The Reconceptualization of Curriculum Studies

The Reconceptualization of Curriculum Studies Synopsis

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).