Contemporary curriculum theorizing: crisis and resolution

Using the ‘medical’ framework (symptoms, diagnosis and prescription) in Schwab’s the Practical 1 article, I analyze the current state of contemporary curriculum theorizing as a result of the reconceptualist movement. I argue that curriculum theorizing is in serious crisis due to the loss of the original subject of curriculum studies – practice and the inner work of schooling as a complex institution. Furthermore, I contend that the crisis has to do with the task of theorizing being mistakenly viewed as the pursuit of ‘complicated’ curriculum understanding, together with an uncritical embrace of postmodernism and related discourses. Based on Schwab’s the Practical and informed by the German Didaktik tradition, I propose a way forward to overcome the crisis and to revive curriculum theorizing that matters in practice and in the world of schooling for the twenty-first century in terms of three propositions. First, curriculum studies is a distinctive field/discipline centrally concerned with practice for the advancement of education. Second, practice and the inner work of schooling provide the essential starting point and subject matter for theorizing. Third, curriculum theorizing requires the use of theories in an eclectic, critical and creative manner.