Generational Ideas in Curriculum: A Historical Triangulation

Abstract

In this article, I examine the work of John Franklin Bobbitt, Ralph Tyler, and Joseph Schwab with the intention of identifying lines of continuity and change in the curriculum field. Most curriculum scholars cast this group of three in an analytical framework that puts Tyler in kinship with Bobbitt, and that puts Schwab, by virtue of his declaration of moribundity against the field, in separation from Tyler and the historical line of thinking that he represented. I argue, however, that the turbulence caused by Schwab's 1969 criticism of the curriculum field, far from supporting an argument for some iconoclastic separation from the traditional lines of the field, could more accurately be interpreted as an endorsement (with improvements) of the historic field. I make this case by pointing to the sustenance of what I call generational ideas in the curriculum field, which are ideas that have their roots in the defining moments of the curriculum field and that have persisted (some with modification) over more than one generation of curriculum scholars. Generational ideas in the curriculum field include a focus on the development of the school experience and on the relevance of local school authority. Generational curriculum work also works out of a vision-building construct (without an a priori commitment to any type of vision) that advises key sources for curriculum decision-making (society, students, and subject matter). Schwab inherited these generational insights and then went an important step further by showing us the way toward a more participatory process in curriculum decision-making. In this sense, Schwab was as much a tool of continuity in the field as he was an innovator. Finally, I demonstrate that the six signs of crisis that Schwab outlined in his famous 1969 essay very much imply a return to many of the first principles that we find in Tyler's work.The formalization of curriculum development as a practice in the American public schools can be traced to the defining principles embodied in the work of John Franklin Bobbitt and to the wider social efficiency tradi-

Dialogue

“…We have the deliberation-centered "practical" of the second part of that first practical essay and the other papers in the practical series (Schwab, 1978c(Schwab, , 1978d(Schwab, , 1983. And we have the practice-and practitioner-centered interpretations of the text of the second part of "The Practical: A Language for Curriculum" offered by, for example, Seymour and Hlebowitsh (2004). And lurking in the background of all of this, we have the various criteria that Schwab himself offered as a basis for understanding what the practicals might be: the questions around the adequacy of the different practicals as proposals for working through the thought/action problem within education, and the questions about the utility of the practicals as starting points for concrete action toward the improvement of curriculum-making (i.e., materials development) or for action toward the improvement of school learning environments.…”

Stepping Outside the Barred Room: Building Coalitions to Advance Shared Principles

“…A diverse group of scholars came together to redirect the field toward critical politics with a focus on issues of power and equality. These efforts to shift the focus of analysis in curriculum scholarship did not happen without challenge even at the beginning of the reconceptualization (e.g., Jackson, 1980) that has continued over the years (e.g., Hlebowitsh, 1993Hlebowitsh, , 2005Wraga, 1999;Wraga & Hlebowitsh, 2003). Even with these challenges from "traditionalists," the coalition of scholars that advanced the reconceptualization was successful in situating curriculum studies as an "extraordinarily complicated conversation" (Henderson, 2001, p. 18).…”

Navigating the Normative

“…This, however, is not much of a step away from the progressive tradition marked out by Dewey and others, which did, in fact, bring forward a view of teaching that asked teachers to contemplate their work as an act that required a synchronized consideration of the learner, society and subject matter. Elsewhere, I have referred to this obligation as an inherited view (what I call a generational view) in the curriculum literature (Hlebowitsh, 2005), brought to us by the early progressives (the very ones who offended Ravitch so much), including the likes of Tyler, who unfortunately continues to be treated by Deng and Luke in the light cast by Kliebard's early and largely flawed critique of the Tyler rationale (Hlebowitsh, 1995; Kliebard, 1995).…”