Curriculum Theory: Conflicting Visions and Enduring Concerns, 2nd Edition

Asma Bin Ateeq Before reading Curriculum theory: conflicting visions and enduring concerns, I understood myself and my philosophy of education, but it had not yet been deepened by exposure to different and quite progressive ways of thinking and form my clear philosophy. Now, my philosophy of education has become clearer and ethically aware and more willing to take appropriate risks also. I have a greater vision for my sense of place in the world, as a teacher and a facilitator of understanding, wisdom, grace, creativity, peace, and liberation from righteous ignorance. Schiro presents in his book a four curriculum ideologies Scholar Academic Ideology, Social Efficiency Ideology, Learner Centered Ideology, and Social Reconstruction Ideology. In each ideologies has discussed the overview of the ideology, history, aims, the child, learning, knowledge, teaching, and evaluation. The last a couple chapters will be a comparison between the four ideologies and going more in depth of the individual perspective on the curriculum ideologies. In Scholar Academic Ideology, chapter two, the teachers have to be experts about their subject. The teacher has to transfer all the knowledge to the students. Students would be required to memorize information and to learn in my opinion by rigid methods that were not serving them. Scholar Academic teachers are viewed the child as a mind and they are evaluating the children to check on them if they meet the standard. Social Efficiency Ideology, in the chapter three, Schiro discussed the goal of this ideology which is training the citizens/students to meet the society needs. The educators who are believing in that are pushing their student to gain skills by doing and practice them. They are also view learning as process and throughout these process the students will be able to change and improve. The teacher here is a leader who is leading, controlling the students, and giving them formative and summative evaluation. One clear ideologies that exemplifies these advantages and is an intellectual model to me is Learner Centered Ideology which is chapter four. It is the one that has had the most impact on me as an educator and a woman. I want to use and practice Learner Centered Ideology with my future kindergarten students because it is the closest match to my views on teaching, education, and schools as possible. Learner Centered believed in growth of individuals as an important way to develop children’s intrinsic capabilities. Like me, Learner Centered person believes that experiential knowledge is essential for all students. I, too, believe in the cultivation of experience of as a way to access greater brain and vision capacity. Through the process of learning, I believe that higher, more mysterious, intuitive, and free aspects of the brain’s functioning can be allowed to flow out. This can also help students to construct their knowledge through assimilation and accommodation. I feel a kinship with Learner Centered people because they are working in search of refinement of vision of each individual students. Learner Centered Ideology teaches us that children are capable of great things and that we should invest in them in the right ways, from where they are. To me, it is the closest match to me in terms of ideas about making progress in the field of education. Social Reconstruction education model which is chapter five is imbued with the kind of sensitivity that is fit for our ever more multiracial and multicultural situations worldwide. It is suitable for the world as it is today, and more than that, it anticipates some of the doctrinal problems and imbalances, politically, religiously, and economically. Social reconstruction people are preparing themselves for the role of high-level social reformer. They are working really hard for experiencing the world. They believe in the knowledge as a way of developing sensitivity and empathy, and they have the foresight to see that it would act as a kind of bridge for intimate relationship with culture, environment, and people. Through education, people could come to appreciate aspects of other cultures while understanding their own cultural position. For me, this is a part of my philosophy and I would want my students to be able to understand themselves and their identity as well as their place in the world. There is a lot of world out there and I am really looking forward to opening my students’ eyes, beyond country, beyond cultural barriers. Schiro’s ideas have had an impact in my own curriculum development and teaching style, such that the old ways of working with my students that has no certain ideology seem so thoughtless and obsolete. Ultimately, I hope that education at all levels would reach the point where Schiro hopes to take us, in which four philosophical visions can coexist for students and their teachers.

