Postmodern curriculum theory provides a framework for educators of the gifted and talented to critique the assumptions of the field from within the field. Five overarching themes derived from postmodern literature are discussed. These are presence, origin, unity, denial of transcendence, and constitutive otherness. Five issues are subsumed beneath the themes. These are issues of discourse, the body, the canon, gender, and power and class.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
American Association of University Women. (1995). How schools shortchange girls: The AAUW report. New York: Marlowe & Company.
2.
ArendtH. (1958). The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
3.
BarronF. (1968). Creativity and personal freedom. New York: Van Nostrand.
4.
BlockA. A. (1997). I'm only bleeding: Education as the practice of violence against children. New York: Peter Lang.
5.
BloomH. (1994). The western canon: The books and school of the ages. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
6.
BorlandJ. H. (1989). Planning and implementing programs for the gifted. New York: Teachers College Press.
7.
BorlandJ. H. (1996). Gifted education and the threat of irrelevance. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 19, 129–147.
8.
CahooneL. (Ed.). (1996). From modernism to postmodernism: An anthology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
9.
CallahanC. M. (1996). A critical self-study of gifted education: Healthy practice, necessary evil, or sedition? Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 19, 148–163.
10.
CsikszentmihalyiM.RathundeK.WhalenC. (1993). Talented teenagers: The roots of success and failure. New York: Cambridge University Press.
11.
DeleuzeG.GuattariF. (1977). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (LaneH.SeemM.HurleyR. Trans.). New York: Viking Penguin. (Original work published 1976).
12.
DerridaJ. (1974). Of grammatology (SpivakG. C. Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1967).
13.
De SaussureF. (1966). Course in general linguistics (BaskinW. Trans.). New York: McGraw-Hill. (Original work published 1928).
14.
EisnerE. (1994). The educational imagination (3rd ed.). New York: Prentice Hall.
15.
FoucaultM. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge (SwyerR. Trans.). New York: Pantheon Books. (Original work published 1971).
16.
FoucaultM. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977 (GordonC.GordonC.MarshallL.MephamJ.SoperK. Trans.). New York: Random House. (Original works published 1972–1977).
17.
FreireP. (Ed.). (1996) Mentoring the mentor: A critical dialogue with Paolo Freire. New York: Peter Lang.
18.
FreudS. (1938). The basic writings of Sigmund Freud (BrillA. A. Trans). New York: Modern Library. (Original work published 1874–1938).
19.
FrommE. (1941). Escape from freedom. New York: Farrar & Rinehart.
20.
GallagherJ. J. (1996). A critique of critiques of gifted education. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 19, 234–239.
GardnerH. (1991). The unschooled mind. New York: Basic Books.
23.
GardnerH. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books.
24.
GreeneM. (1986). In search of a critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 56, 427–441.
25.
GirouxH. A. (1992). Border crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education. New York: Routledge.
26.
GirouxH. A. (1997). Pedagogy and the politics of hope: Theory, culture and schooling. New York: Westview Press.
27.
GriffinD. R. (1993) Preface. In GriffinD. R.CobbJ. B.FordM. B.GunterP. A. Y.OchsP. (Eds.), Founders of constructive postmodern philosophy: Peirce, James, Bergson, Whitehead, and Hartshorne (pp. i–xvii). Albany: State University of New York Press.
28.
GrumetM.MacedoE. (1996). Power and education: Who decides the forms schools have taken, and who should decide? In KincheloeJ.SteinbergS. (Eds.), Thirteen questions: Reframing education's conversation (pp. 33–57). New York: Peter Lang.
29.
HabermasJ. (1972). Knowledge and human interests (ShapiroJ. Trans.). Boston: Beacon. (Original work published 1971).
30.
HeilbrunC. G. (1997). The last gift of time: Life beyond sixty. New York: Ballantine.
31.
HerrnsteinR.MurrayC. (1994). The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. New York: The Free Press.
32.
HillerA. (Director). Teachers [Film]. MGM Home Entertainment.
33.
HirschE. D. (1993 October). Esprit de core. Core Knowledge Foundation Newsletter, 1.
34.
HirschE. D. (1996). The schools we need. New York: Doubleday.
