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Curriculum Theory and Education for Democracy

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William B. Stanley
a
Monmouth University

Version of record first published: 23 Sep 2011

To cite this article: William B. Stanley (2009): Curriculum Theory and Education for Democracy, Journal of Curriculum and
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 44 Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy

to see what appears when it is not in play. We ask if we have gotten to what
appears to be the root of the matter in question (does this idea nourish our
interests and in what ways?). Negation, death, and rootedness: three as-
pects of criticality. There is, however, another dimension often missing from
our practice. Along with reality-oriented analyses (the way things are) we
need a vision of the way things might be (“future-oriented components”).
We need to create new futures. If we practice skeptical dialectical criticality
we have a better chance of seeing what we could not see because our ideas
were blinding us to the ways they were blinding us. That is what is worth
noting in curriculum studies.

References

Berman, M. (1988). All that is solid melts into air: The experience of modernity. New
York: Penguin.
Brown, L. M., & Gilligan, C. (1993). Meeting at the crossroads. New York: Bal-
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lantine Books.
Gilligan, C. (1993). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Macdonald, J. B. (1995). A vision of a humane school. In J. B. Macdonald
(Ed.), Theory as a prayerful act: The collected essays of James B. Macdonald (pp. 49–
68). New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
Meszaros, I. (1970). Marx’s theory of alienation. New York: Harper Torch Books.
Miel, A. (1946/1978). Crystallization in education. In J. Gress with D. Purpel (Eds.),
Curriculum (pp. 452–466). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan Publishing Corporation.
Piaget, J. (1968). Six psychological studies. New York: Vintage Books.
Purpel, D. (1986). Personal communication.

Curriculum Theory and Education for Democracy

WILLI AM B. STANLEY
Monmouth University

There has not been a time during my 42 years as an educator (social studies
teacher, professor, department chair, or dean) when our schools were not
described as in a state of “crisis.” Reforms have come and gone, but for crit-
ics across the ideological spectrum the perception of crisis persists. If we use
 Perspectives 45

the medical metaphor for crisis, public education in America appears to

have been on its death bed for more than a century. And yet, the system
continues to function. Certainly, many problems described by critics on the
right and left have been real, if, at times, exaggerated and “manufactured”
for political purposes (Berliner & Biddle, 1996). Nevertheless, if public
education in every era is described as in crisis, whatever the curriculum,
resources, increasing years of attendance, graduation rates, literacy levels,
expansion of higher education, and economic prosperity, the concept looses
meaning and power as a tool for critical analysis.
Conservative critics of education, at their best, call for a return to educa-
tional excellence and a “liberal education” conception of curriculum derived
from traditions of wisdom dating to antiquity. At their worst, conservatives
advocate a narrow, assimilationist, and vocational conception of education
in support of an oppressive status quo. Contrastly, progressive critics often
support a curriculum designed for “counter-socialization” to enable indi-
viduals to realize their full potential and participate in the reconstruction of
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society oriented by democracy as a way of life. My own approach to cur-

riculum theory and pedagogy is deeply rooted in the progressive tradition,
but over 40 years of theorizing and practice has left me unsettled regarding
several major elements progressive approaches to curriculum. The need for
radical reform in education remains evident, but the obstacles to reform
appear more formidable than in the past, and the various (and sometimes
contradictory) recommendations of progressive curriculum theorists are often
impractical, confusing, contradictory, even counterproductive.
This is the context in which I respond to the unusually broad question
posed here. I will limit my response to two areas of concern regarding the
future of curriculum theory: development, and practice. First, I examine as-
sumptions regarding counter-socialization to create education for democracy
at the heart of most progressive approaches to curriculum theory. Second, I
consider the reconceptualist critique of mainstream assumptions regarding
the relationship of curriculum, instruction, theory, and practice in teacher
education. Finally, I suggest some recommendations regarding curriculum
theorizing and development in the future.

