use them.
Umburto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose offers multiple opportunities for understanding
semiotics. Eco proposes that every cultural phenomenon can be studied as communication. In the
scriptorium of Eco’s The Name of the Rose, a group of 14th century Franciscan monks busily
work at translating and illuminating texts under the strict, albeit unlikely, supervision of an
elderly blind brother. The elderly monk acting as the communicative agent for the magistral
authority of the Church harries the monks along if he hears them chatting among themselves. In
this way, he curtails any discussion about the texts being worked on. Acting as guardian and
gatekeeper, the elderly monk declares that the library alone is testimony to truth and error and
once a text has been transcribed, it assumes its place in the library above, to which only he has
access. Maintaining the authority of interpretation depends on preventing the monks from
engaging aesthetically with the texts, and in Eco’s medieval mystery, defiance has the ultimate
consequences. Eco’s novel provides us with an illustrative example of the authoritative word that
renders the dialogic monologic. According to Martin Buber’s dialogic principle I and Thou, the
necessary conditions for dialogue can only occur when one is aesthetically present to the other.
The aesthetic awareness is tantamount to the ethical responsibility of a dialogic consciousness.
Dewey argues that, in the end, works of art are the only media of complete and unhindered
communication between man and man [sic] that can occur in a world full of gulfs and walls that
limit community of experience. Aesthetic production is therefore an act of communion. As Buber
writes, the instinct for communion is the longing for the world to become present to us as a
person. Bakhtin asserts that aesthetics emerges as the consummation of what is built through the
productive collaboration among interlocutors. In other words, our subjective mental conscious is
structured intersubjectively through sensory perception. In Deweyan terms, aesthetics provides us
with the interpretive stuff that allows us to envision alternate scenarios and possibilities to
morally problematic situations (Slattery et al., 2006).
Simulacrum. I discuss notions of simulacra and hyperreal in the work of Jean Baudrillard in
chapters 5 and 6. The simulacrum has been of interest to philosophers—from Plato who
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speaks of image-making as either a faithful reproduction of the original or as distorted
intentionally to make the copy appear correct to viewers, through to Nietzsche who
suggests in The Twilight of the Idols that most philosophers, by ignoring the reliable input
of their senses and resorting to the constructs of language and reason, arrive at a distorted
copy of reality. Modern French social theorist Jean Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a
copy of the real that becomes truth in its own right. Today this is called the hyperreal. Jean
Baudrillard sees four possibilities in an image: (1) basic reflection of reality, (2) perversion of
reality; (3) pretence of reality (where there is no model); and (4) simulacrum, which “bears no
relation to any reality whatsoever.” In Baudrillard’s concept, like Nietzsche’s, simulacra are
perceived as negative, but Gilles Deleuze takes a different view, seeing simulacra as the avenue
by which accepted ideals or “privileged position” could be “challenged and overturned.” Deleuze
defines simulacra as “those systems in which different relates to different by means of difference
itself. What is essential is that we find in these systems no prior identity, no internal
resemblance.” I use the film The Matrix to explore the concept of simulacrum (even though
Baudrillard critiqued the placement of his book Simulacra and Simulations in the film).
Social reconstructionism. The social reconstructionists were concerned with two major
premises. First, society is in need of constant reform and change, and second, such reform
must include both structural changes in education and the use of education in
reconstructing society. George S. Counts (1889–1974) is perhaps one of the most well-known
of the social reconstructionists. He argued that education must face squarely and courageously
every social issue and establish an organic relationship with the local community.
Reconstructionist educators focus on a curriculum that highlights social reform. Theodore
Brameld (1904–1987) is considered the founder of social reconstructionism. He recognized the
potential for either human annihilation through technology and human cruelty or the capacity to
create a beneficent society using technology for human compassion. Paulo Freire (1921–1997)
was a Brazilian whose experiences living in poverty led him to champion education and literacy
as the vehicle for social change. In his view, humans must learn to resist oppression and not
become its victims, nor oppress others. To do so requires dialog and critical consciousness, the
development of awareness to overcome domination and oppression. Rather than “teaching as
banking,” in which the educator deposits information into students’ heads, Freire saw teaching
and learning as a process of inquiry in which the child must invent and reinvent the world. The,
curriculum focuses on student experience and taking social action on real problems, such as
violence, hunger, international terrorism, inflation, and inequality.
