Curriculum Theorizing

Over the years, curriculum theorizing has not advanced steadily. Over the last decades of the twentieth century, scholars grappled with vexing questions such as: ‘What is curriculum theory?’, ‘How might we obtain one?’, ‘What is one good for?’ (McCutcheon, 1982), ‘Can an example be found?’ (Kliebard, 1977).

The answers to these questions have been many and varied, and they have revealed differences in basic assumptions about what counts as valid curriculum purposes and content. On one hand, Westbury (1999) contends that these are not relevant questions at all, since the day-to-day reality of schools revolves around much less lofty and idealistic questions, such as: ‘What might we want to do in this here-and-now world?’ and ‘How can or might we begin to do it?’ (p. 357). On the other hand, curriculum specialists such as Giroux (1991) and Ornstein and Hunkins (1993) contend that we have to construct new vocabulary and new terms or metaphors if we are to make any advances.

Certainly, new approaches, with new terms and metaphors, began to be developed during the 1970s. Whether they offer increasingly promising insights and directions is problematic. John Dewey’s remark in the 1920s that in curriculum matters we are still ‘groping’ may be equally pertinent today. Jackson (1992) has observed that the curriculum field remains ‘confusing’. Wright (2000) contends that at the beginning of the twenty-first century curriculum theorizing is still highly contested and in a state of flux.

The frustration for curriculum writers is that, although the conceptualizing of curriculum theories still eludes us, the potential use of curriculum theories is very clear. Appropriate curriculum theories (if we had them) could guide the work of teachers, policy-makers, administrators, and anyone else involved in curriculum planning and development. They would help researchers analyse data and provide a much-needed impetus and direction for curriculum research with the benefits flowing on to classroom teachers. One approach is to attempt to establish the key questions that need to be answered by a curriculum theory. For example, Kliebard (1977) suggested that the fundamental question for any curriculum theory is: ‘What should we teach?’ This question then leads us to consider other questions, such as:

Why should we teach this rather than that?

Who should have access to what knowledge?

What rules should govern the teaching of what has been selected?

How should various parts of the curriculum be interrelated in order to create a coherent whole?

Beyer and Apple (1998), Posner (1998) and Ross (2000) extend this list to include broader, more politically sensitive questions:

What should count as knowledge? As knowing? What does not count as legitimate knowledge?

Who defines what counts as legitimate knowledge?

Who shall control the selection and distribution of knowledge?

Another possible approach to curriculum theory is to abandon ambitious plans for producing all-embracing curriculum theories and to concentrate on models of curriculum. Vallance (1982) and Posner (1998) advocate the development of models of curriculum and suggest that models, although they may lack statements of rules and principles that theories include, can identify the basic considerations that must be accounted for in curriculum decisions and can show their interrelationships.

Yet another solution, and one that has been proposed by many recent curriculum writers, is ‘to shift focus from the end product (the curriculum theory) to the process by which a theory is sought (the process of theorizing)’ (Vallance, 1982, p. 8). Although theorizers are apparently involved in activities; the outcome of which is the completion of a theory, their real involvement is actually with the processes of arriving at such an outcome. Theorizing is thus a general process involving individuals in three distinct activities:

being sensitive to emerging patterns in phenomena;

attempting to identify common patterns and issues;

relating patterns to one’s own teaching context.

If theorizing is defined in this way, then it can-and should be undertaken by all persons with an interest in curriculum, including teachers, academics and members of the community (Brady, 1984). Teachers in their daily work attempt to become increasingly sensitive to what is significant in their own classrooms and to establish some appropriate framework or orientation to guide what they do (Schubert, 1992). Academics, even though their primary motive may be to theorize in general rather than to guide teaching specifically, still interpret their experience with specific examples or episodes of teaching and attempt to identify patterns that may prove useful in orienting actions. In this way, the traditional dichotomy of theory–practice disappears since all now become practitioners who theorize about their teaching–learning experiences.

