Journal of Curriculum Theorizing

On the Raveling of Deep Aspect

Brian Casemore — 2024-11-21

2023 Bergamo Keynote Address that explores the idea of curriculum as a subjective place, first through a brief review of psychoanalytic and curriculum scholarship that discloses the concept and then through a reading of Dolsy Smith’s (2020) para-academic, autotheoretical book, Rough Notes to Erasure: White Male Privilege, My Senses, and the Story I Cannot Tell. Through the reading of Smith’s book, the author develops and offers a specification of the subjective place of curriculum that emphasizes the encoding of psychical locality in its social implication and involution.

Critical Consent Curriculum

Boni Wozolek — 2024-11-21

Thinking at the intersections of curriculum theory and sound studies, this article explores what the author has named a “critical consent curriculum.” This paper traces the many reverberations of sociopolitical and cultural norms that not only devalue consent as a critical part of schooling, but how the absence of such dialogues in teacher education programs and schools has, in many ways, normalized the milieu of nonconsensual relations and relationships as they are expressed across educational contexts and communities. Alongside an analysis of several “samples” from sonic ethnographic studies, this paper serves as a call to action for teacher education programs to enmesh a critical consent curriculum and, relatedly, curriculum studies across teacher education programs. This is not an “either/or” argument but, rather, a “both/and” dialogue about how this proposed lens to education would impact everyday intra-actions in schools by foregrounding consent.

Autobiography Without an “I”: Currere for the Era of a Porous Self

Adrian M. Downey — 2024-11-21

This paper attempts to bring currere, the autobiographical modality of curriculum theorizing initiated by William Pinar, into conversation with new materialist theories of subjectivity. Specifically, Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman subjectivity, Jane Bennett’s vital materialist self, and Stacey Alaimo’s trans-corporeality are forwarded as markers of “the era of the porous self,” where the material boundaries of the human form are not as static as they once seemed. When the self is seen as porous, the stable “I” quickly becomes misleading. As such, this paper attempts to write autobiographically without evoking an “I”—an attempt at currere informed by posthumanism—an experiment toward currere for the era of a porous self.

Teaching as Curriculum Curation

Kelly Vaughan — 2024-11-21

From increasing calls for multicultural and inclusive books to media stories about books being banned in elementary schools, curriculum debates have become increasingly contentious. These debates illuminate key questions in curriculum studies: What is the knowledge of most worth? And who decides? In this article, I utilize a curriculum studies in education framework to engage and extend the literature supporting multicultural and inclusive children’s literature and critical literacy while emphasizing the role of teachers-as-curators. After analyzing the results of a year-long project in which preservice teachers (PSTs) curated collections of multicultural books representing a mirrors and windows approach to text selection, I reflect upon how teacher educators can support preservice teachers in developing the skills to make deliberate curricular choices.

Peeling the Orange and Spitting Out the Seeds

Holly Marcolina — 2024-11-21

Curriculum is a term widely used by educational stakeholders but may be hard to define. In actuality, curriculum is composed of many forces and individuals. Using the metaphor of an orange, the author presents a novel way of examining the different structures operating within and through curriculum, including societal ideologies, accountability measures, local schools, and teachers. Originally intended to be a metaphor to assist preservice teachers’ comprehension of the far-reaching connections to their work, this article serves to remind any reader that despite the extant power structures, curricular discussions must be focused on the most important aspect of education: students.

Contemporary Analysis on Curriculum Theorists in Education

Jing Tan — 2024-11-21

This is a book review for CURRICULUM WINDOWS REDUX: WHAT CURRICULUM THEORISTS CAN TEACH US ABOUT SCHOOLS AND SOCIETY TODAY, edited by Thomas S. Poetter, Kelly Waldrop, and Syed Hassan Raza (2022). It provides anlytical perspectives on the book and each of the 33 chapters. Each chapter of this book has a unique author who offers the readers a critical lens of curriculum studies by connecting the past with the present. The authors of this book use currere when they share their scholarship about curriculum studies through their own educational experiences. It advocates for and empowers the graduate student community by encouraging them to write scholarly work together.

Somewhere between Currere and Ficto-currere, with my Teacher The Near-Sighted Monkey

Tesni Ellis — 2024-11-21

In this paper, I explore artist and teacher Lynda Barry’s practice of autobifictionalography as a kind of third practice at the intersection of currere (Pinar & Grumet, 1976/2015) and ficto-currere (McNulty, 2018, 2019). I position making autobifictionalographic comics, in which memory and imagination are intertwined, as a form of inquiry that can enable one to (re)construct the self while confronting (and even embracing) the limits of self-representation. This speculative, subversive, arts-based form of inquiry can implicate the autobiographical even as intentional gaps, traces, and inconsistencies play with notions of self-representation and generate fantastical, even monstrous, characters and situations. I explore currere and ficto-currere and situate my work in comics-based inquiry, analyzing an example from a comic of my own as I consider the limits of autobiographical inquiry. Finally, I suggest that comics rendered in reflective practice might offer alternative, expansive modes of representation that invite relationship and dialogue.

Remembering the Architects of Sesame Street

Nicole Weinberg — 2024-11-21

This conceptual article critically examines the formative years of Sesame Street (1966-1970) as an in-depth exploration of edutainment, centering analysis on the people or “architects” (Watkins, 2001), processes, and ideology involved in the production of the curriculum of the first season. Unpacking the complexities and contradictions within Sesame Street’s historic representations of marginalized populations, this analysis synthesizes interdisciplinary scholarship, documentaries, primary sources, and “grey literature” to trace the tangled threads of power from private equity and corporate philanthropy to the intended homes of Black families. It considers the early years of Sesame Street as they contributed to the biopolitical turn in preschool discourses via neuroscience, the seemingly forgotten possibility of Head Start expansion, and the emergent sovereignty of the market under neoliberal politics. In looking toward the future of edutainment or other educational technology innovations, researchers and stakeholders in education are urged to carefully consider the organizations, individuals, and processes of curriculum design and implementation.