F. Michael Connelly

 “Educational reform in the middle of the last century focused explicitly on recognizable curriculum matters” (p. 624).  The success of other countries such as Shanghai and Finland make us (in this case, the USA) think more critically about the curriculum we provide and how it compares.

 Schwab said: “the field of curriculum studies had, in principle, reached a dead end…because it was failing to yield relevant findings” (p. 626).  Schwab did: “Schwab’s forms of principle of inquiry are ways of relating theory and practice in science while the flights are responses to the breakdown of theory-practice relations in curriculum studies” (p.627).

1. Logistic: theory application view 2. Problematic: problem solving approach where practice is central 3. Dialectic: equal emphasis on theory and practice 4. Operational: begins in, and stays with, the practical. (p. 628)

 Schwab was “reconceptualizing the working relationship theory and practice in curriculum studies. He did this by contrasting the nature of the practical and theoretical disciplines, and he crafted a dialectic form of principle of theory/practice relations” (p.628)  “What Schwab was doing was to profoundly overturn prevailing ideas of practical progress and school reform and to profoundly challenge the academy’s sense of its theoretical privilege with respect to practice. (p.629)

 Theory Dewey criticized current curriculum literature, saying “there was a crisis in Western thought because of a traditional denigration of practice in theoretical thought” (p. 630) Curriculum studies has been replaced with curriculum theory in many academic institutions, turning it into “an egocentric field of personal interests” (p. 630)

 Practice Regardless of the theoretical approach taken in curriculum departments, “curriculum studies as a practice cannot disappear… The reason that curriculum studies as a practice remains alive and well is that curriculum considerations are at the heart of everything that is done and thought about in education” (p. 631)

 “There has been a shift from a debate over subject matter versus life-adjustment curriculum for children to questions of accountability and achievement” (p. 632)  Connelly suggests that when United States compares it’s achievement to that of other high scoring countries, “the focus is less on curriculum and more on structural, management, organizational, implementation, and authority issues” (p.632).

 Connelly argues that curriculum policy is no longer found in current literature, and educational reform is discussed independent of curriculum. Even though curriculum policy is the first thing “the public wants to know from their local authorities”, Schwab’s ideas are nowhere to be found and when educators “look about their landscape they cannot see curriculum in curriculum studies nor can they see curriculum in the educational policy literature” (p. 633).

 Connelly ends his paper saying “we need to think of school reform in terms of logical forms, patterns of inquiry, social progress and movement, theory of knowledge and narrative. By coming to grips with what Schwab was doing curricular paths may open up for inquiry and practical action” (p. 635)