To understand what has been achieved in curriculum theorizing over the decades it is necessary to categorize the contributions. Three broad categories are used here to demonstrate different emphases, namely:

1. Prescriptive theorizers. This group attempts to create models or frameworks for curriculum development that improve school practices. Many members of this group have, in fact, held the belief that finding the best way of designing curricula will lead to the best possible curricula for schools. Ralph Tyler and Hilda Taba are members of this group.

2. Descriptive theorizers. This group attempts to identify how curriculum development actually takes place, especially in school settings. The idea is to understand the various steps and procedures in curriculum development and the relationships among them. Decker Walker and Joseph Schwab are members of this group.

3. Critical-exploratory theorizers. This group attempts to understand deficiencies in past practices of curriculum development and to replace them with more adequate practices, particularly by considering curriculum in the broadest possible intellectual and social contexts. This group looks at curriculum in terms of its diversities and continuities, emphasizing what curriculum has been, is, and might be. Elliot Eisner and William Pinar are members of this group.

Prescriptive Theorizers: Creating the Best Curricula Possible Up until the 1960s nearly all theorizing about curriculum development focused on ways to improve practices in schools. The major problem with most of these prescriptive approaches was that they assumed the characteristics of traditional, bureaucratized schools to be givens. Therefore, they rarely questioned – and thus frequently served to support existing educational, social, and political systems.

Some specialists worked closely with laboratory schools located on university campuses. Others were involved in major studies of schools or with major curriculum development projects. As a consequence, they wrote directly out of their experiences with specific schools. Hlebowitsh (1999) describes the common concern of these specialists for the improvement of school systems as ‘dedicated to offering curriculum development frameworks centred on using the school for the maintenance and improvement of the public interest’. Yet, other commentators have seen these endeavours much less positively, describing them as ‘control mechanisms’ (Perkinson, 1993), ‘traditionalist’ (Pinar, 1978) and ‘quasi-scientific’ (Apple, 1979).

Tyler is often quoted as a major figure of the prescriptive theorizers. In the 1940s, Tyler worked at the University of Chicago and produced an approach to curriculum planning that was subsequently published in 1949 as Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Tyler, 1949). The book has been widely used over the decades in many countries and is a fine example of common sense and clarity.

Tyler describes in his book a number of principles that have come to be known as the ‘Tyler rationale’. Tyler argues that his book is not a prescriptive approach – it is not a manual for curriculum construction since it does not describe and outline in detail the steps to be taken by a given school or college that seeks to build a curriculum (p. 1). He goes on to state that it is merely ‘one way of viewing an instructional program’, and ‘the student is encouraged to examine other rationales and to develop his own conception of the elements and relationships involved in an effective curriculum’ (p. 1). Yet it is also fair to say that Tyler’s book does describe various steps in some detail and it does have an air of prescription about it. Many educators have used and continue to use it as a manual for curriculum planning (Hlebowitsh, 1992).

Tyler’s model states how to build a curriculum. He argues that there are really four principles or ‘big questions’ that curriculum makers have to ask . These questions are concerned with selecting objectives, selecting learning experiences, organizing learning experiences and evaluating. For Tyler, these questions can be answered systematically, but only if they are posed in this order, for answers to all later questions logically presuppose answers to all prior questions.

Despite certain ambiguities about how to select objectives and how to use some sources of data, the Tyler rationale encompasses most of our basic concerns about curriculum (Walker, 1990; Hlebowitsh, 1992, 1999). Many other approaches have been based on Tyler. The excesses of some of these have been criticized, but there has also been a tendency to criticize – perhaps fairly, perhaps unfairly – the Tyler rationale itself.