Counter-Socialization and Education for Democracy

One question long debated by curriculum theorists is to what extent schools
should emphasize transmission or transformation of the social order
(Stanley, 2005). This dichotomy is an oversimplification, as schools must do
some of each, but where curriculum theorists should place the emphasis is a
critical consideration. By “transformation” I do not mean the conventional
 46 Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy

view that education should make society better (e.g., lead to scientific
breakthroughs, eradicate disease, increase productivity, etc.). Rather, I re-
fer to curriculum approaches critical of the status quo and motivated by a
desire for individual and social transformation for social justice and the ex-
pansion of democracy. Curriculum for social transformation crystallized in
the 1920s and 1930s and remain a persistent school of thought in curricu-
lum theory, while having had only marginal influence on educational policy
and practice over the past century.
Whatever their other theoretical differences, most progressive curricu-
lum theorists are proponents of education for democracy and favor some
form of curriculum “counter-socialization” to enable individuals to realize
their full potential and reconstruct the social order (e.g., Engle & Ochoa,
1988; Giroux, 1988; Kincheloe, 2004; Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taub-
man, 1995; Stanley, 1992). Proponents of this approach to curriculum often
assume (or act as if) they possess a superior form of knowledge and values
regarding the system that “ought” to be implemented in place of the current
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oppressive social order. The attraction of the progressive counter-

socialization position is understandable. The anti-democratic indoctrination
and oppressive elements of mainstream curriculum are not hard to identify,
and a politically neutral curriculum is not possible. Given such facts, why
not employ counter-socialization to inculcate students with a curriculum
aimed at democratic social reconstruction? As a guide to “what knowledge
is of most worth”?
Counts (1932) argued that progressive educators must free themselves
from philosophic relativism, instrumentalism, and the constraining influences
of upper middle class culture to permit the development of “a realistic and
comprehensive theory of social welfare” and “a compelling and challenging
vision of human destiny” (pp. 9–10). Progressives must come to accept:

that all education contains a large element of imposition, that in the very
nature of the case this is inevitable, that the existence and evolution of
society depend upon it, that it is consequently eminently desirable, and
that the frank acceptance of this fact by the educator is a major profes-
sional obligation. (Counts, 1932, p. 12)

Counts’s curriculum for individual and social transformation was designed

to expose the anti-democratic limitations of individualism and market eco-
nomic theory, promote a strong form of participatory democracy, and re-
duce disparities of income, wealth, and power.
Why not follow Counts’s recommendations? Aside from the obviously
limited power of schools and teachers alone to accomplish anything as am-
bitious as reconstructing the social order, there are also good theoretical
 Perspectives 47

grounds for questioning the wisdom of using counter-socialization to bring

about a democratic social order. We can look to Dewey, the icon of pro-
gressive education, for a key reason to resist strong forms of the curriculum
for counter-socialization argument. Dewey (1937), like Counts, understood
education must have a social orientation, and noted it “is not whether the
schools shall or shall not influence the course of future social life, but in
what direction they shall do so and how” (p. 236). The way our schools ac-
tually “share in the building of the social order of the future, depends on the
particular social forces and movements with which they ally” (Dewey, 1934,
p. 11). Accordingly, education “must...assume an increasing responsibility
for participation in projecting ideas of social change and taking part in their
execution in order to be educative,” with particular attention to a more just,
open, and democratic society (Dewey & Childs, 1933, pp. 318–319).
Dewey explicitly rejected Count’s position that the schools should indoc-
trinate students to promote a particular theory of social welfare, although
he realized that schools could not help transmitting some social values. It
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was up to well-educated democratic citizens to clarify and determine pre-

ferred social ends. To attempt to use education to impose a particular social
order would be to abandon the method of intelligence (1937, p. 236). While
his curriculum theory was not based on a particular theory of social welfare,
it did emphasize providing the conditions under which the method of intel-
ligence could be learned and applied. Dewey (1935) was quite specific in
his response to reconstructionist critics like Counts who attacked his educa-
tional approach as neutral politically. He did not believe it was neutral, me-
chanical, aloof, or “purely intellectual” in analyzing social conflict. The
pragmatist’s application of modern advances in science and technology to
improve society did so not through indoctrination but by the “intelligent
study of historical and existing forces and conditions…” and this method
“cannot fail...to support a new general social orientation” (p. 9). In this sense,
indoctrination was unnecessary, because the application of the method of in-
telligences would eventually reveal ways to improve the social order.

