An overview is given of the current status of the field of curriculum studies. The author makes her observations based on her reading of 154 proposals submitted to the American Educational Research Association's Division B (Curriculum Studies) for its 1981 annual meeting. Acknowledging that these proposals primarily reflect research interests in the curriculum field, she reviews background characteristics of the authors and major curricular concerns that they expressed. Background data reveal a university-based group of professionals, about 40% women, representing most regions of America with concentrations in California and the more industrial midwestern and eastern states. Categorization of the proposals according to eight general content areas shows primary interest in understanding school practice and in the socio-policial context in which it unfolds. There is a desire to work with other subdisciplines of education that can illuminate such questions. Curricululist are not as preoccupied with theory and introspection as some recent debates have suggested, and their interests are far more on K-12 in their own settings than in higher education or in comparing cultures. The author concludes her analysis with a review of the proposals' stated purposes of curriculum inquiry. (Author/AV)