Theology. Theology is the academic study of God, gods, or goddesses, as well as sacred
texts, religious rituals, wisdom literature, eschatology, creation narratives, and topics
related to religion and spirituality. The methods of deconstruction (see “deconstruction”) and
hermeneutics (see “hermeneutics”) are used by theologians to investigate rituals, sacred texts,
and historical documents related to all world religions. A theologian is an academic scholar who
may or may not be a member of a religion or a person of faith. A serious student does not have to
believe in a bible or ritual to study it academically. An atheist, agnostic, Gnostic, and/or believer
of any religion can study theology as an academic exercise. In my twenties I was interested in
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theology, and I received a graduate degree in theology in California in 1980. I have read many,
many books on theology throughout my life. In chapter 4 I present an overview of curriculum
development and theology. In short, I propose that the people of the world are theologically
illiterate about all world religions and sacred texts, and this has led to violent Crusades,
Inquisitions, jihads, Holocaust, slavery, suicide bombings, ethnic cleansing, indoctrination, and
religious wars. The school curriculum must find a way to appropriately teach about religion,
spirituality, and history so that a more informed and compassionate human community can
overcome the religious violence of the past and present. Theology is the academic study of these
topics that will advance this goal. However, chapter 4 on theology has become one of the most
controversial chapters in Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era. I can only speculate
that any academic discussion and critical analysis of religion, bibles, spirituality, gods and
goddesses, religious history, and sacred rituals is still very threatening to many people in the
world today. Thus, in my opinion, chapter 4 and related discussions of theology throughout the
book are urgently needed to advance human understanding and heightened consciousness. What
do you think?
Theological research. Theology (from the Greek theos, “God,” and logos, “Word,” or
“meaning”) has a variety of interrelated definitions. In pagan antiquity it referred to a
mythological explanation of the ultimate mysteries of the world. The stoics sought more reasoned
knowledge of the “divine” dimension of existence. Aristotle considered theology the “first
philosophy” based on an immaterial unmoved mover which he originally considered
metaphysics. Early Christians used theologia and oikonomia to refer to the inner mysteries of the
Godhead and intentions for the world manifest in the Christ event. Anselm’s formulation is one
of the classic understandings of theology: fides quaerens intellectum (“faith seeking
understanding”). By the 12th century the word theology was used to signify an intellectual
discipline with an ordered body of knowledge about God. In the Middle Ages, theology was
considered the “queen of the sciences.” There is long tradition of using theology as a method
for curriculum research and/or a metaphor for understanding curriculum. Contemporary
theology often views itself as a reflection on religious experience. David Tracy, however,
emphasizes the need to examine truth claims on the basis of rational argument by bracketing
religious commitment. His “foundational theology” (also called philosophical or historical
theology) seeks to replace earlier fundamentalist theology which functioned as a form of
apologetics for religion. Foundational theology, like philosophy in its critical role, seeks to
uncover the basic categories with which a systematic theology can be developed arguing
knowledge of reality is available only on the basis of the structure of the particular being who
questions it ( i.e., Heidegger’s Dasein). Thus there are a wide range of epistemological options
available in contemporary theology ranging from strict empiricism with structural linguistic
analysis (Wittgenstein) to neoclassical metaphysics and process philosophy (Whitehead) or
process theology (Teilhard de Chardin). David Tracy suggests five possible models of
foundational theology: orthodox, liberal, neo-orthodox, radical, and revisionist. Mark C. Taylor
offers a postmodern mode which he calls “A/Theology”—a theological orientation rooted in an
aesthetic of discontinuity and indeterminancy which springs from Derrida and deconstruction.
Today, theology includes the formal academic study of ontology, cosmology, eschatology,
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metaphysical grounding of being, historical understandings of the divine, notions of gods and
goddesses, hermeneutic analysis of sacred texts and rituals, epistemological understandings of
wisdom literatures, notions of existence and time, as well as anti-foundational metaphysics.
Theological research in the curriculum field seeks historical, psychological, and philosophical
understandings that will enhance investigations of religion and education, separation of religion
and government, court rulings on prayer in schools, spirituality and holistic practices in the
curriculum, the eschatological dimensions of currere, character education, debates about
evolution and intelligent design, moral development, values in the classroom, textbook
challenges and library controversies, access to religious education, reactions of religious
denominations to queer identities, and ethnographic dimensions of religion and spirituality in
cultural studies. Theology as an academic discipline helps to illuminate these issues. There have
been many scholars in the curriculum field who have used theology to understand and
advance important issues related not just to religion, spirituality, and culture but also
textual interpretation, schooling practices, and pedagogical philosophies. Some scholars
have argued that it is impossible to understand curriculum historically without the
investigation of the theological dimensions of US educational events such as the “Olde Deluder
Satan Act” in Massachusetts in the 1640s, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin’s writings
on the role of education in a democracy, The Yale Report on the “Defense of the Classics” in
1828, Horace Mann and the Common School movement of the 1840s, Jane Addams’ educational
and social vision for women and children at Hull House in Chicago in 1889, the Progressive
Education Movement of the 20th century, post-Sputnik curriculum reforms in the US from 1958–
1965, and “No Child Left Behind” legislation of 2002. Whether accountability programs,
testing practices, school structures, curriculum leadership, or textbook adoption, there are
theological antecedents and influences that curriculum scholars have investigated.