Those supporting indoctrination rest their adherence to the theory, in

part, upon the fact that there is a great deal of indoctrination now going
on in the schools, especially with reference to narrow nationalism under
the name of patriotism, and with reference to the dominant economic re-
gime. These facts unfortunately are facts. But they do not prove that the
right course is to seize upon the method of indoctrination and reverse its
object. (Dewey, 1937, p. 328)

Dewey did recommend education impose the pragmatic method of intelli-

gence, but he did not see this recommendation as contradictory. “If the
 48 Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy

method we have recommended leads teachers and students to better con-

clusions than those which we have reached—as it surely will if widely and
honestly adopted—so much the better” (Dewey & Childs, 1933, p. 72). In
contrast, any attempt to inculcate a preconceived theory of social welfare
would ultimately work to subvert the method of intelligence and was anti-
thetical to education for democracy. His critics exaggerate when they claim
Dewey’s pragmatic theory had no political valence.
Too often, progressive proponents of critical pedagogy have minimized
or ignored Dewey’s cautions and based their programs on the assumption
that they have identified the preferred social values and vision of a democ-
ratic social order (e.g., Engle & Ochoa, 1988; Giroux, 1988; Hill, McLaren,
Cole, & Rikowski, 2002). They see it as a professional responsibility to use
curriculum to help effect what they understand as socially just, necessary
change. Certainly most critical educators claim theoretical and evidentiary
grounds for their positions, and dominant curriculum discourses better
serve the needs of some students as opposed to others, and our understand-
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ing of any discourse is shaped by the lens of ideology.

Still, something is not quite right with this analysis and there is more
than a trace of elitism (we know what’s best for you) on the part of many
progressive proponents of counter-socialization (Stanley, 2007; Wraga,
1999a). Often, we are attacking a theoretical caricature of our opponents.
How likely is it that small groups of critical progressive educators (and their
political allies) are the only ones who really understand what is wrong with
our society and educational system? Does it make sense to assume that all
the advocates of mainstream society and education theories have been ei-
ther wrong or worse, that the employment of such theories is no more than
a cynical attempt to maintain the status quo? Why do dominant educa-
tional, cultural, and social assumptions persist and elicit such widespread
popular support among all classes and ethnic groups? Can we dismiss
popular support for mainstream education and social institutions as an ex-
ample of mass false consciousness?
Ideology is a fundamental component of any culture but always some-
thing less than the totality of the culture it seeks to represent (Gee, 1992).
The definition of ideology as false consciousness only captures a limited
version of how the concept can be applied to social inquiry, and we might
ask how any social system could function absent some ideological dimen-
sion used to justify its existence. Consequently, while false consciousness is
often a feature of a given society or social group, ideology itself can never be
reduced to mere false consciousness, since it is always a necessary compo-
nent of any movement that defends or seeks to undermine a social order
(Stanley, 1992). The point to keep in mind is that no one has the capacity to
 Perspectives 49

stand outside and analyze society from a position that does not represent an
ideological perspective. As such, ideology is something we, as human be-
ings, cannot live without. I am not asserting that we have no way to adjudi-
cate knowledge claims or that all knowledge claims are equal (a radical
form of relativism or even nihilism). I do claim, though, that humans have
no access to certain knowledge regarding such things as values, theories of
social welfare, social reality, and the reality that we assume exists independ-
ent of our knowledge of it. What we do have as humans is the capacity to
improve the competence to make judgments concerning how we ought to
live to maximize our potential. It is the quest to develop this “practical”
competence that should form one cornerstone of curriculum theory and
practice (Stanley, 1992). This goal requires curriculum designed to provide
students with opportunities to engage in genuine problem solving activities
related to social issues perceived as such by the students themselves.

Reconceptualist Curriculum Theory and Curriculum

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Development
Reconceptualist curriculum theory is, in part, an attempt to improve upon
the limitations of earlier progressive approaches to curriculum, especially
those rooted in neo-Marxism and those failing to take adequate account of
race, gender, sexual orientation, the self and/or bound to the traditional as-
sumptions regarding curriculum, instruction, theory, and practice. The
reconceptualist movement represents a wide range of perspectives (see Pi-
nar et al., 1995; Slattery, 2006), and I will only focus here on some key
reconceptualist ideas that might inform this discussion, particularly the
work of Pinar, the most prolific and influential reconceptualist scholar.
Pinar et al. (1995) declared that traditional curriculum development was
born in 1918 and died in 1969, as curriculum theorists lost what influence
and control they had over schooling. The influence of curriculum theorists
was gradually replaced by a variety of stakeholders including representa-
tives of the academic disciplines, psychologists, textbook publishers, corpo-
rate interests, conservative scholars and think tanks, and state and federal
policy. It is these stakeholders that now control the public school curricu-
lum, and the current educational power structure is unlikely to extend cur-
riculum theorists any meaningful respect or role in curriculum development
in the near future (Pinar, 1999, 2006). Curriculum is characterized by an
overemphasis on teaching techniques, standardized testing, and outcomes-
based education linked to a narrow, vocational, and corporate model. This
pernicious approach to curriculum (institutionalized by No Child Left Behind)
miseducates our youth and helps perpetuate a dysfunctional and anti-
 50 Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy

