Discourse, rationality, and educational research: A historical perspectiveof RER

In this essay I explore the relationship between research reviews and the f ields of study to which they pertain. Using the curriculum field as all exa mple, I argue that such reviews are venues where fields of inquiry are cons tituted, reproduced, and over time changed. This construction occurs, I sug gest, as the discursive practices or rules of reasoning embedded in the lan guage in which these reviews are framed are transformed into curriculum pol icies or programs through a process that I liken to state building. Both th ese discursive practices and the policies which they allow, constitute the regulative mechanisms of the curriculum. I use the issues of the Review of Educational Research devoted to curriculum from 1931 through 1969 to explor e this topic. Undertaking a genealogical examination, I explore the lineage of these discursive practices, paying particular attention to their patter ns of discontinuity over time. I use this genealogy to suggest how the curr iculum field was constructed and to identify its regulative impact In doing so, I look at how curriculum discourse works as an instrument of power. I conclude the essay by considering what this exploration tells us in general about the relationship between reviews and fields of inquiry.