Curriculum vita

I am an ethno-historically oriented curriculum theorist who uses ethnographic and historical methods to explore the development and implementation of curriculum policy and practice. I have in this regard focused my attention on urban secondary schools. At the heart of my research are efforts to explore the role that curriculum plays in urban schools as a regulative mechanism. Within this realm, I have in recent years explored a number of issues. One such issue is the role of the school and its curriculum in building a sense of community. I have explored this topic in a number of studies of curriculum reform in New York City, Detroit, Minneapolis, and London, England. In this work, I have examined the interplay between curriculum policy and issues of race and social class.

Another issue that I have pursued has been the role of public-private partnerships in mediating curriculum reform. I have been especially interested in the increasing importance of such arrangements as an emerging globalized economy has redefined the traditional role of the state. A third issue that I have addressed in my research has been the reorganization of the comprehensive high schools into small schools and smaller learning communities. In this research I have looked at the impact that such reorganization can have on both students’ sense of belonging and on their academic achievement.

Education
• Ph.D. (curriculum and instruction), University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974
• M.S.Ed. (special education), University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, 1978
• M.A.T. (history), University of Chicago, 1969
• B.A. (history), California State University-Northridge, 1966
Professional Experience
• Professor of Education and Adjunct Professor of History, Utah State
University, 2002-present [Department Head, Secondary Education, 2002-2004]
• Professor of Education and Public Administration, University of Michigan
Flint, 1994-2002 [Chairperson, Department of Education, 1994-98; Assistant to the
Interim Dean of the School of Education and Human Services, 1998-2000]
• Associate Professor of Education, 1988-1994; Assistant Professor of
Education, 1984-1988, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia
• Assistant Professor of Education, 1978-83, Augsburg College, Minneapolis,
Minnesota
• Assistant Professor of Education, 1974-77, University of South Carolina-
Spartanburg, Spartanburg, South Carolina

Current Research
• My principal areas of research include curriculum policy, theory, and history urban education; educational policy; schools and communities, and service learning
• I am currently writing a book entitled Curriculum, Community, and Urban School Reform to be published by Palgrave Macmillan. The book uses the idea of community as a conceptual framework to explore a number of instances of urban school reform since 1960. Included in the volume are case studies of two 1960s reform movements in New York City, More Effective Schools and the Clinic for Learning; the 1966 student walkout at Detroit’s Northern High School, the mayoral takeover of the Detroit Board of Education in 2000; the Annenberg Challenge in New York City and Detroit during the 1990s; the Youth Trust public private partnership in Minneapolis during the 1990s; the Education Action Zone initiative in Great Britain in 2000 thru 2002; and the establishment of smaller learning communities in an urban high school in the Intermountain West in 2006. Each of the case studies that comprise the volume represents a policy narrative that depicts an educational dilemma affecting urban schools and the interplay between that dilemma and curriculum policy. Taken together, these case studies tell us how looking at instances of school change from the conceptual lens of community moves us along further in our understanding of urban school reform.

Courses Taught
• ScEd 7810: Research Seminar-Curriculum Change and Reform
• Educ 7150: Curriculum Theory
• ScEd 7010/6010: Critical Issues in Secondary Education
• Educ 6410: Social Foundations of Education

Selected Recent Publications
• “What Schools Teach: A Social History of the American Curriculum since 1950,” in Sage Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction, ed., F. Michael Connelly (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2008), 460-477. [co-authored with Carla Johnson] 
• “Curriculum History and its Revisionist Legacy,” in Rethinking the History of American Education: Essays on the Post-Revisionist Era and Beyond, ed., William Reese and John Rury (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 223-243.
• The Death of the Comprehensive High School? Historical, Contemporary, and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) [co-edited with Gary McCulloch]
• “Gone Before You Know It: Urban School Reform and the Short Life of the Education Action Zone Initiative,” London Review of Education 3 (March, 2005), 3-27.
• “Achievement, Race, and Urban School Reform in Historical Perspective: Three Views from Detroit,” Education Research and Perspectives 31 (December, 2004), 11-19.
• “Community, Race, and Curriculum in Detroit: The Northern High School Walkout,” History of Education 33 (March, 2004), 117-129.
• Educational Partnerships and the State: The Paradoxes of Governing Schools, Children, and Families (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) [co-edited with Marianne N. Bloch and Thomas S. Popkewitz]
• Cultural History and Education: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Schooling (New York: Routledge/Falmer, 2001) [co-edited with Thomas S. Popkewitz and Miguel Pereyra]
• Curriculum and Consequence: Herbert M. Kliebard and the Promise of Schooling (New York: Teachers College Press, 2000) [edited]
• “Women’s Voluntarism, Special Education, and the Junior League: ‘Social Motherhood’ in Atlanta, 1916-1968,” History of Education 29 (September, 2000), 415-428.
• “Discourse, Rationality, and Educational Research: A Historical Perspective of RER.” Review of Educational Research 69 (Winter, 1999), 347-363.
• “The State of Curriculum History,” History of Education 28 (December, 1999), 459-476.
• When Children Don’t Learn: School Failure and the Culture of Teaching (New York: Teachers College Press, 1998) [edited]
• From “Backwardness” to “At-Risk”: Childhood Learning Difficulties and the Contradictions of School Reform (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994)
• Building the American Community: the School Curriculum and the Search for Social Control (London: Falmer, 1986)

Professional Activities
• Co-editor with Gary McCulloch of the Palgrave Macmillan Secondary Education in a Changing World series (2003-current)
• Corresponding Member of the Editorial Board, History of Education (2001-current)
• Division B (Curriculum Studies) Program Chair, American Educational Research Association (2002-2003)
• Member of the Editorial Board, History of Education Quarterly, 1990-1993
• Board of Directors, History of Education Society (1997-1999)
• Member of the Board of Consulting Editors, Curriculum Inquiry, 1983-2008