The Synoptic Text Today and Other Essays: Curriculum Development after the Reconceptualization

by William F. Pinar

Synoptic textbooks have played a major role in the intellectual advancement of U.S. curriculum studies. William F. Pinar argues for a new synoptic text, summarizing recent and relevant research in the academic disciplines toward the subjective and social reconstruction of the public sphere that is the school classroom. Such a reconceptualization of curriculum development enables teachers to complicate the classroom conversations they themselves will lead. Subsequent essays demonstrate the thematic and methodological forms such curriculum development might take.

246 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

About the author

William Pinar (born 1947) is an American educator, curriculum theorist and international studies scholar. Known for his work in the area of curriculum theory, Pinar is strongly associated with the reconceptualist movement in curriculum theory since the early 1970s. In the early 1970s, along with Madeleine Grumet, Pinar introduced the notion of currere, shifting in a radical manner the notion of curriculum as a noun to curriculum as a verb.[1] Apart from his fundamental contributions to theory, Pinar is notable for establishing the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, founding the Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, and founding the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies.

Although Pinar is known best for his publications concerning curriculum theory, he has also spoken about and written on many other topics, including education, cultural studies, international studies, and queer studies.
(from wikipedia)