The Burdens of the New Curricularist

Abstract

A community of scholars in a field is renewed by its common history, its common basis of skills, and its examination of commonly held problems. The expression of commonality does not eliminate debate or disagreement, but it does set a foundation for divergences. This is what it means to be a field. But in recent years, a new critical element has emerged that has openly rejected the historic legacy of the curriculum field in the interest of proposing a vastly new project for curriculum scholars. The effect has been schism. I argue that a new orientation in the field cannot be accepted until it is properly reconciled along the lines of the inherited traditions of the field. These are the burdens of the new curricularists, the traditions that they manifestly reject without scholarly engagement. Increasingly, it is clear that the field has not undergone a reconceptualization at all, but instead has been subjected to ideologically inspired criticism that has resulted in miscasting the history and the tradition of the field for the purposes of appropriating it.