The Laboratory School of the University of Chicago founded by John Dewey in 1896 is considered as one of the most innovative schools of progressive education. Its history, and specifically its sudden end, is still of general interest. In sympathy with Dewey, most historians tend to put the main blame for the tragedy on University President William…

In recent years, school science has been the target of increasing critique for two reasons. On the one hand, it is said to enforce "epic" images of science that celebrate the heroes and heroic deeds that established the scientific canon and its methods and thereby falsifies the history and nature of science. On the other hand, the…

This article provides a historical interpretation of one of the defining features of modern schooling: grades. As a central element of schools, grades--their origins, uses and evolution--provide a window into the tensions at the heart of building a national public school system in the United States. We argue that grades began as an intimate…

In response to an essay by Prof Wu Zongjie that was published in the "Journal of Curriculum Studies" [43(5), (2011), 569-590], I argue that, despite dramatic changes that have taken place in the language of Chinese academic discourse and pedagogy, evidence derived from the fields of psychology and the history of Chinese educational…

This study aims to develop a model for comparing different forms of teacher autonomy in various national contexts and at different times. Understanding and explaining local differences and global similarities in the teaching profession in a globalized world require conceptions that contribute to further theorization of comparative and…

This is a response to the commentaries on my essay, "Interpretation, autonomy, and transformation". However, the response is reoriented to further interpretation of Chinese pedagogic discourse in the late-19th century, which is often blamed for hampering China's educational advance. Instead of considering Classical Confucian…

The paper outlines the reception of Schwab's essay "The practical: A language for curriculum" in German-speaking countries in the 1970s and 1980s. The story is a good demonstration of the ways in which different circumstances and phases of development determine transatlantic exchanges and the influence of concepts in the field of…

The "Practical 1" paper combines Schwab's abiding concern, for the nature and quality of educational experience with another abiding concern, for how we think about what we do. The Practical 1 is the first of a set of four "practical" essays. These in turn are the product of his thinking about college education and his…

In 1970, Joseph Schwab published the first of four papers that argued for a turn to the idea of the Practical in curriculum research and practice. In this paper, I revisit Schwab's original paper and explore the extent to which his case for the Practical is still relevant today. I first look at the past of the deliberative tradition in which…

The article examines the stability and success of ideas within pedagogical discourses. Why do certain ideas attract actors and how does change come about? These general questions are dealt with through considering the example of the swift spread of an interdisciplinary idea, "arbetsområde" (translated to "spheres of work") in…

The content for the school science curriculum has always been an interplay or contest between the interests of a number of stakeholders, who have an interest in establishing it at a new level of schooling or in changing its current form. For most of its history, the interplay was dominated by the interests of academic scientists, but in the 1980s…

In this historical study, the author traces the evolution of Dewey's vision for a democratic curriculum. Prior to 1916, Dewey was a linear historicist, meaning that he conceptualized culture as moving linearly through three distinct stages--savagery, barbarianism, civilization--that corresponded with stages of child development. Dewey's suggested…

The US is suffering from a school syndrome, which arises from Americans' insistence on having things both ways through the magical medium of education. Society wants schools to express the highest ideals as a society and the greatest aspirations as individuals, but only as long as they remain ineffective in actually realizing them, since one does…

This is the fourth of five commentaries discussing Zongjie Wu's essay, "Interpretation, autonomy, and transformation". It argues that he may have committed two methodological mistakes in his contrast between traditional Chinese education and contemporary Chinese (and Western) education: reverse-Orientalism and a form of fundamentalism. It will…

Much of the discussion regarding religion and schooling in the US has been limited to ideological clashes surrounding the role of the courts and, ostensibly, the much litigated issue of prayer in schools. This comes at the expense of an examination of deeper curricular issues rooted in language and school mechanisms borne of historical…