Defines "conceptual framework" (an explanatory theory useful for structuring contextual elements within complex settings) and attempts to show its relationship to curriculum research. Discusses two important issues when considering conceptual frameworks in schools: selection of criteria and selection of data collection and analysis…

Provides an objective critique of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) as a reform strategy and a curriculum process, based on a literature review and experience in North Carolina schools. OBE is theoretically narrow, but charges concerning OBE's technocratic, uncaring orientation lack foundation. The curriculum process allows teacher participation. OBE…

In response to vocal complaints from colleagues and the need for a more powerful curriculum development tool, a group of experienced faculty at Community College of Philadelphia designed a challenging model. Faculty are required to reexamine their institution and uncover hidden, often conflicting assumptions concerning the nature of knowledge and…

Criticizes outcome-based education for reducing education, teaching, and learning to forms of human engineering and quasi-scientific planning procedures geared toward instrumental means and specified ends. Stating outcomes as a comprehensive form of intellectual scaffolding limits inquiry and speculation and gives schools and curriculum framers…

Sets forth theoretical propositions developed in the four-year-old Critical Spirit Project in Los Angeles, California. Contends that students learn to reason critically as they are initiated into school communities that grant importance to critical reasoning and treat instruction in critical thinking as a form of character education. (25…

Missing in curriculum revision/school restructuring links is a curriculum paradigm that incorporates reflective intelligence while promoting social and utilitarian responsibilities. The "social-reconstructive wedge" model described in this article addresses this paradoxical issue by treating the school system as a social system where constituents…

Although Hawkins's article in the same "Journal of Curriculum and Supervision" issue suggests some provocative notions surrounding curriculum content and process, his model does not fully address the form the curriculum deliberation process should take or the guiding principles involved. Also, Hawkins overemphasizes the role of learning…

Like most other reform models, Hawkins's social reconstructive wedge model of curricular reform does not include the multiethnic and multicultural realities at the core of social reconstruction today. Our social order is crumbling around us, but we have no models dedicated to building a unified society for all our citizens. (MLH)

Treating curriculum out of context is mostly responsible for the disappointments of curriculum theory in practice. Decontextualization has conceptually separated curriculum from its design and use; operationally, curriculum is separated from its structural and sociocultural contexts. The alternative--curriculum in context--can inform research,…

Buchenwald offers an omnipresent reminder that future success of political and economic reunification is related to slow, but necessary, healing of national wounds over dual legacies of Hitler and the Cold War. In midst of painful transitions, the living memorial of Buchenwald holds promise as a place where German youth might continue arduous…

Action research is a rigorous, systematic approach to clearly defining problems and specifying plans of action to improve curriculum. This paper examines the evolution of curriculum action research as a scientific enterprise, discusses key concepts of action research, and presents a practical model of the action-research process. (TE)

Examines alternatives to the technical orientation of the Ralph Tyler rationale of curriculum planning. Emphasizes the fact that the language and processes of curriculum planning are embedded in metaphysical, philosophical, and moral concerns. Advocates using religious metaphors in models of curriculum planning and discusses how planners' values…