The boundaries of the curriculum field are often confused with those of other fields in education. This paper proposes 10 recurring themes, called key concepts, that are unique to the curriculum field. The key concepts, identified from select curriculum textbooks, delineate the field's content, establish its boundaries, and permit a greater…

This paper presents two general approaches to the assessment of knowledge structures, the first of which entails the building of empirical evidence to support cognitive theory. This type of assessment is concerned with attempting to prove the existence of various knowledge structures; that is, evidence that leads to the construct validity of these…

The history of the evaluation of non-English written materials through the use of various mathematical formulae is reviewed. This process began in 1939 with Tharp's work in French, and has continued until the present. Formulas have been developed for Spanish, Russian, German, Hebrew, Chinese, and Vietnamese. In Europe, modifications of the Flesch…

A study examined the treatment of Chinese affairs in four American newspapers during December 1949, when China fell to Communism. Content analyses were conducted on issues of the "New York Times,""The Christian Science Monitor,""The Chicago Tribune," and "The St. Louis Post-Dispatch." Each of the 416…

This study analyzed the photographs and other illustrations from chapters covering subject matter common to seven secondary-level civics textbooks--the Constitution, the federal court system, local government, and economic systems--in order to determine how instructionally relevant they were to teaching and learning the content and concepts that…

A study focusing on the history of reading, or the uses of literacy, in the first years of the American republic examined the subscription list and content of "The New York Magazine; or, Literary Repository" for 1790. Data for the study were taken from the magazine's subscription list and from various biographical sources, such as the…

A study examined whether male and female writers would respond in identifiably different ways to the same writing task, and whether a content analysis of the discourse produced for these writing tasks would reveal distinctly "male" and "female" concerns. It was hypothesized that themes relating to autonomy would appear more often in men's essays,…

Noting that little has been said about "TV Guide's" performance in telling its readers about television, a study examined how the magazine presented television during the 1970s, a critical period in the development of American television. All "TV Guide" covers from the 1970s were examined, and each cover story was categorized…

A study examined newspaper coverage of the United States' withdrawal from Unesco to determine whether the public was given a balanced picture of the issues involved and to examine the degree of impartiality of the coverage of one specific issue, the New World Information Order. The study analyzed reports that appeared in American daily newspapers…

In order to assess the potential role of imitation in early socialization, a study was conducted to investigate the content and development of children's imitative behavior in the home. Data consisted of incidents of immediate and deferred imitation collected over a 4- to 8-month period by mothers trained in observational recording. Subjects…

A study examined the advertising of Japan and the United States to determine if commercial messages reflect the cultural values of a particular society, thereby indicating the need for specialized campaigns. It was hypothesized that the majority of Japanese advertisements would use the traditional appeals of group, consensus, soft sell, veneration…

The current tension in the writing of histories has been between the defense of "textbook" histories--i.e., the conventional approach which focuses on great events, great individuals, and great collectivities--and progressive--i.e., populist or alternative histories which focus on ordinary people. A new form has been engineered by…

Content analysis in the manner of M. H. Nagy's 1948 study was used to explore facets of children's thoughts and feelings about death. Participants were 316 children aged 3-12 who resided in the Sydney Metropolitan Area. Subjects expressed their views on death in talking, writing, and drawing. It was found that all children progressed through three…

A study examined the activity of the state technical committees that were mandated by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act. The study's main objectives were to identify (1) the methods that individual state technical committees used to develop and verify task lists and/or skill inventories; (2) the different reasons for selecting the job…

This paper deals with how the validity of a category describing a person's conception of a phenomenon is established. The presentation is confined to the relation between some categories of description and one interview protocol. The case described here is taken from an investigation into conceptions of political power. The description concerns…