Turning Points in Curriculum

Book excerpt: Turning Points in Curriculum: A Contemporary American Memoir, 2nd edition, is a text designed to engage readers in a story of curriculum as a field of intellectual study and invite them to identify with and ultimately participate in this important work. Focusing on the United States, it contains five parts, the first of which offers a backdrop or contextual panorama for parts two through five, which present curriculum's journey through the last half of the twentieth century. Throughout the book, the authors use the term curriculum work over curriculum studies, theory, or development. The broader notion of work allows for variations that include reflection, study, theorizing, construction, inquiry, and deliberation. At the same time, the possibilities for interpretation inherent in the notion of curriculum work allow the authors to steer clear of the more fixed and differential meanings typically associated with more distinctive phrases such as curriculum theorizing or curriculum development. An important goal of Turning Points is to provide readers with multiple levels of engagement in its complex conversation. Toward this end, the authors have combined five distinct elements into the book with an eye toward personalizing readers' interpretative processes. --Publisher description.