35.
HooksB. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.
36.
HowleyC.HowleyA.PendarvisE. (1995). Out of our minds: Anti-intellectualism and talent development in American schooling. New York: Teachers College Press.
37.
HusanM. (1999 January 2). The unipolar fantasy. The New Indian Express, 10.
38.
JamesH. (1915). Daisy Millet. London: Martin Seeker.
39.
KaplanS. (1986). Curriculum matrix model. In RenzulliJ. (Ed.), Systems and models for developing programs for the gifted and talented (pp. 332–346). Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.
40.
KaplanL. D.KaplanC. (1997). Democracy, meritocracy, and the cognitive elite: The real thesis ofThe Bell Curve. Educational Theory, 47, 425–431.
41.
KemnitzT. M.MartinE. G.HegemanK. T.HickeyJ. G. (1982). Management systems for gifted and special educational programs. New York: Trillium Press.
42.
KrishnamurtiJ. (1974). Krishnamurti on education. Chennai, India: Krishnamurti Foundation India.
43.
LaschC. (1995). The revolt of the elites and the betrayal of democracy. New York: W. W. Norton.
44.
LeistynaP.WoodrumA.SherblomS. (Eds.). (1996). Breaking free: The transformative power of critical pedagogy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review.
45.
StraussLevi C. (1972). Structural anthropology (JacobsonC.SchoepfGrundetest B. Trans.). Hammondsworth, UK: Penguin. (Original work published 1958).
46.
LewisM.MacedoD. (1996). Power and education: Who decides the forms schools have taken, and who should decide? In KincheloeJ. L.SteinbergS. R. (Eds.). Thirteen questions: Reframing education's conversation (pp. 31–58). New York: Peter Lang.
47.
LoewenJ. W. (1995). Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong. New York: Simon & Schuster.
48.
LukeA. (1995–1996). Text and discourse in education: An introduction to critical discourse analysis. In AppleM. (Ed.), Review of Research in Education: Vol. 21 (pp. 3–48). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
49.
LyotardJ. (1992). The postmodern explained. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
50.
MakerC. J. (1982a). Curriculum development for the gifted. Rockville, MD: Aspen.
51.
MakerC. J. (1982b). Teaching models for the education of the gifted. Rockville, MD: Aspen.
52.
MakerC. J.NielsonA. B. (1996a). Curriculum development and teaching strategies for gifted learners (2nd ed.). Austin, TX: PRO-ED.
53.
MakerC. J.NielsonA. B. (1996b). Teaching models in the education of the gifted (2nd ed.). Austin, TX: PRO-ED.
54.
MakerC. J.NielsonA. B.RogersJ. A. (1994 Fall). Giftedness, diversity, and problem solving. Teaching Exceptional Children, 4–19.
55.
MarcuseH. (1964). One dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Boston: Beacon Press.
56.
MargolinL. M. (1994). Goodness personified: The emergence of gifted children. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gryuter.
57.
MarlandS. (1971). Education of the gifted and talented: Report to the Congress of the United States by the U. S. Commissioner of Education. Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office.
58.
McLarenP. (1995). Critical pedagogy and predatory culture: Oppositional politics in a postmodern era. New York: Routledge.
59.
PontyMerleau M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
60.
MoiT. (1985). Sexual/textual politics: Feminist literary theory. New York: Routledge.
61.
National excellence: A case for developing America's talent. (1993). Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office.
62.
Ohio Gifted Student Course of Study. (1989). Council of Coordinators for the Gifted in Ohio.
63.
PaganoJ.MillerJ. (1996). Women and education: In what ways does gender affect the educational process? In KincheloeJ. L.SteinbergS. R. (Eds.), Thirteen questions: Reframing education's conversation (pp. 139–156). New York: Peter Lang.
64.
PeakL. et al. (1996). Pursuing excellence: A study of U. S. eighth-grade mathematics and science teaching, learning, curriculum, and achievement in international context. Initial findings from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Education, Office of Research and Improvement.
65.
PendarvisE. D.HowleyA. (1996). Playing fair: The possibilities of gifted education. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 19, 215–233.
66.
