tandfonline.com – Where is ‘the political’ in curriculum research?

ABSTRACT

As an overview in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Curriculum Studies (JCS), this article begins with John Dewey’s notion that all educational actions carry philosophical implications. The tension between different education-research philosophies, between non-social and social education philosophies in Dewey’s terms, becomes visible in an overview of articles published during the past 50 years of the JCS. Therefore, the purpose here is to explore in what different forms and in what different spaces the political takes shape in curriculum research. Policies on education always address fundamental political questions in the sense that debates on education inevitably include alternative views of good education and good society. Instead of looking for the political, it seems to be more fruitful to look for different ways of expressing the political. This, in turn, might contribute to a more nuanced debate on which political perspectives will be most productive in developing the curriculum research field. Three views on ‘the political’ are identified. The first is a personal, ‘over-socialized’ view based on personal experiences, the second is a ‘social’ view that focuses on social interactions and societal implications, and the third is an impersonal, ‘under-socialized’ view based on ‘science’.