The Curriculum: Problems, Politics, and Possibilities (Second Edition)(SUNY series, Frontiers in Education)

Such was the praise for the first edition of The Curriculum. Now Landon E. Beyer and Michael W. Apple join together with other notable contributors in this new edition to examine a range of issues, ideas, and practices connected to the development, evaluation, and effects of curriculum ideas and practices. With substantially new and revised material, the book includes both historical and contemporary efforts to redefine the public school curriculum. It analyzes both the explicit ideas that are conveyed through the curriculum as well as the social, political, aesthetic, ethical, and moral perspectives and values with which curriculum is connected. In outlining both theoretical and practical aspects of the curriculum, and the social values and purposes with which they are connected, the book raises a host of important questions and dilemmas about the nature and direction of educational policies and practices. Taking an integrated perspective, The Curriculum outlines both theoretical issues and practical possibilities, in the process raising questions about the nature and direction of educational policies and practices. As it clarifies the connections between social possibility and the concrete realities of classrooms and other educational arenas, this book elucidates the meaning and value of education, and some of the reasons for the continuing debates within the field.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Values and Politics in the Curriculum Landon E. Beyer and Michael W. Apple I. Curriculum: Its Past and Present 2. The Effort to Reconstruct the Modern American Curriculum Herbert M. Kliebard 3. Contestation and Curriculum: The Efforts of American Socialists, 1900--1920 Kenneth N. Teitelbaum 4. What Goes on in Classrooms? Is This the Way We Want It? Kenneth A. Sirotnik II. Curriculum and Planning 5. Models of Curriculum Planning George J. Posner 6. Multicultural Curricula: "Whose Knowledge?" and Beyond Susan E. Noffke 7. What We've Learned from "Living in the Future" Barbara Brodhagen, Gary Weilbacher, and James A. Beane III. Curriculum and Knowledge Selection 8. Curriculum Platforms and Moral Stories Thomas E. Barone and Donald S. Blumenfeld-Jones 9. The Culture and Commerce of the Textbook Michael W. Apple 10. Democracy and the Curriculum George H. Wood IV. Curriculum and the Work of Teachers 11. Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Gloria Ladson-Billings 12. Teaching, Gender, and Curriculum Sara E. Freedman 13. Schooling for Democracy: What Kind? Landon E. Beyer V. Curriculum and Technology 14. The Regime of Technology in Education Douglas D. Noble 15. A Critical Analysis of Three Approaches to the Use of Computers in Education Michael J. Streibel 16. Teaching and Technology: The Hidden Effects of Computers on Teachers and Students Michael W. Apple VI. Curriculum and Evaluation 17. The Human Problems and Possibilities of Curriculum Evaluation George Willis 18. Developing Curriculum through School Self-Evaluation Helen Simons 19. Democratic Evaluation: Aesthetic, Ethical Stories in Schools Landon E. Beyer and Jo Anne Pagano Contributors Index

About the Author :
Landon E. Beyer, Associate Dean for Teacher Education at Indiana University, is the author and coauthor of many books including most recently Creating Democratic Classrooms: The Struggle to Integrate Theory and Practice. Michael W. Apple, the John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has published numerous books including Cultural Politics and Education.

Review :
"This is an excellent, carefully edited, well-produced curriculum reader that deserves to do very well indeed, if only because it embodies so much that James B. Macdonald taught about the study of the curriculum; namely that it is a human endeavor, not a scientific pursuit." - Comparative Education Review