Letters to the Field

Letters to the Field: Curriculum Scholars’ Stories for Future Generations encapsulates a generation of scholars who revitalized the field of Curriculum Studies across North America in the mid-1970s, as well as the generations of scholars who immediately followed, all of whom are now themselves senior scholars. Rather than another edited work of reprints or new monographs, this volume seeks to do something special by providing an opportunity for this group of scholars to speak to their field about understandings they believe to be of significance.

The strength of this book generally resides in two overarching factors. First, there is the depth and strength of this well-rounded, highly regarded group of scholars whose work speaks to the heart of the interdisciplinary nature of curriculum studies and curriculum theorizing. Second, as you might imagine, this is a significant moment in the United States when the very foundation of curriculum theory–critical inquiry and often an engagement with questions of race, queerness, disability, and the like–continues to be under attack in K-12 schools and universities across the United States. Contributors speak to the foundations of the field and the contemporary challenges that the field and schools of education more broadly must survive.

Contributions to this important work are five to seven handwritten or, in the case of scholars who are unable to write, typed pages. There are also chapters that have accompanying photos and drawings. The reproduction of actual letters in the book lend authenticity and will appeal to readers by giving an intimate view into the thoughts and wishes of these scholars. We also understand that, similar to the challenge folks might face when handwriting a document, some writing might not be legible to all readers. Therefore, stable QR codes and/or hyperlinks to typed versions of handwritten chapters are included so that readers can easily look at typed versions alongside the handwritten work online.

Letters to the Field makes an invaluable contribution to Curriculum Studies. By providing a history of the rationale used to revitalize the field, it will prove a valuable addition to the libraries of educators in a variety of disciplines.

Boni Wozolek

Dr. Boni Wozolek is currently the Director of Inclusive Excellence and an Associate Professor of Education at Penn State University, Abington College. Her work examines race, sexual orientations, and gender identities through qualitative research methods and teaching practices across educational contexts. Dr. Wozolek’s recent publications include two monographs, Assemblages of Violence in Education: Everyday Trajectories of Oppression (Routledge, 2021) and Educational Necropolitics: A Sonic Ethnography of Everyday Racisms in US Schools (Routledge, 2023), and two edited volumes, Black Lives Matter in US Schools: Race, Education, and Resistance (SUNY, 2022) and Queer Battle Fatigue: Education, Exhaustion, and Everyday Oppressions (Routledge, 2023). Dr. Wozolek has received multiple awards for her scholarship, including two book awards (AESA and AERA), a best article of the year award (Educational Studies), and early career award (AERA) and local awards that recognize her commitment to communities and activist work that foregrounds equity, access, and inclusion.

Walter S. Gershon

Walter S. Gershon (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor of Critical Foundations of Education at Rowan University (New Jersey, United States). Dr. Gershon’s scholarly interests focus on a) questions of justice, dignity, and access about how people make sense, b) the sociocultural processes that inform their sensibilities, and c) the qualitative methods used to study educational ecologies. Walter’s work uses critical understandings in sound and the senses to consider everyday experiences of race, class, gender, and sexualities with disenfranchised city children and youth. In addition to traditional pathways for scholarship and more publicly oriented soundworks, Dr. Gershon’s awards include national recognition for single-authored books Sound Curriculum: Educational Sonic Studies in Theory, Method, and Practice (Routledge) and Curriculum and Students in Classrooms: Everyday Urban Education in an Era of Standardization (Lexington Books). Forthcoming work includes an additional two monographs, one on sonic qualitative methodologies (Routledge) and another that uses a genre-defying combination of sound and text that documents everyday urban education with responding images from Jorge Lucero (MIT Press).

Roland Mitchell

Dr. Roland Mitchell is the E.B. “Ted” Robert Endowed Professor and Dean of the College of Human Sciences and Education at Louisiana State University. His research interests include theorizing the impact of historical and communal knowledge on pedagogy. Roland has authored seven coedited books and numerous other scholarly works that have appeared in leading scholarly journals. He is Co-Editor of the Lexington Press of Rowman and Littlefield book series Race and Education in the 21st Century and Higher Education section editor of the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing. Roland has a deep passion for impactful community service as evidenced through his membership on the advisory boards of the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, Campus Federal Credit Union, and the Louisiana Governor’s Taskforce on Community Policing and Reform. He has a B.A. in History from Fisk University, a M.Ed. in Higher Education from Vanderbilt University, and a Ph.D. in Educational Research from The University of Alabama.

Curriculum; Curriculum Studies; Education; Educational Foundations; Teacher Education; Urban Education; Theory, Epistemology, Philosophy, Biography, Qualitative, Ontology, Research, Pedagogy

PRESENTING SUPERB RESEARCH THAT ADVANCES THE FIELD OF EDUCATION

Letters to the Field

Curriculum Scholars' Stories for Future Generations

Library E-Books

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Boni Wozolek

Walter S. Gershon

Roland Mitchell