This paper explores the intersection of curriculum studies/curriculum history/curriculum theory through the study of systems of reason that order reflection and action. Words about "learning", "empowerment", "problem-solving", "self-realization", "community", and so on, are not merely there in order that educators should "grasp" some reality to…

Examines educational inquiry as a source of human understanding. Describes three intellectual traditions identified in studies of schooling and different purposes and characteristics of knowledge that emerge from each. (Author/MK)

Discusses the social and intellectual history concerned with the relation of social consciousness to material conditions, especially work related to the French historiography of the Annales school. A review of five recent books in the sociology of art and aesthetics raises issues about the origin of contemporary sensitivities and values. (DWH)

Examines the social and cultural conditions in which U.S. art education was constructed, considering the social interests that underlay its formation. Traces curriculum theory from around 1870 to the present. States that the history of curriculum involves a story of social transformation, political interests, and economic agendas. (GEA)

A central concern of teacher education research should be the quality of life it articulates. (JD)

Revisits arguments posed in two 1970s articles from "Theory and Research in Social Education." Discusses topics such as the ideas of curriculum as embodiments of governing practices and the contributions of postmodern thought to educational theory, particularly knowledge as the effects of power. (CMK)

Reviews two books by Henry Giroux that consider the relations among schooling, culture, and power, and that argue for a critical science drawing on contemporary European and American Marxist cultural analyses and critical structural traditions. Argues that Giroux's work provides an important theoretical perspective for a method of study and…

Focuses on the social and cultural implications of research. Underlying social research are assumptions about the nature of social control, the order and responsibility of society. Theory and methods give legitimacy to educational and cultural patterns, and function politically and ideologically. The author stresses the responsibilities of…

This essay discusses how Foucault's study of power relates to more general reexamination of the foundations of critical traditions, especially decentering of the subject as part of a broader consideration of social epistemology. The paper explores two concepts of power (sovereignty/repression and deployment/production of power) and examines the…

F. Schrag is preoccupied with enhancing education, but who decides what enhancement is? He has confused positivism with empiricism. Positivism is a specific philosophical movement that is associated with logical positivism. The empiricism that Schrag labels positivism preceded the philosophic traditions. (SLD)

To shed light on the social research perspectives which enable people to give coherence to daily events, educational researchers must continually scrutinize the social values and beliefs which underly their research. As social and cultural affairs are explained by the social sciences, so also are theories and methods influenced by social conflict.…