In reflecting on curriculum in 1975, nearly 30 years after the publication of his rationale, Tyler summed up what he thought his approach was about:

[Curriculum planning is] a practical enterprise not a theoretical study. It endeavours to design a system to achieve an educational end and is not primarily attempting to explain an existential phenomenon. The system

must be designed to operate effectively in a society where a number of constraints are present and with human beings who all have purposes, preferences, and dynamic mechanisms in operation. (Tyler, 1975, p. 18)

This quotation captures the basic reasons why the Tyler rationale has proved so persuasive to curriculum workers over such a long period of time and also why it has left teachers to deal with the gaps that arise among the planned, the enacted and the experienced curricula. As Tyler suggests, his rationale is primarily a way of simplifying complex situations sufficiently so that plans and procedures can be carried out rationally – that is, in ways that people engaged in the process can understand and, at least potentially, reach agreement about. For the purposes of communication and consensus building, it has had immense practical utility. It is not a way, however, of dealing with the underlying existential complexity that creates the lived character of the experienced curriculum or even with many of the characteristics of individual classrooms that teachers need to take into account in making their decisions about how to flexibly enact curricula that have been planned with precision.

In 1949, Tyler’s rational-linear approach broke new ground in curriculum (see Figure 19.2). It had a relatively liberating effect at that time (Helsby and Saunders, 1993). Curriculum workers had for the first time an approach that appeared both comprehensive and workable. They were advised to concentrate on student behaviours in devising objectives for a unit and to emphasize appropriate learning experiences rather than simply identifying content to be covered. The guidelines for evaluating a curriculum were very different and far more comprehensive than were the summative tests used during the 1940s.

Descriptive theorizers are not concerned – at least not directly – with providing specific answers to questions concerning what a curriculum should be. Rather,  they are concerned with how such answers can be arrived at. To use an analogy, they are concerned with creating a map of the terrain on which curriculum decision-making takes place, not with moving specific plots of earth involved in school construction projects. An accurate map may be essential to a good construction project, but where specific roads and structures are built depends on the beliefs and values of the designers of the project, on budgets and the availability of building materials, and on numerous other practical matters that vary from project to project.

Descriptive theorizers are similar to the prescriptive theorizers of our first category, however, to the extent that both groups view curriculum decision making as taking place primarily in schools or in large curriculum development projects that see schools as givens, thus supporting existing educational, social and political systems. Nonetheless, descriptive theorizers do tend to have a broader vision, primarily because they perceive curriculum problems as being largely indeterminate and open-ended. They understand there are no curriculum development procedures that ensure practical success. They argue that it is futile to search for a single best curriculum because of the diversity of curriculum problems and possible solutions. Therefore, most descriptive theorizers actually hold a wide vision about the organization of schools and the interaction of diverse individuals and groups. Technical, operational procedures are seen to be of less importance than deliberate processes (Reid, 1999a).

Because they view curriculum decision-making broadly, as taking place in the same multiple and complex ways in which people make practical decisions within their own lives, they stress that the procedures of curriculum development also take place through what Schwab (1969, 1970), in working out Dewey’s line of reasoning, has termed ‘practical inquiry’. Schubert (1986)

Advances made by Tyler’s 1949 rationale notes that the practical inquiry approach to curriculum theorizing can be characterized as follows:

It involves everyday problem-solving.

It assumes that every teaching situation is unique.

It focuses more on questions to be asked than on finding answers.

It proceeds through the process of deliberation.

It does not provide general solutions to problems, for each specific situation must be considered separately.

Walker’s naturalistic approach to the processes of curriculum deliberation is one example of mapping how practical inquiry takes place.

Walker (1971) was especially interested in how curriculum planners ‘actually’ went about their task, rather than following Tyler’s advice about how they ‘should’ go about the task. He had an excellent opportunity to find out when he was appointed as participant observer and evaluator for the Kettering Art Project during the late 1960s in California. For a period of 3 years he meticulously recorded the actions, arguments and decisions of the project team. By analysing transcripts of their meetings and other data, Walker was able to isolate important components in the curriculum development process. During the 1960s and 1970s a number of major, national curriculum projects were in operation and so he was able to compare his findings from the

Kettering Art Project with several other projects. He developed his concepts into a process framework, which he termed a ‘naturalistic model’. Walker used the term ‘naturalistic’ because he wanted to portray how curriculum planning actually occurs in practice, compared with other approaches which prescribe how curriculum planning should occur. His three-step sequence of ‘platform-deliberation-design’ has since been used at various levels of curriculum development including small-scale projects with pre-service teachers (Holt, 1990; Kennedy, 1988; Ross, 1993), as well as in large-scale programmes (Ben-Peretz, 1990; Orpwood, 1985). 

