In this volume scholars from around the world consider the influential work of William F. Pinar from a variety of "conversations" his ideas have generated. The major focus is on the What, Why, and How of the word "reconceptualization," which involves engaging critically and ethically as public intellectuals with gender, class, and race issues theorized in a variety of disciplines. The book introduces Pinar’s seminal argument for curriculum to return to its root in the word currere (the running of the course of study) and its key concepts: autobiography as alternative to the denial of subjectivity in traditional curriculum studies, study, and place. Issues addressed include the ethics of study both of self and of the discipline of curriculum studies, the politics of presence, the curricular importance of entering the public sphere, the openness to complicating simple solutions, and the ethical dealing with alterity (the state of being other or different; otherness).

Reconceptualizing Curriculum Development provides accessible, clear guidance on curriculum problem solving and educational leadership through the practice of a synoptic curriculum study. This practice integrates three influential interpretations of curriculum—curriculum as deliberative artistry, curriculum as complicated conversation, and curriculum as currere—with John Dewey’s lifetime work on reflective inquiry. At its heart, the book advances a way of studying as a way of living with reference to the question: How might I live as a democratic educator? The study guidance is organized as an open-ended scaffolding of three embedded reflective inquiries informed by four deliberative conversations. Study recommendations are provided by a carefully selected team. The field-tested study-based approach is illustrated through a multi-layered, multi-voiced narrative collage of four experienced teachers’ personal journeys of understanding in a collegial study context. Applying William Pinar’s argument that a "conceptual montage" enabling teachers to lead complicated conversations should be the focus for curriculum development in the field’s current ‘post-reconceptualist’ moment, the book moves forward the educational aim of facilitating a holistic subject/self/social understanding through the practice of a balanced hermeneutics of suspicion and trust. It closes with a discussion of cross-cultural collaboration and advocacy, reflecting the interest of curriculum scholars in a wide range of countries in this study-based, lead-learning approach to curriculum development.

These groundbreaking essays have become foundational to the field of curriculum studies. The contributors are curriculum theorists who represent an avant-garde of the movement.

In this volume scholars from around the world consider the influential work of William F. Pinar from a variety of "conversations" his ideas have generated. The major focus is on the What, Why, and How of the word "reconceptualization," which involves engaging critically and ethically as public intellectuals with gender, class, and race issues theorized in a variety of disciplines. The book introduces Pinar’s seminal argument for curriculum to return to its root in the word currere (the running of the course of study) and its key concepts: autobiography as alternative to the denial of subjectivity in traditional curriculum studies, study, and place. Issues addressed include the ethics of study both of self and of the discipline of curriculum studies, the politics of presence, the curricular importance of entering the public sphere, the openness to complicating simple solutions, and the ethical dealing with alterity (the state of being other or different; otherness).

What comes after the reconceptualization of curriculum studies? What is the contribution of the next wave of curriculum scholars? Comprehensive and on the cutting edge, this Handbook speaks to these questions and extends the conversation on present and future directions in curriculum studies through the work of twenty-four newer scholars who explore, each in their own unique ways, the present moment in curriculum studies. To contextualize the work of this up-and-coming generation, each chapter is paired with a shorter response by a well-known scholar in the field, provoking an intra-/inter-generational exchange that illuminates both historical trajectories and upcoming moments. From theorizing at the crossroads of feminist thought and post-colonialism to new perspectives that include critical race, currere, queer southern studies, Black feminist cultural analysis, post-structural policy studies, spiritual ecology, and East-West international philosophies, present and future directions in the U.S. American field are revealed.

What comes after the reconceptualization of curriculum studies? What is the contribution of the next wave of curriculum scholars? Comprehensive and on the cutting edge, this Handbook speaks to these questions and extends the conversation on present and future directions in curriculum studies through the work of twenty-four newer scholars who explore, each in their own unique ways, the present moment in curriculum studies. To contextualize the work of this up-and-coming generation, each chapter is paired with a shorter response by a well-known scholar in the field, provoking an intra-/inter-generational exchange that illuminates both historical trajectories and upcoming moments. From theorizing at the crossroads of feminist thought and post-colonialism to new perspectives that include critical race, currere, queer southern studies, Black feminist cultural analysis, post-structural policy studies, spiritual ecology, and East-West international philosophies, present and future directions in the U.S. American field are revealed.