Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Curriculum: Foundations, Principles, and Issues [eText Access Card]

Rate this book
NOTE: Used books, rentals, and purchases made outside of Pearson If purchasing or renting from companies other than Pearson, the access codes for the Enhanced Pearson eText may not be included, may be incorrect, or may be previously redeemed. Check with the seller before completing your purchase.
"This access code card provides access to the Enhanced Pearson eText." This balanced, comprehensive view of the "entire" field of curriculum encourages readers to consider choices and formulate their own views on curriculum foundations, principles, and issues. Rather than focusing on either theory or practice, or advancing a particular political or social position, or approaching the field of curriculum as an administrative challenge, this book gives readers the information they need to develop their own opinions on curriculum today as well as their outlooks for the future. "Curriculum: Foundations, Principles, and Issues" covers the latest topics in education that impact the curriculum and features Learning Outcomes, Discussion Questions, and Curriculum Tips to enhance understanding of the material. The Enhanced Pearson eText features embedded videos. Improve mastery and retention with the Enhanced Pearson eText*
This access code card provides access to the new Enhanced Pearson eText, a rich, interactive learning environment designed to improve student mastery of content. The Enhanced Pearson eText is:
Engaging. The new interactive, multimedia learning features were developed by the authors and other subject-matter experts to deepen and enrich the learning experience.
Convenient. Enjoy instant online access from your computer or download the Pearson eText App to read on or offline on your iPad(r) and Android(r) tablet.*
Affordable. Experience the advantages of the Enhanced Pearson eText for 40-65% less than a print bound book. * "The Enhanced eText features are only available in the Pearson eText format. They are not available in third-party eTexts or downloads." "*The Pearson eText App is available on Google Play and in the App Store. It requires Android OS 3.1-4, a 7 or 10 tablet, or iPad iOS 5.0 or later." "

384 pages, ebook

Published January 5, 2016

Loading...
Loading...

About the author

Allan C. Ornstein

65 books14 followers

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
59 (26%)
4 stars
44 (19%)
3 stars
74 (33%)
2 stars
28 (12%)
1 star
16 (7%)
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
Profile Image for Josiah DeGraaf.
Author 3 books450 followers
December 7, 2016
Possibly the worst textbook I've ever read. The book is simultaneously way too broad and way too narrow in the topics it chooses: it's attempting to both be entirely comprehensive and pretty deep, and the result is a confusing jumble of ideas that are loosely tied together. There is a virtue in simplicity, and that's something this book lost. It attempted to thoroughly dissect the topic of curriculum. And I guess it succeeded at dissected it. But being able to see all the individual body parts of a frog on the table in front of you tells you nothing about what a living frog actually looks like. This book essentially did the same thing with curriculum. While it may technically cover everything, it didn't cover it in a way that I felt helped me in creating my own curriculum. Very tedious, very unhelpful. Would not recommend.

Rating: 1 Star (Extremely Poor).
Profile Image for Goblin2828.
16 reviews
April 12, 2026
this book.
this book is already on its 7th edition, for which i write this review. i do not recommend using it for any curriculum development class. i have had the misfortune of attending two of them where this book was discussed extensively, throughout the whole semester. i have read this a bunch of times. i even gathered help from an outsider in deciphering this book in case it was a skill issue of mine. it does not get any clearer.

it repeats the same phrases over and over and over for chapters on end. sometimes it contradicts itself on the same paragraph. sometimes it describes things in a way that’s so broad it could really mean anything, which is confusing when we’re categorizing things. now, i admit, a few lists are actually pretty helpful! and some of the history of curriculum development is really fun to read! but that’s like 12% of the book. i understand authors need to fulfill a word quota, still, it gets to a point. reading it once is fine. getting some of the useful stuff is fine. planning a whole class with this thing involved is a bad idea.

which would be no fault of the author, except the purpose of a textbook this length is to support a uni-level class. and it fails. 7 editions as a pearsons publication too. this should be unacceptable.

still, i give it two stars because it’s not the worst book in the world, i learned some stuff, and i did enjoy laughing at the absurd parts of it. never use this though i beg you.
Profile Image for Lisa.
4 reviews
March 1, 2021
Read this for my grad school class and it was super helpful in defining curriculum and how it has evolved over the years. I learned a lot!
Profile Image for Philip.
1,089 reviews321 followers
December 30, 2012
Another school book.

Again, I discussed this so much for my grad classes, I'm too fatigued to write a review. Apologies.

I'm betting that if you're reading it, you're reading it for the same reasons.

Favorite part: Looking at the philosophies and how they influenced curriculum. (I was surprised the the author more or less lumped them together though. For instance, one may not hold an existential or progressive world view - but may take some of the precepts into their classroom. I.e. Existentialists reject Absolute Truth. A teacher may believe in Absolute Truth in a moral sense, but that doesn't mean that in the classroom she belittles others, or devalues the input of her students. It's apples to oranges...)

Anyway. Go me. Go all y'all. Good luck on your studies.
Profile Image for Jamie.
482 reviews6 followers
October 9, 2015
I read this book from cover to cover for my first class on curriculum design. While the book doesn't really get into curricula itself, it does provide a lot of background knowledge of the philosophies people bring to the planning table, histories behind the evolution of state standards, how curricular change can be implemented (and why it is often opposed), methods for evaluating curricula, and how schools are organized in other countries and their teachers prepared for teaching. For a textbook it wasn't an overwhelming read.
Profile Image for Ellen Deckinga.
443 reviews12 followers
October 15, 2016
As most of the other reviewers stated, I read this book for a grad school class. There is some great information about the history, philosophy, and development of curriculum. You have to sort through the author's bias to pick out the information. The author's make no real assertions throughout the book and instead leave things ambiguous for the reader. It has affirmed that my uneducated gut instincts about curriculum design were appropriate for the needs I was meeting.
Profile Image for Carrie.
48 reviews3 followers
September 4, 2011
It had a lot of great information in it. However, I hated the formatting of the book. I wondered as I was reading it if the publisher was trying to save ink. Instead of making vocabulary and important terms, etc. in bold print, they were typed in italics. This made it very hard to find information quickly. Overall the formatting of the book was poor, that is just one example.
28 reviews
Read
August 2, 2013
Helped me pass my test for my teacher's license. Fairly informative, but there's a lot of bias mucking up the pages, made it difficult to dig out the facts I was looking for. I thought that the newer, more "radical" ideas had a lot more print dedicated to them than was merited.
29 reviews2 followers
September 9, 2009
I had to read this for a class I took this summer.
Profile Image for Donna.
1,089 reviews8 followers
June 17, 2014
This one was actually interesting. Surprisingly informative book, but not one I would pick up on my own. Maybe that's the reason it cost $177.00.
Profile Image for Whitney Evans.
125 reviews3 followers
May 11, 2016
The authors have some clear bias. I ended my class feeling less sure of what curriculum actually is than before I started, but the book has some great information and gave me a lot to think about!
Profile Image for Bridget.
17 reviews2 followers
March 6, 2016
Textbook writers are not my fav. Good info but poor layout
Profile Image for Megan Smith.
496 reviews2 followers
August 18, 2020
I read this for class, it offers a good overview of the different curriculum foundations. The writing style for a textbook was not my favorite.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews