Reconceptualist scholarship began as a reaction to traditional ways of looking at curriculum. Whereas traditional curriculum scholarship focused on design, implementation, and evaluation of curricular materials, the work of reconceptualist scholars became more theoretical and focused on understanding of context. The more traditional curriculum scholarship had its roots in educational administration, whereas the reconceptualized curriculum thinking was based upon history, sociology, philosophy, literary criticism, political science, psychology, aesthetics, and anthropology. The shift moved much of the curriculum conversation—beginning in the 1970s and increasing through the 1980s and 1990s—from the social sciences to issues of personal authenticity and social justice.
Reconceptualist Ideas
Reconceptualist scholarship approached curriculum as an act of critical self-reflection. Reconceptualists were skeptical of dominant ideas from social science and positivist notions of knowledge. They promoted a more holistic way of knowing that focuses on inner consciousness. They believed that there are multiple ways of knowing the world and understanding one’s self. They rejected claims of certainty, arguing that knowing is always mediated by subjective understandings and interpretations. As such, they argued that educators cannot claim to know outcomes of a lesson in advance of that lesson. Classroom encounters are subject to the complex nature of the engagement between a teacher and his or her students as well as possibilities that emerge by virtue of their coming together.
Reconceptualists were also skeptical about relying on knowledge rendered and conveyed purely through language. The world can be perceived and understood in ways that transcend language, they believe. Therefore, educators need to recognize that language can be problematic because the images and ideas it forms can impose ways of responding that are more technical and seemingly objective. With these ideas in mind, reconceptualists argued that curriculum is not merely some imposed plan. It is, instead, a dynamic occurrence based on complex interactions of people.
Paul Klohr, a major figure in the early days of reconceptualist scholarship, identified a number of themes that distinguished reconceptualist theorizing from traditional curriculum work. He noted that reconceptualist theorizing posed an organic and holistic view of humankind. Knowledge and culture are created and sustained by individuals, in this view, and curriculum theory originates in the experiences of the theorizer and is shaped largely by the preconscious realm of that experience. According to Klohr, personal liberty and higher levels of consciousness are central values in reconceptualist curriculum work. Furthermore, diversity and pluralism must be sought as achieved social ends in the work of schooling. To this end, the political and social conditions surrounding and influencing schooling must be critiqued, and through the use of new language, reconceptualized possibilities need to be articulated.
Reconceptualist Scholars
Two scholars, Dwayne Huebner and James Macdonald, were most instrumental in initiating reconceptualist perspectives of schooling. Although their initial work responding to traditional curriculum theorizing began in the 1950s and 1960s, the movement itself did not take significant shape until the 1970s, when a number of their students began writing in the field. Their efforts as well as the work of two other prominent figures, Maxine Greene and William Pinar, help to shed light on the assumptions that guided the reconceptualist movement of the 1970s.
Dwayne Huebner was a central figure associated with the beginnings of reconceptualist scholarship. Huebner’s work focused largely on language and its importance in articulating values and affecting practices in schools. With this in mind, Huebner argued that the traditional language of curriculum perpetuated technical rational ways of being in schools. In response, he believed that educators should be mindful of how language shapes their work and seek out other value systems, language, and metaphors to change the experiences in the classroom. Huebner believed that ethics and aesthetics should guide the way educators think about and work within schools. He believed both ethics and aesthetics help educators avoid the means–end thinking and being within traditional classrooms. Whereas technical rational thinking focused on separating out parts of the world, aesthetic rationality sought integration.
Huebner also focused on temporality within his scholarship. According to Huebner, an individual’s life cannot be described by what he or she does at a particular place and time. One’s identity is shaped by the course of his or her life, and as such it is futile to try to encapsulate school experiences into objective and predetermined ends. Thus, Huebner argued that educators should move away from scientific and empirical language when talking about curriculum. He further argued that curriculum scholars needed to focus more on the complexity of interactions among humans, using new language and forms or metaphors to explore the significance of phenomena in education, and to engage in thoughtful work within schools. The shift, according to Huebner and other reconceptualist scholars, moved curriculum work into a larger and more complex context and away from what was perceived to be quick fixes for education.
James Macdonald was another prominent figure in the reconceptualist movement. Macdonald viewed critical self-reflection as a way to move beyond the typical means–ends way of looking at curriculum and schooling. Macdonald argued that educators must be mindful of the language being used to discuss the nature and purpose of schooling because the language used often dictates what happens, and it does so often from a perceived position of objectivity. As a result, much of what is learned in schools is technical and emerges from very low levels of thinking. In contrast,
Macdonald argued that schools should help to develop critically aware persons who are able to consider how personal values affect norms of the larger society and then respond to those values. Ultimately, Macdonald envisioned schools as places for self-honesty—where what one says and what one does are consistent with what one believes.