Walker (building on the ideas of Schwab, 1969) suggests that any individuals who come together as a group to undertake curriculum development activities approach the task with certain beliefs and values. They will have certain perceptions of the task, ideas about what the chief problems are, assertions about what should be prescribed and certain commitments which they are prepared to pursue and argue about. The preliminary step is therefore to get everyone to join in, to talk, discuss and even argue about what the platform is or should be. Walker used the term ‘platform’ because it provides a benchmark or basis for the future discussions.

Whether a group achieves much or little consensus about their platform, planning eventually moves into the second phase: ‘deliberation’. There is not necessarily a clear separation between these phases, for the process of deliberation is also concerned with consensus, but in deliberation attention turns away from beliefs themselves and towards how they are used is assessing actual states of affairs and possible courses of action – towards what Schwab refers to as ‘the practical’. In general, planners should identify as far as possible what is problematic about the situation in which their curriculum is to implemented and how the curriculum they develop can mitigate problems.

Deliberation finally leads to some decisions for action: planning enters the ‘design’ phase when a group has achieved sufficient consensus about beliefs, problematic circumstances and potential solutions so that particular courses of action can be taken more or less automatically, without further consideration of alternatives. That is, what the travails of the previous phases have made  explicit for the group now forms the implicit basis for the group’s actual curriculum design. Walker argues that the design phase of a curriculum development project typically contains both implicit and explicit considerations.

Even though a project may have passed through the platform and deliberation phases, decisions may still be influenced as much by personal preferences as by rational discussion. The culminating activity for the design phase is the creation of the planned curriculum, which may include whatever specific subjects, instructions, teaching materials or activities that the group believes advisable. Walker’s deliberative approach attempts to accurately portray what actually happens during curriculum planning. Because Walker based his approach on studies of planning that had occurred during actual curriculum projects, he claims that it can be supported on empirical grounds. It can be argued that Walker’s approach is normative as well as descriptive. Donmoyer (1982) suggests that although the specifics within it are empirically based, it ‘resembles in a general way, if not in all important details, Schwab’s normative model of how curriculums ought to be made’ (p. 3).

Certainly, Walker’s approach is of considerable value to teachers and other curriculum planners. Knowing what typically happens during planning – the assertions of personal beliefs in the struggle toward consensus, the use of deliberation in identifying problematic situations and weighing alternative solutions, and the interplay of the implicit and the explicit in designing a curriculum – can at least help identify potential pitfalls and frustration in curriculum development and perhaps even guide planners around them.

Walker’s descriptions of what typically does happen during planning certainly present a highly useful alternative to Tyler’s prescriptions of what should happen. Tyler does not describe what happens when consensus cannot be reached in practice; Walker describes how curriculum planning proceeds even when consensus is not reached.

Critical-Exploratory Theorizers: Understanding Curriculum in Terms of What Has Been, Is, and Might Be Theorizers in the critical-exploratory category are particularly diverse. Nonetheless, there are just two general approaches to how they treat problems of schooling and curriculum. One general approach emphasizes the connections between schooling and the existing social order. This approach provides critical analysis of prevalent social structures and mainstream curriculum practices. These critiques are concerned with such issues as domination, exploitation, resistance, and what constitutes legitimate knowledge. Collectively, this approach tends to use similar technical terms, such as ‘cultural capital’ (the ability of certain groups in society to transform culture into a commodity and to accumulate it) and ‘cultural reproduction’ (the idea that the school’s role is to pass on to succeeding generations the present culture without changing it).

