“Course” Work: Pinar's Currere as an Initiation into Curriculum Studies

Abstract

In this article, four new doctoral students reflect on Pinar’s currere process as an initiation into the discipline of curriculum studies. Currere involves examining one’s experiences as curricula that shape understandings: each of us undertook the steps of currere individually and then shared our reflections through collaborative autobiography. This collaboration expanded our self-reflexivity in relation to curriculum and to discursive contexts and, unexpectedly, created an authentic learning community. The currere process has not only written us into curriculum studies, but also compelled us to “participate in the constitution and transformation of ourselves” (Pinar, 1994, p. 74) that is so vital to our work in education. The following article—which consists of collaborative and personal writing—describes a valuable practice for bringing graduate students into curriculum studies. It also considers whether the self-reflexivity encouraged by currere might still be relevant for contemporary scholars and educators almost four decades after its inception.