In this retrospective essay reviewing the implications of Joseph Schwab's essay, "The practical: A language for education" (2013 [1970]), 40+?years after its first publication, I identify two "practicals". The first is a comprehensive "Practical 1.1" embracing ends, subject matter, problem source and methods.…

The study of curriculum may be characterized as an inquiry into the range of ways in which the subject matters of teacher, student, subject, and milieu can be seen. A review of the literature indicates that curriculum theory has been under development for several years. However, considerable research and conceptual formulation must be done to…

This article explores the place of Ralph Tyler and Joseph Schwab in the history of curriculum studies, and educational theory more broadly. I argue that most analyses of both Schwab's and Tyler's work are built not on their own life-projects and writings, but developed from blinkered readings of a narrow range of their writings selected to meet…

Classroom interaction research of the traditional kind is probably not worth the effort involved because it does not have its tasks or questions correctly formulated. There is no central widely available framework or paradigm that permits the ordering of the questions being asked by the researcher or locates the core phenomena that we should be…

Curriculum change and the dynamics of this change were explored by means of a case study of secondary social studies, science, and vocational education curriculums in Gary, Indiana, between 1940 and 1970. The time period is characterized by both unprecedented effort to produce change and slow change in the schools. The study asked how this could…

The object of this paper is to show, on the one hand, how a concern for curricular problems inexorably leads one into the mechanics and dynamics of the classroom and, on the other hand, how a concern for the classroom without a concern for context poses the danger that the questions that will arise are, from the viewpoint of the schools, wrong…

One of the major issues in education is curriculum relevancy. To make education more relevant, curricula have been revised and redesigned; but many of these revisions have failed to be implemented at the classroom level because teachers and administrators are incapable of changing the classroom environment. Traditional 19th century instruction…