Curriculum Studies Project

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Embracing creative theory and practice dynamics, the Curriculum Studies Project is committed to curriculum theorizing, curriculum development, education for social equality and equity, intercultural and international dialogue and school-based initiatives such as teacher research, analysis of teaching and learning, critical media literacy and professional development. Curriculum studies as a field of study with its own distinctive history, conceptions and modes of inquiry addresses fundamental issues across all content areas at all educational levels and promotes the interdisciplinary cross-fertilization for fresh ideas.

 

The Curriculum Studies Project sponsors a distinguished lectureship featuring internationally renowned curriculum scholars, engages collaborative research projects with local communities and public schools, distributes scholarship through journals and publications and promotes dialogues between faculty and students. All these events provide opportunities for educators to become strong curriculum leaders whose daily educational work in and out of the classroom impacts public conversations on the significance of education for individual and social transformation.

 

Faculty Projects

 

Exemplars of Nonviolence Curriculum and Mindfulness Education

Drawing upon the international theory and practice of nonviolence and mindfulness, Dr. Hongyu Wang works with schoolteachers, administrators and curriculum leaders to develop exemplars of nonviolence and mindfulness curriculum pathways. Through sustained communal discussions, workshops, publications, teacher research and transformative work, a group of dedicated educators imagines and engages creative praxis of nonviolence in everyday life and multiple dimensions of curriculum. A conference at the national level is under planning to highlight conceptual and practical frameworks of nonviolence curriculum and education is currently in the planning stage.

 

1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Memory Work for Transformative Education

Since 2003, curriculum studies faculty have taught the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in graduate courses and will continue to do so. It has deepened students’ understanding of historical trauma and its role in today’s education and social justice work. Students have taught about the Tulsa Race Massacre at the K-12 and college levels through new curriculum design, professional development, website creation, arts-infused work and other mediums. Some of them have also participated in the John Hope Franklin Center’s annual meeting to present their work.

 

Aesthetic Education and Curriculum

Throughout history, human beings have expressed their thoughts, emotions and experiences through a variety of artistic forms including painting, dance, pottery, poetry, weaving and the artful arrangement of objects, to name a few. Each of these forms expresses individual, communal and relational aspects of human awareness. Yet as schools increasingly focus on the development of rational and technical thought that can easily be measured through standardized testing, these fundamental expressions of human knowing become suppressed. Aesthetic education seeks to reinvigorate and rehumanize curriculum by promoting holistic learning that involves not only rational thought, but also the emotional, spiritual and imaginative ways in which humans come to know the world in which they live. Dr. Jon Smythe’s research and work with educators looks at ways in which curriculum can enrich students’ learning by mindfully engaging each of the senses through aesthetic experiences and the creation of art.          

 

Community-Based Educator Leadership, Activism, and Advocacy

Locally, nationally and globally, public educators in K-12 and higher education have increasingly undertaken sustained leadership, activism and advocacy to advance socially, culturally and economically just visions of curriculum, teaching and schooling. From the 2018 statewide walkouts to reverse decades of public educational divestment to current efforts for a safe return to in-person schooling, educators have found and continue to find many ways to influence educational policy and decision-making. Dr. Erin Dyke collaborates with fellow educators to undertake community-based research that can support the reflective practice of such efforts, locally and nationally. This collaborative work has produced organizational insights shared in informal and formal settings with local and national educator-led organizations, a public collection of oral history narratives of participants in the 2018 walkouts, and popular and scholarly writing on the significance of educator activism in these times.

 

Distinguished Lectureship Series

• 2017, Dr. Jacqueline Bach: "Getting Schooled: Curriculum Studies and the 'Factual' School Film and TV Show"
  Elena and Albert LeBlanc Associate Professor of Education, Director, Women and Gender’s Studies, Louisiana State University
• 2015, Dr. Lisa J. Cary: "Curriculum Leadership in Higher Education: Teaching and Learning in Neo-Liberal Times"
  Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning, School of Education, Murdoch University, Australia
• 2014, Dr. Petra Munro Hendry: "Re-imagining Public Education Democracy, Nation Building and the Louisiana Franco-Afro-Creole Protest Tradition"
  St. Bernard Chapter of the Louisiana State University Alumni Association Endowed Professor; Co-Director, Curriculum Theory Project, LSU; Former Director, Women and Gender’s Studies, LSU
• 2013, Dr. Janet L. Miller: "Research/Teaching Communities Without Consensus"

  Janet L. Miller is Professor, Department of Arts & Humanities, at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Miller is a recipient of the AERA¹s Division B-Curriculum Studies Lifetime Achievement Award and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association

• 2012, Dr. William F. Pinar: “Allegories of the Present: Curriculum Development in a Culture of Narcissism and Presentism”

  Dr. Pinar teaches Curriculum Theory at the University of British Columbia as Canada Research Chair. A recipient of the AERA Lifetime Achievement Award, he has founded several influential scholarly journals, conferences, and associations around the globe.

• 2009, Dr. Elizabeth Thoman: "Miracle in Room 33: How Media Literacy Transformed Itself from a Laughingstock to an 'Essential Skill' for 21st Century Education"

  Elizabeth Thoman founded the Center for Media Literacy in 1989 and is the co-founder and current board member of the National Association for Media Library Education (NAMLE).

• 2008, Dr. Lisa Cary: "Curriculum Spaces: Reclaiming Research in Education"

  Dr. Cary is Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at University of Texas, Austin.

• 2007, Dr. Wesley Null: "Curriculum for Teachers: What is and Why It Matters"

  Dr. Null is Associate Professor of Curriculum and Foundations of Education at Baylor University.

• 2006, Dr. William Doll, Jr: "Teaching Good: An Alternative to Good Teaching"

  Dr. Doll is Professor of Curriculum Theory in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Louisiana State University.

• 2005, Dr. William Pinar: "Study, Not Teaching: shifting the Site of Education"

  Dr. Pinar is a Professor and the Canada Research Chair in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia and Director of the Centre for the Study of Internationalization of Curriculum Studies.