democratic social order, a situation Pinar (2004, 2006) calls our current
“nightmare” in education.
Given the growing intellectual vacuum and sense of exclusion from edu-
cational policy decisions, the reconceptualized field was characterized by a
move to create some “distance from the schools” (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 850),
a shift from a focus on curriculum development to interpreting and under-
standing curriculum, the inclusion of nonschool phenomena including auto-
biography and popular culture as important areas of study, a separation of
(or at least suspicion of our traditional assumptions regarding the relation-
ship between) theory and practice, and a rejection of the current relation-
ship between curriculum and instruction in teacher education.
Pinar makes a complex, nuanced argument for an intellectualized ap-
proach to curriculum as “complicated conversation,” with an emphasis on
education more grounded in a revised conception of the interdisciplinary
synoptic text and individual “study” rather than instruction as a technical
method to realize predetermined objectives and academic disciplinary
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knowledge (Pinar et al., 1995; Pinar, 2004, 2006). Curriculum theorists and
teacher educators, in general, should develop an educational “counter-
culture” to help reconstruct individual and social awareness (2004, p. 161–
162). Pinar (2004) even wonders if it might be time to close schools of edu-
cation and decouple teacher certification from education courses so that
those who continue to study education will do so out of intellectual interest
(p. 220). Pinar’s question is jarring but not unfair; the sort that provokes a
deeper analysis. On the other hand, the question is remote or irrelevant for
most educators, and Pinar struggles to distance his ideas regarding teacher
education from reactionary forces (with very different motives) who seek to
privatize public education (pp. 220–222). Pinar’s views on such issues serve
as an example of why the reconceptualists have been criticized for a failure
to address the practical (methodological) concerns of teachers and school
administrators (Hlebowitsh, 1993; Wraga, 1999a).
Wraga (1999a, 1999b, 2002) claims that reconceptualist curriculum the-
ory suffers from a number of limitations including latent elitism, frequent
logical inconsistency, misrepresentation and incorporation of the historical
field, “complicity in the perpetuation of school problems, and potential aca-
demic irrelevance” (1999b, p. 16). Wraga (1999a) cites numerous instances
where Pinar makes explicit statements distancing reconceptualist theorizing
from methods and the practical problems facing schools.
Pinar (1999, 2004, p. 70) dismisses Wraga’s critique as anti-theoretical
and anti-intellectual. Pinar (2004, p. 196) also claims that Wraga (2002) “reit-
erates a discredited dualism when he asserts [that] “curriculum is more than a
conversation; curriculum is a realm of action.” Pinar (2004, pp. 196–197) re-
 Perspectives 51

minds us that “conversation is a form of action,” and that Wraga’s critique is an

