1996/03/01 by Bryan Deever
Social Sciences · #Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies #Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy #Global Educational Policies and Reforms
paper · doi:10.1080/0022027980280204
crossref issued 1996/03/01 · crossref published 1996/03/01 · crossref published-print 1996/03/01 · openalex publication_date 1996/03/01 · crossref created 2007/07/07 · crossref deposited 2025/01/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
This paper argues that the time has arrived to begin working toward district‐wide curriculum reform based on the tenets of radical curriculum theory. It examines the extant (and highly successful) languages of critique and possibility that dominate the field, and explores the assumptions shared by most radical theorists in education in order to establish certain parameters within which we might begin to approach systemic curriculum reform in contemporary education settings. The paper also discusses certain realities in contemporary schooling through which any significant approach to radical curriculum reform must be mediated. Appropriating a language of probability, it argues that it is not likely that certain organizational patterns and established practices will be changing soon; therefore it is imperative that efforts in systemic curriculum reform recognize and work with/through/around these realities. Additionally, the paper argues that one of the weaknesses of past reform efforts has been the dearth of a theoretical base. This, however, is one of the strengths of radical curriculum thought. The task is now implementation within the existing realities of public education.