Although she did not consider herself a reconceptualist, Maxine Greene is another scholar whose ideas fall within reconceptualist perspectives. For Greene, imagination provides possibilities for how one perceives one’s self and one’s place in the world. With this in mind, Greene argued that art and literature draw individuals out of their objectified existences. Greene further argued that education should help individuals become “wide awake” about their place in the world in order to respond to that world. According to Greene, each experience shared between a teacher and a student becomes a unique encounter. Therefore, educators should be mindful of the possibilities within and among these encounters. This awareness requires a constant striving toward heightened consciousness that makes up the force and focus of curriculum work. Greene’s call for heightened consciousness goes beyond a phenomenological exercise. For Greene, heightened consciousness is necessary in order to recognize and respond to injustice.
Another scholar closely associated with reconceptualist scholarship is William Pinar. Pinar’s work focused on the knowing individual within the context of a challenging world. According to Pinar, it is the responsibility of an individual to use autobiography in order to better understand him or herself in relation to social challenges. Based upon phenomenological inquiry, Pinar advocated currere as a form of curriculum theory. Currere transcends the traditional notions of prescribed ends within an educational experience to focus on a more authentic and engaged lived experience within the classroom.
Pinar has been not only instrumental in forming and articulating critical ideas within the reconceptualist movement, but also the primary means through which the reconceptualist movement has been identified as a movement and distinguished from traditional curriculum work. In his 1975 book Curriculum Theorizing: The Reconceptualists, Pinar calls the changes taking place in the 1970s “reconceptualist.” Furthermore, Pinar played a key role in introducing the movement to the larger field of curriculum when, in 1974, he was asked to provide a state-of-the-field address for the Curriculum Division (Division B) of the American Educational Research Association.
Publications And Conferences
Throughout the 1970s, reconceptualist scholarship was manifested within a number of special conferences and publications. One such conference was the Rochester Conference of 1973. Papers from this conference indicated a new sense of skepticism regarding public schools. Presenters argued that schools could not be sites of liberation and change, and therefore curriculum workers should not maintain faith in schools as the source of their work. Attendees eschewed the focus on practical work advocated by Schwab and argued that curriculum work needed to be theoretical and political.
Similar small conferences took place at different universities throughout the 1970s, and in 1978, a new series of conferences began in conjunction with the establishment of the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, the primary publication for reconceptualist scholarship. William Pinar started the journal in 1978 as a means to support the work of new scholars, and the annual conferences sponsored by the journal provided additional space in which new scholars could find like-minded individuals to share ideas.
Shifting Directions
Beginning in the 1970s and throughout the 1980s, forms of curriculum theorizing associated with the reconceptualist movement began to move in two directions. Some scholars writing in a reconceptualist vein did so largely motivated by issues of phenomenology and existentialism, whereas others were motivated more by Marxist ideology and issues of social justice. William Pinar distinguished these differences as “post critical,” referring to the more phenomenological/existential focus, and “critical,” referring to the more Marxist focus.
Both movements within reconceptualist scholarship were influenced heavily by the work of Paulo Freire. Freire’s notion of praxis—conscious, determined, and informed action—as well as his notions of critical consciousness and language of possibility became critical tenets among reconceptualists. According to Freire, it is critical to know one’s self in order to be a subject engaged within the world. With that critical self-awareness, it is then crucial that one acts within the world to make it a more just place. Thus, the work of Freire served as a coherent framework under which reconceptualist scholarship grew and developed.
The Legacy
According to a number of the scholars associated with the reconceptualist movement, reconceptualization of the field has occurred, and as such, the movement has disappeared. Merely opposing traditional curriculum theorizing was not a strong enough force to maintain a unity of ideology among the very diverse scholars. The two directions of reconceptualist scholarship— the phenomenological/existential and the critical— have diverged further since the 1980s. Pinar and others note that the demise of the reconceptualist movement is actually a testament to its success. Thinking about schooling is no longer limited to technical perspectives.
A current legacy from the reconceptualist movement can be seen in the work of such scholars as James Henderson, Jim Sears, and Patrick Slattery. Their scholarship, as well as the work of others in the field, builds upon the ideas of reconceptualist theory in an effort to have a greater effect on the state of schooling. These scholars and others continue to pursue curriculum as a means to understand the complexity of schooling and society, but they have extended that work to explicitly address the theorypractice divide between scholars and practitioners as well as the need for scholars to be directly involved in school reform and social change. Additional small conferences and publications have emerged in an effort to extend the phenomenological, existential, and critical perspectives of the original reconceptualist scholars. One organization that has emerged from
Bibliography:
- Feinberg, P. R. (1985). Four curriculum theorists: A critique in the light of Martin Buber’s philosophy of education. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 6(1), 5–164.
- Marshall, J. D., Sears, J. T., Allen, L. A., Roberts, P., & Schubert, W. H. (2007). Turning points in curriculum: A contemporary American memoir (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Mazza, K. A. (1982). Reconceptualist inquiry as an alternative model of curriculum theory and practice: A critical study. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 4(2), 5–89.
- Pinar, W. F. (1975). Curriculum theorizing: The reconceptualists. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan.
- Pinar, W. F., Reynolds, W. M., Slattery, P., & Taubman, P. M. (1995). Understanding curriculum: An introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. New York: Peter Lang.
- Curriculum and Pedagogy: http://www.curriculumandpedagogy.org
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