17: Untheming Curriculum Inquiry: A Basis for Expansion

The unthemed issues of the Journal of Critical Inquiry Into Curriculum & Instruction (JCI~>CI) are symbolic of a movement that I have been observing in the curriculum field for more than a quarter century. The movement that I see is one that expands the themes in which curriculum inquiry partakes. Akin to the spirit of “deschooling our minds” (Hern, 1996), I see untheming inquiry as a means to extend an enriched array of topics and methods to imaginatively move beyond the themes that have defined and limited curriculum inquiry in the past. Thus, I am pleased that the issue of JCI~>CI for which I have been asked to write the Foreword is unthemed, and I am glad to portray a bit of my thinking on this topic.