instance of “advocacy” academics, associating him with the work of Diane
Ravitch (Pinar 2004, p. 220). According to Wraga (1999b), Pinar (1999) fails
to provide a substantive response to his specific criticisms. Ironically, his cur-
sory dismissal of Wraga’s critique is the antithesis of complicated conversation.
Pinar acknowledges he has not emphasized practice explicitly in most of
his work, but insists his conceptions of curriculum as complicated conversa-
tion and synoptic text have pedagogical implications and his recent work in
makes a greater “gesture” in this direction (Pinar, 2006, pp. 1–14, pp. 180–
181). Acknowledging his work is at variance with traditional models, Pinar
claims he has retained a consistent interest in practice throughout his career
(2006, p. 180), yet in the same text Pinar (2006) displays ambivalence on
this point. While acknowledging “teaching can be theorized noninstrumen-
tally,” Pinar asks, “does not the very concept tempt us to think we can, at
the minimum, influence, or more optimistically (or is it arrogantly?), pro-
duce, certain effects?” (p. 119).
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Well, yes. The temptation Pinar describes is real and has led to much
abuse in curriculum development, educational reform, and practice. A more
effective response, however, might reside in our efforts to pursue a less in-
strumental conception of teaching rather than an attempt to disentangle
curriculum and instruction and shift from teaching to “study.” The “compli-
cated conversation” metaphor needs to be understood in multiple contexts.
In its strongest form, the full power and potentiality of the metaphor can be
pursued to great advantage. In the context of schooling, (curriculum and
instruction), complicated conversation becomes a more constrained, if no
less relevant, metaphor.
Pinar (2006) finds the traditional (and dominant) assumptions regarding
the relation between curriculum and instruction problematic. He views our
preoccupation with the traditional curriculum (content) and instruction
(methods) relationship as an intellectual mistake, institutionalized by the
formation of the first Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers
College, Columbia University, in 1938 (p. 118). Pinar (2004) recommends
we deemphasize our exaggerated preoccupation with instructional methods,
assessment, and “consequence-oriented” education. The dominant main-
stream curriculum is based on a business or corporate model that misedu-
cates our youth and helps perpetuate a dysfunctional and anti-democratic
social order. Fair enough, but the attempt to restore balance and intellectual
credibility to curriculum studies does not, in my view, require the separa-
tion of curriculum and instruction. More than that, one cannot (and should
not try to) separate the two (Whitson, 2003).
 52 Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy

Pinar also believes that our tendency to divide teacher education cur-
riculum into subject specialties e.g., English, math, science, and social stud-
ies education creates ineffective derivatives of the academic disciplines that
dominate the departmental structure of universities. “To automatically align
the public school curriculum with the current curriculum of higher educa-
tion is...an abnegation of our professional responsibility to educate the pub-
lic” (2004, p. 21). I am sympathetic with Pinar’s concerns regarding the
narrow preoccupation with technical approaches to teaching school sub-
jects for their own sake, but his claim that the alignment of public school
curriculum with the disciplinary curriculum of higher education as an “ab-
negation of our professional responsibility” is too strong. In what sense can
this charge be true? Who is professionally responsible?
The disciplinary organization of academic departments (for better or
worse) is fundamental (in terms of its theoretical pervasiveness) to the struc-
ture of higher education. The disciplines have morphed over time, dividing
and recombining with a growing interdisciplinary focus. The federal, state,
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and local school policy to align the K–12 curriculum with curriculum stan-
dards developed by national academic organizations or testing organizations
(e.g., ETS) have indeed narrowed the focus of education, but such narrow-
ness is not intrinsic to the disciplines. From a practical political perspective,
the pertinent question for curriculum theorists is how we might engage in
progressive work within a structure that will persist in the foreseeable future.
Furthermore, there are good theoretical grounds for aligning K–12
school curriculum with the academic disciplines as powerful “ways of
knowing.” While educating students to become disciplinary specialists is not
the purpose of K–12 education, Dewey provides an argument for teaching
disciplinary knowledge in a way that originates with and respects genuine
student interests (i.e., both what students are interested in and what is in
the student’s interest). His curriculum engaged students in activities related
to the “occupations,” (his awkward term for fundamental human activities,
e.g., growing food, cooking, building), their interest would be stimulated
and they would move on to genuine opportunities to acquire disciplinary
knowledge relevant to social competence in a democratic society (Boisvert,
1998, pp. 100–104). Dewey’s implementation of curriculum in the labora-
tory school was limited to elementary education. He said virtually nothing
about secondary education in his work, and we must draw our own infer-
ences. What seems apparent is that teachers must have a firm grasp of dis-
ciplinary ways of knowing to implement Dewey’s approach to curriculum.
Social studies education, an interdisciplinary field concerned with edu-
cation for democracy, provides a purpose good illustration of Dewey’s ideas
applied to disciplinary knowledge. Democracy as a way of life is not some-
 Perspectives 53