Curriculum Theories: Conflicting Visions and Enduring Concerns. Michael S. Chiro. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 2013. 297 pp., (paper). ISBN-13: 978-1412988902 ISBN-10: 141298890X There are multiple unanswered questions and unresolved issues at the forefront of education today. The lens from which they are viewed leads professionals and other stakeholders to a spectrum of approaches to educating children and the purpose of schools. Michael Chiro’s (2013) Curriculum Theories is an all-encompassing book that presents four ideologies in view of the historical and contemporary implications for the educational field within the scope of the Scholar Academic, Social Efficiency, Child Centered, and Social Reconstruction perspectives. The first chapter presents an overview of the ideologies, giving the audience an opportunity for a brief review of the content. The last chapter offers a look at the experiences and changes in ideologies through several decades about professionals who worked as educators, administrators, and scholars. The journey of taking on a different role and the shifts in ideologies are clearly presented in the text and visually supported with reasons as to why the views of each professional changed. Chapter six is an engaging application of the ideologies in practice through several play scripts, emphasizing the perspective of each ideology on the child, learning, teaching, and other educational aims, expressed in statements that reflect the beliefs and values of those who adhere to a specific ideology. The appendix of the book offers the reader a brief survey to select their perspectives in relation to each ideology and to reflect on how it fits into their beliefs and practice about education. In addition, there are online resources that follow each chapter for further exploration of the content. The essence of each ideology is presented in chapters two through five. The chapters describe each perspective, how it came into existence, and how it has evolved over a period of time. Chiro (2013) objectively examines the influence of a particular ideology and how it continues to shape the educational landscape in combination with other factors within the political and social spheres. Each chapter looks at the major originators and past and current proponents of each ideology, such as Charles W. Elliot, Franklin Bobbitt, John Dewey, and George Counts. Current issues such as high-stakes testing, teacher evaluation, learning process and student engagement are introduced and discussed, allowing the audience to connect with the way each ideology views them. Chiro (2013) thoroughly reviews each ideology and at times certain information can be found throughout the chapter repeated several times for grater emphasis. The content of the books would be best suited for graduate students, curriculum administrators, and professional learning communities for discussion and reflection. The organization of each chapter is easy to adjust to and it follows a pattern for elements discussed in relation to each ideology, such as historical perspectives, goals, instruction, learning, and evaluation. One excellent feature in the appendix is a self-assessment of personal educational beliefs and philosophy that helps the reader to discover which ideology they identify with the most. This survey and the last chapter make an important point about the educator as a professional and an individual in terms of their role and contributions in the field. The combination of the comprehensive collection of each ideology and its characteristics to this self-assessment engages the audience in a meaningful reflection about current theory and personal practice in education.

This second edition of Michael Schiro’s (2013) text is designed to provide a thorough discussion of four distinct curriculum ideologies: Scholar Academic, Social Efficiency, Learner Centered, and Social Reconstruction. Schiro’s writing is easy to read and his earnest tone helps draws the reader into personal reflection on the topic. The first chapter includes a brief overview of each ideology and describes the intended audience, which includes curriculum practitioners, disseminators, evaluators, advocates, developers, and theorists. He clearly explains how he selected to use ideology rather than philosophy, and he describes the alignment of his classification scheme with those of other researchers. Readers are encouraged at the beginning of the chapter to complete the inventory included in the appendix as a pre-assessment of their perspectives on curriculum. For each of the four highlighted ideologies, Schiro provides a chapter that follows a specified structure. Each includes an overview of the ideology along with an example of how the ideology is enacted in current classroom practice. He details assumptions of the ideology and explains its historical context. Schiro explores the perspective of the given ideology in relation to the following topics: • Aims • Child • Learning • Teaching • Knowledge • Evaluation Although this structure often results in unnecessary repetition of various ideas, readers likely will appreciate Schiro’s efforts to provide a multifaceted view the complexities surrounding each ideology. He embeds discussion related to current controversies in education. Issues explored have ramifications for all levels of education, including K-12 and post-secondary settings. The sixth chapter provides a comparative overview of the four curriculum ideologies. Schiro compares and contrasts the ideologies, considering, for example, relationships between sources and uses of knowledge as well as relationships between objective and subjective reality. The ideologies are brought to life for readers through mini-plays that illustrate how teachers who hold beliefs reflective of each of the different ideologies might discuss various curricular issues related to their daily instruction. In the final chapter of this text, Schiro encourages readers to revisit the Curriculum Ideologies Inventory to determine if any of their views have changed. He discusses educators’ curriculum life histories and explains a variety of factors that might lead an educator to emphasize different ideologies at different points in his or her career. He also addresses questions such as, “Can an educator simultaneously base his or her practice on more than one ideology?” Included in this thought-provoking chapter are short summaries of multiple educators’ journeys with curriculum ideologies that illustrate points discussed. Overall, this text met my expectations and prompted me to engage in reflection on my views about curriculum and the role of education in general. I appreciated the additional sources on which Schiro based his discussions; at times, however, he relied too heavily on a given source. In addition, this text would benefit from thorough copyediting to correct the numerous typos that distracted from an otherwise well written book.

As a Professor of doctoral level curriculum courses, I have used this book twice in the past two semesters successfully. Schiro does a great job introducing the curriculum conflicts of the past and structuring the content around four major curriculum ideologies: scholar academic, social efficiency, learner centered, and social reconstruction. The chapters on each ideology are organized in the same manner to help students compare and contrast major characteristics of the ideologies such as the aim, the child, learning, teaching, knowledge, and evaluation. The book also comes with a curriculum inventory that I give students at the very beginning of the course. It is a great way to discuss which ideology each student comes to class aligned with based on their past experiences and curriculum lens. Schiro also has extra resources online that you may find useful. For example, there is a unit on Christopher Columbus and how each ideology would address the same lesson differently. This is an eye opening activity for students. Lastly, historical elements of each ideology is addressed and there is a great chapter that examines how all of our ideologies have changed through our lives and that we are actually a mixture of the ideologies. I would HIGHLY recommend this book as an introduction text to Curriculum Theory!