Additionally, the theological training and experiences of curriculum scholars influences
their curriculum theorizing, as seen, for example, in John Dewey’s A Common Faith,
Madeleine Grumet’s Bitter Milk: Women and Teaching, Phillip Phenix’s Transcendence and the
Curriculum, James B. MacDonald’s Theory, Practice, and the Hermeneutic Circle, Dwayne
Huebner’s The Lure of the Transcendent, Michael P. O’Malley’s A Critical Pedagogy of Soul,
Kathleen Kesson’s Critical Theory and Holistic Education, James Henderson and Kathleen
Kesson’s Curriculum Wisdom: Educational Decisions in a Democratic Society, and C. A.
Bowers’ Education, Cultural Myths, and the Ecological Crisis: Toward Deep Changes and
Educating for an Ecologically Sustainable Culture: Rethinking Moral Education, Creativity,
Intelligence, and Other Modern Orthodoxies. A particularly strong influence of Latin American
liberation theology and black liberation theology—and the related work of theorists such as
Paulo Freire, bell hooks, W. E. B. Dubois, and Cornel West—can be seen in the work of critical
curriculum scholars and critical race theorists such as William Watkins, Beverly Cross, James
Kirylo, Lisa Delpit, Peter McLaren, and Geneva Gay. (See “liberation theology”). Feminist
theologies of scholars such as Rosemary Radford Ruether and Mary Daly inform the research of
many gender theorists in curriculum studies. Process theology and cosmology is utilized in the
research of ecologically focused curriculum scholars and environmental science educators such
as Florence Krall Shepard and David Orr. Eastern theologies and native spiritualities influence
scholars such as Four Arrows Jacobs, Michael Fisher, Barbara Bickel, Mei Wu Hoyt, Hongu
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Wang, and Christopher Reynolds in curriculum research in both the arts and sciences. Theologies
of the human body influence some curriculum scholars who work in the tradition of queer theory
(see “queer theory” to investigate the complexity of identities and genders such as Ugena
Whitlock. The intersection of economics and theology is evident in the work of John B. Cobb, Jr.
and Herman E. Daly titled For the Common Good which proposes an approach to community
and economy rooted in sacred texts and traditions. Curriculum scholars committed to equity,
democracy, and social justice often embrace this economic theology. Existentialism in
curriculum research utilizes the theology of Kierkegaard and de Beauvoir, particularly as their
work relates to ethics. Catherine Lugg, among many others, has researched legal issues related to
religion and education. These are examples of the strong tradition of using theology as a method
or metaphor for curriculum research.
Tylerian Rationale. Traditionally, curriculum development has been concerned with
Professor Ralph Tyler’s four basic questions in his syllabus for Education 360 at the
University of Chicago and published in 1949. These four questions have so dominated the
study of curriculum for the past 50 years that they have, in effect, become a curriculum
metanarrative called the Tylerian Rationale. Tyler (1949) asks the following four questions: 1)
What educational purposes should the school seek to attain? 2) How can learning experiences be
selected which are likely to be useful in attaining these objectives? 3) How can learning
experiences be organized for effective instruction? 4.) How can the effectiveness of learning
experiences be evaluated? Ever since Tyler categorized these four basic principles of the
curriculum, most school districts and educators—whether consciously or unconsciously—have
aligned their thinking about schooling experiences with this rationale. Tyler’s questions have
been codified in schools as the goals and objectives, lesson plans, scope and sequence guides,
and mastery of learning evaluations. The influence of Ralph Tyler on the history of curriculum
development cannot be overemphasized. In fact, his methodology is at the heart of much of the
accountability and testing philosophy in school throughout the world today. The Tylerian
Rationale shares one basic assumption with the scientific testing and measurement movement:
that the curriculum can and should be evaluated in terms of its effect. The dominance of testing,
accountability, and scientific measurement continues to be the focus of most national curriculum
models. The reconceptualization of curriculum does not share this enthusiasm. Some scholars
suggest that Ralph Tyler’s study is contrary to John Dewey’s philosophy by treating generalized
results as more important than the immediate and specific qualities of students’ experiences.
Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era contributes to the literature in curriculum
studies that seeks to move beyond the Tylerian Rationale in search of fresh understandings of
curriculum and postmodern aesthetic sensibilities.