Many of these theorizers maintain – and with some justification – that a new technical language is needed to provide new insights and interpretations about existing social structures. The second general approach within this group is an emphasis on the personal nature of learning and on people, rather than ideas, as the basis for action. In other words, these theorizers’ primary concern is with individual experience itself and with how systematic education can contribute to highquality experiencing. They locate the value of curriculum planning and development in the experienced curriculum, not in the planned curriculum. Although most recognize the importance of the preconscious realm of experience and emphasize that often knowledge is personally constructed by each individual, they believe that teachers, in planning and in enacting what is planned, play a key role in influencing the quality of their students’ experiences. Of course, despite the diversity of the critical-exploratory category, many of its theorizers find ways of linking their analyses of the external social context of curriculum and schooling with the personal experience of individual students and teachers.

We need to consider the term reconceptualist, which has been used as an umbrella term since the 1970s and early 1980s to describe new forms of theorizing that were then emerging. It is still frequently used today, especially to capture the sense of exploration, but its use has created some avoidable confusion. Initially, the term proved useful, for it seemed to suggest that whatever re-conceptualists stood for was new – and probably better – than what had gone before, and re-conceptualists certainly were united in their opposition to the rationalistic and scientific.

However, as theorizers interested in reconceptualizing the field grew in number and in influence, it became increasingly important to clarify what they did – and did not – have in common. For instance, some theorizers

used philosophical analysis and methods drawn from mainstream social science, while others used case studies, biography, psychoanalytical techniques and literacy theory. Perhaps the most successful effort to map the common characteristics of reconceptualists was undertaken by Klohr (1980), who identified nine foci of their efforts:

1. A holistic, organic view is taken of people and their relation to nature.

2. The individual becomes the chief agent in the construction of knowledge; that is, he or she is a culture creator as well as a culture bearer.

3. The curriculum theorists draw heavily on their own experiential base as method.

4. Curriculum theorizing recognizes as major resources the preconscious realms of experience.

5. The foundational roots of this theorizing lie in existential philosophy, phenomenology and radical psychoanalysis; they (reconceptualists) also draw from humanistic reconceptualizations of such cognate fields as sociology, anthropology and political science.

6. Personal liberty and the attainment of higher levels of consciousness become central values in the curriculum process. 

7. Diversity and pluralism are characteristics both of the social ends and of the means proposed to attain these ends.

8. A reconceptualization of supporting political–social operations is basic.

9. New language forms are generated to translate fresh meanings, for example, metaphors. (Klohr, 1980, p.3)

However, a close examination of Klohr’s foci reveals that some are clearly not appropriate to all reconceptualists. For example, a focus on the ‘preconscious realms of experience’ applies to theorists such as Pinar and Grumet, who use psychoanalytical techniques in their theorizing, but it does not apply to Apple. Conversely, a focus on a ‘reconceptualization of supporting politicalsocial operations’ applies to Apple but far less to Pinar or Huebner.

Despite these difficulties with the term reconceptualist, readers should be aware of its history in carrying forward new forms of curriculum theorizing that emerged in the 1970s (see, for example, Pinar et al., 1995). Whether the endeavours over the decades since the 1970s represent a shift in basic thinking about curriculum sufficiently profound to be considered a paradigm shift in Kuhnian terms (Kuhn, 1962) is debatable. Pinar et al. (1995) suggest that there has been such a shift and, along with Rogan and Luckowski (1990), that the work of reconceptualists represents a paradigmatic advancement over the Tyler rationale. Brown (1988) concludes that a first approximation to a paradigm shift has been under way and that the new generation of curriculum scholars, as they gain a firm foothold in universities, will begin to challenge the received wisdom of traditional points of view.