At the recent MoodleMoot in Sydney there were a number of presentations which used Schiro’s ideas on the four types of curriculum as grounds for the use of particular features of the Moodle Learning Management System. The four types were called Scholar Academic, Social Efficiency, Learner Centred and Social Reconstruction. They were described briefly as concentrating on teaching the established disciplines, concentrating on preparing students to take their place in society, concentrating on developing the natural growth of the child, and concentrating on developing students activism and ability to reform society. My first reaction was that this hardly seemed like an exhaustive list of possible aims, and there didn’t seem to be any single organizing principle for the list. Why four types, rather than five or six or sixty? And why these four, why not pick others - say overt and hidden curriculum, or vocational and religious education, etc. So I thought I’d read his book to find out... The short answer, I discovered, as to why these four and not other possibilities is that Schiro is basing his typology on four influential streams of curriculum concerns in the history of US debates - so, this division is not logically motivated, but due to the particular concerns that have repeatedly surfaced in his own country. Fair enough - it is hardly a rare thing for writers on education to assume that their parochial debates are of universal significance! Or, for US writers in general, for that matter! However, what I did find problematic was that after the briefest nod to the thinkers whose ideas he was summarizing, that the remainder of the book consisted of assertions about what each of these four “ideal types” said about various aspects of education — assessment, aims, teaching styles, etc. The book is full of tables which purport to display the answers each approach gives to different questions. But these are not actual answers from actual people in these traditions but rather Schiro’s speculations about what the answers would be, given the characterization he has developed for each “ideal type”. This is where the book is thought provoking - clearly delineating and fixing in one’s mind a prototypical image of each approach provides a help in thinking through curriculum ideas. But it is also the source of weakness - each tradition is reduced to a straw man. The scholar academic tradition has as its central aim the reproduction and preservation of the academic discipline structure of the universities. The Learner Centred curriculum is concerned purely with the here and now of the student’s current interests and preoccupations. The Social Reconstruction curriculum is concerned with indoctrinating children. The Social Efficiency curriculum simply aims at the reproduction of society as it is. I doubt that any actual curriculum thinker would accept these characterizations as adequate descriptions of their own thought. So much of this book is spent elaborating upon Schiro’s “ideal types” that there is no time spent on discussion of real ideas by actual people in real contexts. Of course, this would be messy and complicated and there are many other books which do concern themselves with such things — but I feel that this book has gone too far in its oversimplification. In the world today, there are real decisions to be made about real curriculum issues which have real consequences for children. I don’t think that the approach of this book, which reduces curriculum development to choice between ideologies has much to offer as a guide to dealing with these issues.

An accessible foray into curriculum philosophy, framing curriculum thought four ways into scholar academic, social efficiency, learner centred and social reconstructionism. Each ideology has a chapter, followed by a comparison and then a final reflective chapter about personal journeys. Accessibly academic and easy to read.

This provided a great introduction to the major curriculum theories and philosophies. The straight forward examples and scenarios helped tremendously.

Schiro’s second edition of this textbook is focuses and informative with an easy-to-read tone and style. It serves as an excellent resource for students studying the field of education and also for teachers looking to update their curriculum with an eye to learning how to blend curriculum ideologies or learn about others that may be relevant in their own lives. The book covers four main ideologies (Scholar Academic, Social Efficiency, Learner-Centered, and Social Reconstructionism) without bias toward any one ideology over the others. Each ideology has a dedicated chapter that provides discussion on the history, aims, the child, learning, teaching, knowledge, and evaluation for the respective ideology. Schiro gives perspective not only to each ideology’s beginnings but also to how it continues to impact curriculum in today’s education system. Though some information seems repetitive within a chapter, after closer inspection the reader sees the connection and reason for emphasizing the bits of information again to complete an arch of theory connection. Rather than leaving the textbook with chapters covering each ideology only, Schiro additionally gives the reader a blended comparison of the four ideologies in Chapter 6 in a creative format of plays with a speaker representing each ideology together in a curriculum discussion. Chapter 7, the final chapter, concludes with thoughts on blending the different ideologies, providing case study examples of teachers who not only work within blended ideologies, but also who have changed their own ideology throughout their own education career. This particular chapter particularly serves as a guide for educators to understand, as Schiro explains in the Preface, “how their own personal educational philosophies have been shaped during their lives and how their beliefs might evolve during the future span of their careers” (p. xv). With its focus on teaching and ideologies in educators’ everyday lives and information about the context of each ideology, the book provides a strong foundation for both student and current educator seeking that guidance and support in their own development (or revision) of teaching philosophy.

Excelente livro. É caro, mas é bom.

Great resource for anyone interested in curriculum theory. Easy to apply to any education level, well organized and very informative.

The book was used in University studies and it filled this role very well. The information was concise and well-informed, a credit to the author.

Good.