I am pleased to introduce this collection of reports about curriculum integration at the middle level. This special focus issue contains four articles that summarize the various definitions of and issues surrounding curriculum integration, interrogate its implementation in multiple forms, analyze the responses of students to its effectiveness, and offer a learned assessment of how to prepare future teachers to value, design, and apply such curricular approaches. These four articles are contributed by six of the most influential figures working with curriculum integration issues today, and they together represent many decades of dedication to the education of young adolescents.
The appeal of curriculum integration at the middle level is well established. Weilbacher (2001) noted that middle school teachers choose to use integrated curricula because of its perceived ability to engender relationships between students, their teachers, multiple academic disciplines, and a broad community that extends beyond classroom walls. The key finding in many studies is that curriculum integration makes learning relevant to middle school students by encouraging connections with their current lives and experiences (Schriner, Schlee, & Libler, 2010). This is critical in a time of national focus on standardized, quantitative data collection about student learning. It may be easy for teachers to focus on the end point of data while dismissing the process of learning that generates those data. Indeed, some researchers indicate that integrated curricula can address such situations commonly brought about when teachers of middle grades youth perceive educational reform requirements as more about products than processes (Smith & Southerland, 2007). To this end, the collection of articles presented here includes discussion of curriculum integration both at the micro level (between teachers) and at the macro level (school wide). Teachers report that such curricula “provide instruction that engages students, keeps them excited, and keeps them learning” (Bloak, Bialach, & Dunphy, 2005, p. 19).
All articles in this issue were selected through a rigorous, blind process of peer review. It was assumed from inception that any guest editors would either contribute manuscripts or know those who would. Two guest editors were selected to provide for confidentiality in such situations, and procedures were agreed upon to ensure just and equitable treatment of all manuscript submissions. A panel of guest reviewers with expertise in curriculum integration was assembled to augment the Middle Grades Research Journal Editorial Board and assure anonymity. Reviewers did not know the identities of authors, and manuscripts authored by guest editors or their colleagues were shepherded through the process by the other guest editor. From that process emerged our lead article, authored by coeditor Dave F. Brown.
Brown reports results from a study of middle school students who chose to construct integrated curricular projects around questions they asked about themselves and their milieu. Students reported increased motivation to learn and increases in other academic tasks such as creative thinking, decision making, researching, and problem solving. Said one student about the ability to influence curricular content, “I think I’d get annoyed if I had to learn the same things as everyone else did— that’s robotic and weird.” Throughout his article, Brown weaves much background information about the history, research, and philosophy behind curricular integration. He closes by stating that we risk “educational neglect” if we ignore the possibilities offered by integrated curricula.
Kathleen Brinegar and Penny A. Bishop continue the focus on student perspectives in reporting on their 4-year longitudinal project investigating student perceptions of learning and engagement within the context of curriculum integration. The researchers drew data from three sources: interviews, observations, and participant drawings. Students became increasingly vested in multiple aspects of their academic work as a result of their involvement in integrated learning experiences. The article concludes with student recommendations for the future of integrated studies.
A university-school-community partnership is the focus of Katie Carlisle’s report of a performing arts curriculum integration project. The specific project centered upon personal and social themes related to Black History Month. Carlisle begins by positioning the arts within the historical and theoretical frameworks of curriculum integration, arguing that the arts provide natural and essential vehicles for the exploration of content from many curricular disciplines. The report contains valuable information on the role of teachers in work that may appear to be entirely driven by students.
Our special focus issue concludes with an essay by two pioneers in curriculum integration for young adolescents. Elizabeth Pate and Gert Nesin relate how they came to value curriculum integration and how they have attempted to instill a similar valuing in their university-level preservice teaching candidates. The pair gives concrete suggestions for materials, projects, and activities designed to introduce emerging teachers to curriculum integration. Pate and Nesin reflect on their efforts across several decades to provide a vision for the future of curriculum integration in the middle grades.