PiirtoJ. (1994). Talented children and adults: Their development and education. New York: Macmillan.
67.
PiirtoJ. (1997a). Precepts for curriculum for the talented. The Journal Portfolio, 13, 10–17.
68.
PiirtoJ. (1997b November). Twelve issues: Postmodern curriculum thought and the education of the gifted. Speech presented at National Association for Gifted Children meeting, Little Rock, AR.
69.
PiirtoJ. (1998a). Understanding those who create (2nd ed.). Tempe, AZ: Gifted Psychology Press.
70.
PiirtoJ. (1998b). [Review of the book Curriculum development in the postmodern era]. Gifted Child Quarterly, 42, 130–133.
71.
PiirtoJ. (1998c May) Twelve issues. Speech and video presented at Iowa Research Symposium, University of Iowa.
72.
PiirtoJ. (1998d September). Twelve issues. Speech and video presented at the meeting of the European Council for High Ability, Oxford, UK.
73.
PiirtoJ. (1998e October). Twelve issues. Speech and video presented at the meeting of the Ohio Association for Gifted Children, Columbus, OH.
74.
PiirtoJ. (1998f November). Twelve issues. Speech and video presented at the meeting of the National Association for Gifted Children, Louisville, KY.
75.
PiirtoJ. (1999). Talented children and adults: Their development and education (2nd ed.). Columbus, OH: Prentice Hall/Merrill.
76.
PiirtoJ. (in press). My teeming brain: Creativity in creative writers. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
77.
PiirtoJ.FraasJ. (1995). Androgyny in the personalities of talented teenagers. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 6(2), 93–102.
78.
PinarW.ReynoldsW. (Eds.). (1992). Understanding curriculum as phenomenological and deconstructed text. New York: Teachers College Press.
79.
PinarW.ReynoldsW.SlatteryP.TaubmanP. (1995). Understanding curriculum: An introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. New York: Peter Lang.
80.
PipherM. (1994). Reviving Ophelia: Saving the lives of adolescent girls. New York: Ballantine.
81.
RenzulliJ. S.ReisS. J. (1985). The schoolwide enrichment model. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.
82.
SadkerM.SadkerD. (1995). Failing at fairness: How America's schools shortchange girls. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
83.
SalingerJ. D. (1951). Catcher in the rye. Boston: Little, Brown.
84.
ShevinSapon M. (1994). Playing favorites: Gifted education and the disruption of community. Albany: State University of New York Press.
85.
SartreJ. P. (1956). Being and nothingness: An essay on phenomenological ontology (BarnesH. E. Trans.). New York: Philosophical Library. (Original work published 1943).
86.
SartreJ. P. (1991). Critique of dialectical reason (HoareQ. Trans.). New York: Verso. (Original work published 1960).
87.
SlatteryP. (1995a). A postmodern vision of time and learning: A response to the National Education Commission ReportPrisoners of Time. Harvard Educational Review, 65, 612–633.
88.
SlatteryP. (1995b). Curriculum development in the postmodern era. New York: Garland.
89.
SimpsonD.BruckheimerJ.SmithJ. N. (Director). (1995). Dangerous minds [Film]. Via Rosa Productions.
90.
TannenbaumA. (1983). Gifted children: Psychological and educational perspectives. New York: Macmillan.
91.
TannenbaumA. (1986). The enrichment matrix model. In RenzulliJ. (Ed.), Systems and models for developing programs for the gifted and talented (pp. 391–429). Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.
92.
TylerR. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
93.
Van Tassel BaskaJ. (Ed.). (1988). Comprehensive curriculum for gifted learners. Needham Heights, MA.: Allyn & Bacon.
94.
Van Tassel BaskaJ. (Ed.). (1994a). Comprehensive curriculum for gifted learners (2nd ed.). Needham Heights, MA.: Allyn & Bacon.
95.
Van Tassel BaskaJ. (1994b). Planning and implementing curriculum for the gifted. Denver, CO: Love.
96.
WardV. (1961/1980). Differential education for the gifted. Ventura, Ca: Ventura County Superintendent of Schools.
97.
WeirP. (Director). (1989). Dead poets society [Film]. Touchstone Video.