There is certainly nothing finished or final about reconceptualism, for ideas and methods are constantly evolving. Rather, a ‘proliferation of schools’ (Brown, 1988, p. 28) has developed with considerable differences among them. Although these theorizers often write from a neo-Marxist perspective, their critiques have attacked the problems of society and schooling in a variety of ways. Giroux (1982) described traditional educational theorizing as ‘dancing on the surfaces of reality . . . ignoring not only the latent principles that shape the deep grammar of the existing social order, but also those principles underlying the genesis and nature of its own logic’ (p. 1). Apple suggests a number of political questions that should be asked about the legitimacy of the knowledge included in a curriculum. For example:

Why and how are particular aspects of a collective culture represented in schools as objective factual knowledge?

How, concretely, may official knowledge represent the ideological configurations of the dominant interests in a society?

How do schools legitimate these limited and partial standards of knowing as unquestioned truths? (Apple, 1979, p. 7)

There is no doubt that these curriculum theorizers have had a considerable impact on curriculum writings. They have alerted curriculum planners and developers to a number of ingrained problems in the usual – and usually unexamined – relationship between schools and the society in which they are embedded. Their approach has exposed classroom practices that have remained hidden when approached by prescriptive theorizers (Taylor, 1979).

Under this subcategory are scholars whose approach to curriculum theorizing can be exemplified by Eisner’s approach to curriculum planning. In some ways this approach is similar to the deliberate approach of the descriptive theorizers already discussed. The main difference is that the deliberations of curriculum development committees usually lead towards public meanings and group decisions, whereas literacy artists are concerned with personal experience as well (Barone, 1982; Eisner, 1979; Eisner and Vallance, 1974). Indeed, all theorizers in this subcategory emphasize to one degree or another that learning is highly personal.

Essentially, members of this group see themselves, curriculum developers, teachers, students, and virtually every other person as involved in an ongoing process of making meaning in their own lives and conveying meaning to others. This process centers on personal perception and choice. In it, the curriculum is considered a medium through which individuals learn how to deepen.

Writers who do existential and psychoanalytical theorizing begin with individual experience but point to the importance of how schooling influences experience. Schools represent nature (things that exist prior to human intervention, such as physical sites and space) and culture (things that are human creations, such as beliefs and objects), but the culture of schools tends to be taken for granted. Whenever people take culture for granted, they tend to become less aware – hence, less free. Therefore, we need to attend especially to those parts of culture that are not compelled directly by nature and about which we can make decisions. In particular, the task is to transform schooling that constrains human freedom (Grumet, 1981; Miller, 1992; Pinar, 1980).

The autobiographical/biographical approach to theorizing focuses on the centrality of personal experience in the curriculum. In 1972, Pinar first wrote about his interest in the autobiographical method. Subsequently, he formulated the term currere to explain his emphasis. Currere refers to an existential experience of institutional structures. The method of currere is a strategy for self-reflection that enables the individual to encounter an experience more fully and more clearly, as if creating a highly personal autobiography (Pinar and Grumet, 1976).

Pinar et al. (1995) describe a growing interest in theorizing about curriculum as ‘gender text’. Doing so involves analysing the unequal ways in which people are treated because of their gender and sexuality, and how knowledge and values develop under society’s prevailing assumptions about gender. Many different terms may be used in examining how gender and curricula are related. For  example, Kenway and Modra (1992) use the phrase feminist pedagogy to describe the social theory and politics of feminists, explaining several variations of feminism, including liberal feminism (working toward equality with males in access to education), socialist feminism (criticizing educational practices exploitative of females) and radical feminism (seeking a distinctively women’s educational culture). Analysis of schooling in terms of gender points out how it has been organized around different socially perceived roles and status for men and women.

Feminist curriculum theorizers have not been the only scholars exploring the frontier of gender studies. Increasingly, a number of scholars have theorized about male identity. In particular, they have been challenging ‘heteronormativity’. Sears (1992a, b, 1999) has been a major figure in highlighting homosexual issues and supporting the struggle for social justice for gays and lesbians. He uses the term ‘queer’ to signify ‘those who have been defined or have chosen to define themselves as sexual outsiders’ (1999, p. 4). He defines teaching queerly as ‘creating classrooms that challenge categorical thinking, promote interpersonal intelligence, and foster critical consciousness’ (1999, p. 5), contending that such teaching requires a re-examination of taken-for-granted assumptions about diversity, identities, childhood and prejudice.

