Approaches debates over the cultural character of the curriculum as debates over the American national identity. The 15 essays discuss curriculum politics, race and representation, gender and class, cultural pluralism and ethnicity, multiculturalism, and other topics. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Despite differing orientations, the contributors here all share a common concern for stressing the importance of social context, nuance and language in understanding the dynamics of race relations.

Perhaps not since Ralph Tyler's (1949) Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction has a book communicated the field as completely as Understanding Curriculum. From historical discourses to breaking developments in feminist, poststructuralist, and racial theory, including chapters on political theory, phenomenology, aesthetics, theology, international developments, and a lengthy chapter on institutional concerns, the American curriculum field is here. It will be an indispensable textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses alike.

The contributors to Race and Higher Education guide educators toward an understanding of how changes in the student population call for new approaches to classroom instruction, and address the need for new pedagogical practices in increasingly diverse college classrooms. Over the last few decades, U.S. colleges and universities have witnessed increasing diversity in their student bodies. Yet faculty members, operating on the notion that one pedagogy fits all students, continue to employ traditional modes of instruction. This adherence to outdated pedagogies has created potentially harmful learning environments for all students—and particularly for students of color. Race and Higher Education addresses this persistent problem, guiding educators toward a better understanding of how changes in the student population have resulted in the need for new approaches to classroom instruction. By including voices from inside classrooms along with analyses from scholarly researchers, this volume provides college and university teachers, administrators, students, and scholars with a critical instrument for improving higher education.

This book is about William Pinar: one of the best-known authors in the field of curriculum studies. The main contribution of William Pinar is not to determine the curriculum. He is involved in a continuous struggle to help students and teachers reflect about their personal experiences, educational and curricular options.

The Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies provides a comprehensive introduction to the academic field of curriculum studies for the scholar, student, teacher, and administrator. The study of curriculum, beginning in the early 20th century, served primarily the areas of school administration and teaching and was seen as a method to design and develop programs of study. The field subsequently expanded to draw upon disciplines from the arts, humanities, and social sciences and to examine larger educational forces and their effects upon the individual, society, and conceptions of knowledge. Curriculum studies has now emerged to embrace an expansive and contested conception of academic scholarship while focusing upon a diverse and complex dynamic among educational experiences, practices, settings, actions, and theories in relation to personal and institutional needs and interests. The Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies serves to inform and to introduce terms, events, documents, biographies, and concepts to assist the reader in understanding aspects of this rapidly changing field of study. Representative topics include: Origins, definitions, dimensions, and variations on Curriculum Studies Curriculum development and design for schools Curricular purpose, implementation, and evaluation Contemporary issues, e.g., standards, tests, and accountability Curricular dimensions of teaching and teacher education Interdisciplinary perspectives on institutionalized curriculum Informal curricula of homes, mass media, workplaces, organizations, and relationships Impact of race, class, gender, health, belief, appearance, place, ethnicity, language Relationships of curriculum and poverty, wealth, and related factors Modes of curriculum inquiry and research Curriculum as cultural studies, exploring the formation of identities and possibilities Corporate, state, church, and military influence as curriculum Global and international perspectives on curriculum Curriculum organizations, journals, and resources Summaries of books and articles on curriculum studies Biographic vignettes of key persons in curriculum studies Relevant photographs

In Are You Mixed?, Sonia Janis explores the spaces in-between race and place from the perspective of an educator who is multi-racial. As she reflects on her own experiences as a seventh grade student up to her eventual appointment as a school administrator, she learns of the complexity of situating oneself in predetermined demographic categories. She shares how she explores the intricacies of undefined spaces that teach her to embrace differences, contradictions, and complexities in schools, neighborhoods and communities. Exploring the in-betweenness (Anzaldua & Keating, 2002; He, 2003, 2010) of her life as a multi-race person problematizes imbedded notions of race, gender, class, and power. The power of this memoir lies in its narrative possibilities to capture the contradictions and paradoxes of lives in-between race and place, “to honor the subtleties, fluidities, and complexities of such experience, and to cultivate understanding towards individual ... experience and the multicultural/multiracial contexts that shape and are shaped by such experience” (He, 2003, p. xvii). This memoir creates new ways to think about and write about in-between experience and their relevance to multicultural and multiracial education. Janis challenges educators, teachers, administrators, and policy makers to view the educational experience of students with multiracial, multicultural, and multilingual backgrounds by shattering predetermined categories and stereotyped classifications and looking into unknown and fluid realms of the in-betweenness of their lives. This challenge helps create equitable and just opportunities and engender culturally responsive and inspiring curricular and learning environments to bring out the best potential in all diverse schools, communities, neighborhoods, tribes and societies.

Curriculum Trends is an authoritative exploration of curriculum history in America and the theory and foundations currently influencing school practices for pre-K through 12th grade. Curriculum Trends: A Reference Handbook presents the most expansive, up-to-date survey of curriculum development in the United States, ranging from its history and the origins of the cry for higher standards, to societal influences on schools and the legal challenges they face today. Supported by examples illustrating both successful and failed school reforms, critical developments of the past 25 years and their impacts—including the rise of charter schools, home schooling, the standards movement, high-stakes testing, and authentic assessment—are carefully analyzed. The first work to examine ethical concerns with multicultural and multilingual students also addresses professionalism in teaching and teacher education.