thing innate to humans; it must be learned (Parker, 1996). Furthermore,

democracy itself is an ideal and perpetual work in progress. Certainly,
schools are not the only place where the cultivation of democracy can take
place. Indeed, schools have often functioned to stunt the growth of democ-
racy. But anti-democratic programs are not the purpose of schooling in a
democratic society; they are failed examples of schooling. The call from
reconceptualists and other critical educational theorists to create a curricu-
lum counter-culture rooted in “complicated conversation” (Pinar, 2004,
2006) will resonate with many social studies educators; as the capacity for
complicated conversation is at the heart of education for democracy.
The most common progressive approach to social studies is “issues cen-
tered” or “problem centered” programs (Evans, 2004; Hunt & Metcalf, 1995;
Metcalf, 1989; Nelson 2001; Parker, 1996; Shaver, 1997). The basic idea is to
identify key issues or social problems that will resonate as such with students
and make study of these the focus of the curriculum. In a simplified summary,
disciplinary knowledge (e.g., history, social science, humanities, and the sci-
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ences) is introduced as appropriate and necessary to understand the issue and

identify how the issue relates to the student’s individual development and social
reconstruction. Students are encouraged to develop alternative perspectives,
skills, solutions, and recommendations to improve society. This approach also
allows for some curriculum coconstruction on the part of the teacher and stu-
dents. Such programs might not go far enough for most reconceptualists, but
they do share many of the same progressive roots and goals.

Conclusions
If we decide to take the strong reconceptualist position, that only curricu-
lum of genuine interest to students and co-constructed with teachers or cur-
riculum constructed by individual students engaged in solitary study counts
as education, we are likely (perhaps we should say it is inevitable) to fail to
reach a large number of students and meet important social interests of
large segments of the population who do not share the reconceptualist posi-
tion. As noted earlier, to dismiss all those who disagree with us as simply ill
informed or deliberately obstructive reflects the dysfunctional elements of
curriculum too strongly rooted in counter-socialization. Such an approach
can’t be right and is a legitimate target of Wraga’s (1999a, 1999b) claims
regarding the latent elitism of reconceptualistst theory.
The reconceptualists offer much that could assist in the project. Com-
menting on social studies, Avner Segall (2002) maintains, “it is not [the]
student teacher’s inability to imagine otherwise that restricts the possibility
of educational change but teacher education’s inability to provide them
 54 Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy

‘otherwise’ experiences that break with the traditional, the expected, the
devious, and the taken-for-granted” (p. 167). Put another way, Segall is
arguing that social studies teacher education must provide an environment
“where practice as-it-is-practiced gets theorized, where theory is not only for
practice but is indeed practiced, and where practice is integrated for the
kinds of theories and practices it produces and for those it does and does
not make possible” (p. 166). Here Segall, without distancing himself from a
focus on practice, appears to incorporate key reconceptualist insights.
Nevertheless, and with due respect to Rousseau and the reconceptualists,
students are neither born with nor do they typically acquire a full range of
interest in or awareness of their own interests prior to starting school. Dewey
understood this but assumed that his focus on the fundamental “occupations”
would gradually cultivate the level of interest necessary for students to ac-
quire the disciplinary “ways of knowing” and competencies necessary to real-
ize their interests as individuals and citizens in a democratic society. Dewey’s
model has enormous potential, but it would be naïve to assume it will always
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work or that it might encompass all dimensions of curriculum. Throughout

human history, education has served to transmit the culture of the tribe, city-
state, nation, or empire. In this sense, education has always been outcome-
based, long before the modern business model of accountability and stan-
dards. Indeed, education itself cannot exist outside a social formation that has
sufficient power to ensure the survival of its institutions (Scruton, 2002). In
this sense a society has a responsibility to ensure that its educational system
transmits certain elements of the culture deemed essential. We should debate
“what” knowledge is of most worth with great vigor. What we cannot do is
eliminate the need to decide, however transient that decision might come to
be. Progressives should champion curriculum to sustain and improve democ-
racy as a way of life, particularly the capacity for individual praxis (Stanley &
Whitson, 1992; Stanley, 1992), while recognizing the social need and respon-
sibility to transmit those elements of the culture deemed essential, for exam-
ple, disciplinary “ways of knowing.” While these two goals are in tension,
they are not incompatible. It is the task of curriculum theory to help us find a
better balance between these fundamental elements of education.

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A Curriculum of Being With, Being For and

Becoming

MEI WO HOYT
Texas A&M University

P ATRICK SL ATTE RY
Texas A&M University

“To be consciousness or rather to be an experience is to hold inner communication with

the world, the body and other people, to be with them instead of being beside them”
(Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 96).

To answer the question “What is worth needing, knowing, experiencing,

doing, being, and becoming in the field of curriculum studies and how
might these be transmitted and communicated?” we turn to Merleau-