Race is a ‘complex, dynamic, and changing construct’ (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 316). Race has a powerful influence on schooling in general and the curriculum in particular, yet McCarthy (1988) contends that theorizing about race and racial inequality did not come into its own in curriculum until recent decades. Past neglect has been supplanted, however, by recent theorizers such as Watkins (1993), McCarthy (1988), Villenas and Deyhle (1999) and Pinar (2000). Race can be a powerful, autonomous focal point for theorizers, yet it also intersects with other foci such as gender and postmodernism.

Since the early 1980s the term ‘postmodern’ has been applied to various pursuits or occupations, as in ‘postmodern art’ and ‘postmodern architecture’. Presumably, what is postmodern replaces what is modern as a defining characteristic. Postmodern curriculum theorizing – at least when it is sufficiently farsighted – should be, therefore, on the leading edge of future changes in education. Not only are there numerous interpretations of postmodern, but there are also distinctions that can be made between postmodernism and postmodernity and related terms such as poststructuralism, deconstruction, postcolonialism and postindustrialism.

The examples of theorizing included here should be analysed in the light of history. They illustrate the divergent approaches that have been taken and continue to be developed by curriculum specialists. Some approaches have been more dominant at some times than others. In the last decade, approaches based on the analysis of social structures or personal experience became increasingly common. New classifications of theorizing continue to appear in the literature. These conceptions of curriculum add insights about diversity and directions in theorizing, but further studies of the effects of theorizing at the school level are needed. What is needed more urgently, however, is increasing and continuing dialogue between theorizers at all levels, from teachers to academics, so that we can learn from our history and our diverse perspectives. Walker (1980) claimed that a ‘rich confusion is the right state for curriculum writing’ (p. 81). We believe this is so, but writing is only one of many ways to contribute to the dialogue about the richness of curriculum theorizing in which this chapter has invited readers to participate.

1. ‘Schools persist in using curriculum models grounded in technical rationality (for example, Tyler’s approach) because it fits well with the bureaucratic organization of schools’ (Olson, 1989). Is this the major reason? Consider other reasons why schools might support or reject the Tyler approach.

2. ‘The real world of teaching is messy, indeterminate and problematic situations arise because of conflicting values’ (Carr and Kemmis, 1986, p. 9). To what extent is the Tyler approach or the Walker approach able to accommodate these situations?

3. To what extent is the Tyler model value-free? Do you see this as an advantage or a disadvantage? Give reasons for your answers.

4. The use of technical/rational administrative solutions to complex social issues of equity and access in schools is wrong-headed, superficial and fundamentally flawed, according to Smyth and Shacklock (1998). Critically analyse this statement.

5. ‘It is significant that Tyler’s first question gets more than twice the attention of any of the other three because Tyler’s scheme depends on the careful predetermination of the objectives of the curriculum’ (Kliebard, 1992, p. 81). Present points for and against the issue of predetermining objectives.

6. The naturalistic model explodes the myth that curriculum planning must commence with objectives. Do you support this statement? Are there additional caveats to consider?

7. Until we know a particular value we hold, it holds us – we are not in possession of it; it affects our work and thinking although we are unaware of it. Reflect upon the major explicit and implicit values that have guided your teaching. How do they relate to the values implicit in the theorizing described in this chapter? Try to describe your current value orientation and its influence on how you now theorize about curriculum.

8. ‘Curriculum theorizing has been overtly politicized, it has been variously institutionalized . . . queered, raced, gendered, aestheticized, psychoanalysed, moralized, modernized and postmodernized . . . [so] that it presently demands a high degree of flexibility and tolerance from all involved’ (Wright, 2000, p. 10). Consider the implications of this point of view for the future of curriculum theorizing and school practice.