Forms of Curriculum Inquiry (Suny Series, Curriculum Issues and Inquiries)

"This book represents a needed resource in the field of curriculum -- a handbook on research methodology. No other such book exists with a specific focus on curriculum research --does one exist with any such specific focus within the field of education to my knowledge. It will undoubtedly become a well-used reference book by students and scholars in curriculum. Two other very important strengths of the book are the extensive bibliography at the end of each chapter and its international scope. The individual chapters are very competently written by recognized scholars who have established a good degree of expertise and recognition in the methodologies they discuss." -- M. Frances Klein, University of Southern California

This book presents an overview of seventeen forms of inquiry used in curriculum research in education. Conventional disciplinary forms of inquiry, such as philosophical, historical, and scientific, are described, as well as more recently acknowledged forms such as ethnographic, aesthetic, narrative, phenomenological, and hermeneutic. Interdisciplinary forms such as theoretical, normative, critical, deliberative, and action research are also included. These forms of inquiry are distinguished from one another in terms of purposes, types of research questions addressed, and the processes and logic of procedure employed in arriving at knowledge claims.

"There is no other place one can turn right now to find a single work that sets out these different approaches to education inquiry. This book answers a need. The past ten years have seen an incredible expansion in the approaches to inquiry in education in general and in curriculum in particular. No one else has tried to survey these approaches for others in the field, probably because no one but Edmund Short has figured out what they all are, their similarities and differences and relationships to each other." -- Nathalie J. Gehrke, University of Washington