ABSTRACT
Over the years, curriculum theorizing has not advanced steadily. Over the last decades of the twentieth century, scholars grappled with vexing questions such as: ‘What is curriculum theory?’, ‘How might we obtain one?’, ‘What is one good for?’ (McCutcheon, 1982), ‘Can an example be found?’ (Kliebard, 1977). The answers to these questions have been many and varied, and they have revealed differences in basic assumptions about what counts as valid curriculum purposes and content. On one hand, Westbury (1999) contends that these are not relevant questions at all, since the day-to-day reality of schools revolves around much less lofty and idealistic questions, such as: ‘What might we want to do in this here-and-now world?’ and ‘How can or might we begin to do it?’ (p. 357). On the other hand, curriculum specialists such as Giroux (1991) and Ornstein and Hunkins (1993) contend that we have to construct new vocabulary and new terms or metaphors if we are to make any advances.
