BIBLIOGRAPHY'S SIGNIFICANCE

Given the history of its development, the significance of this bibliography must be seen in both its strengths and its limitations. If a comprehensive list of studies were to have been developed from the outset for the field of Curriculum Inquiry as a whole, some group of knowledgeable scholars would, no doubt, have been chosen to identify studies to be included according to explicit criteria agreed upon by some approved group. As it happened, the bibliography presented here was developed by one person without using precise selection criteria and with no intent to be exhaustively comprehensive. The listing is, therefore, the result of one person’s judgments and biases about what studies seemed to be of significance, of high quality, and of enduring value, and must be viewed with that in mind and not as a project done on behalf of or under the guidance of the research community as a whole in this field. Nevertheless, the bibliography is offered, in the absence of anything else of its kind being available, in the hope that it may be of value to others in need of a searchable, annotated compilation of selected studies in Curriculum Inquiry.

The availability of a multifaceted, advanced search capability in connection with this bibliography makes it of special significance. This search capability allows for searches on the basis of various categories, descriptors, words, or phrases, taken singly or in combination, to find citations assigned these descriptors or containing these words. Each citation has been given six or more descriptors from a master list of over 160 different descriptors in five categories. All descriptors are specially created for use with work in Curriculum Inquiry and are much more specific than those found in other sets of search descriptors such as used in ERIC. Not only is this bibliography broader in scope than any other in this field; the citations can be searched by a common set of descriptors uniquely developed to match the categories of content and research methods prevailing in this field of inquiry.

What appears in this bibliography will have continuing significance as time goes by because it has identified key research in Curriculum Inquiry that has tended not to be highlighted through formal reviews of the literature on this topic. A public cumulative bibliography of this kind has the merit of reducing the possibility that certain research studies from the past will be overlooked or ignored by future scholars in Curriculum Inquiry. Additions to this bibliography on CURRICULUM INQUIRY AND RELATED SCHOLARSHIP have been made over the years by regular monitoring of the published literature, analysis of the content of each new citation, assignment of appropriate descriptors, and posting of additional entries to the on-line bibliography website. This has been a demanding task for one person to try to accomplish. This work necessarily came to a close in 2022, and if it is to be continued, others must pick up the task and scour the literature for citations that should be added to this bibliography or placed in a new one. Anyone who might wish to continue this work is welcome to do so. Please contact the originator of this bibliography (see link About the Compiler).