Visual culture. Visual culture is the scholarly study of various forms of media, technology,
advertising, film, and other media that have a visual image component and privilege seeing,
vision, and visual technologies, both mechanical and critical. Visual culture is often an
interdisciplinary academic field related to cultural studies, visual studies, art history, critical
theory, philosophy, and anthropology. Visual culture theorists often collaborate with and borrow
from scholars in art education, psychoanalytic theory, gender studies, queer theory, cultural
© Routledge
theory, and film studies. Analysis of visual art, video games, comics, television, advertising, and
the Internet are prominent in visual culture. Emerging visual culture research overlaps with the
study of science and technology, including hybrid electronic media, cognitive science, neurology,
and image and brain theory. It also may overlap with the emerging fields of performance studies
and public pedagogy. Early work on visual culture was done by John Berger (Ways of Seeing,
1972) and Laura Mulvey (Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, 1975) that follows from
Jacques Lacan’s theorization of the unconscious gaze. Late 19th-century practitioners of visual
knowledge, such as Georgy Kepes and William Ivins, as well as prominent phenomenologists
such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, also played a role creating a foundation for the discipline.
Contemporary scholars in visual culture include W. J. T. Mitchell, Nicholas Mirzoeff, and
Gillian Rose.
Gender and Human Sexuality Appendix for
chapter 6
Gender—Biology, Identity, and Social Roles
A. Biological Sex (physical features such as genitalia, chromosomes, and hormones)
• Female (XX chromosome pattern with “standard” female genitalia and hormones)
• Male (XY chromosome pattern with “standard” male genitalia and hormones)
• Intersex (one out of every 100 persons. Not biologically a “standard” female or male
form)
B. Gender Identity/Core Sexual Identity (how we identify our bodies and gendered
selves/sexual selves)
• Woman (biological “birth sex” as a female corresponds to gender identity as a woman)
• Man (biological “birth sex” as a male corresponds to gender identity as a man)
• Androgynous (does not identify as either woman nor man; or identifies as both)
• Transgender (gender identity as woman or man does not match biological “birth sex” of
female or male)
• Gender queer (rejects categories of woman and man; or identifies as “between” woman
and man)
• Two-spirited (Native persons who have attributes of both male and female and a distinct
social role in the tribe. They dress with male and female articles and are considered a
separate or third gender)
• Brain sex/sexual identity (what sex a person knows they are inside rather than outside)
• Male to female transsexual (transwoman. Biological males whose sexual identity is
female)
• Female to male transsexual (transman. Biological females whose sexual identity is male)
Note: transsexuals may seek hormonal and/or surgical change to align biological sex with sexual
identity.
© Routledge
C. Gender Role (social scripts, norms, and performances that we play out as man/woman,
mother/father, boy/girl, partner/spouse. These scripts are cultural and vary across time and
place for individuals and societies)
• Feminine (this can apply to those who identify as woman, intersex, trans, queer, or man)
• Masculine (this can apply to those who identify as woman, intersex, trans, queer, or man)
• Both feminine and masculine or unisex (embracing social notions of both feminine and
masculine)
• Gender diverse (does not conform by nature or choice to social and cultural gender roles
and expectations)
• Metrosexual (males who identify as a man and who embrace the feminine in style and
grooming)
• Menergy (hyper-masculinized males)
• Drag queen or drag king (performance of the other gender in dress and manners)
• Cross dressing (dressing in the other gender clothing) formerly termed “transvestite”
Human Sexuality—Sensuality, Intimacy, Sexual Reproduction, and Sexualization
D. Sexual Behavior (the act of sexual relations or physical intimacy with other consenting
adults)
• Homosexual (the act of sexual relations and physical intimacy with persons of the same
gender)
• Bisexual (the act of sexual relations and physical intimacy with both males and females
and/or intersex)
• Heterosexual (the act of sexual relations and physical intimacy with persons of the other
gender)
• Celibate/abstinence (abstain from intimate sexual relations)
• Masturbator (the act of sexual behavior and erotic stimulation with self alone)
• Omnisexual (indifferent to the gender of sexual partners; open to sex with all adults
regardless)
Note: pedophile, pederast, and rapist are not included on this list. The rape of children, teenagers,
or adults is an act of violence and abuse and not a form of human sexual intimacy by consenting
adults)
E. Sexual Orientation (innate, natural desire, fantasy, or attraction for affection, romance,
sexual relations, or erotic intimacy with other consenting adults; also an expression of political
or cultural identity by some)
• Gay/lesbian (romantic desire for and physical attraction to same gender persons)
• Bi (romantic desire for and physical attraction to both males and females and/or intersex)
• Straight (romantic desire for and physical attraction to other gender persons)
• Asexual (no sexual desire and physical attraction for intimacy)
• Queer (does not conform to categories for romance, intimacy, partnering, or sexuality)
• Questioning (exploring romantic desire and physical attraction, or unaware of sexual
orientation)
© Routledge
•
Pansexual (romance, desire, and intimacy with other consenting adults is not dependant
upon gender)
© Routledge