2025 Volume 30 Pages 1-10
This study aims to clarify the suggestion that phenomenological education theories in North America have brought about a movement of "reconceptualizing" North American curricula so that they focus on the questions asked by two scholars, Ted Tetsuo Aoki (1919–2012) and Max van Manen (1942–), who engaged in curriculum studies rooted in phenomenological methodology at the University of Alberta, in Canada.
The paper opens by showing how trends in phenomenology and curriculum studies in North America are connected, according to Brown (1991). Then, it evaluates the positioning of Aoki and van Manen's phenomenological educational theories within the movement to reconceptualize curriculum studies in North America. Special attention is paid to an assessment of Pinar's curriculum reconceptualization movement and evaluations of it by Aoki and van Manen, who converged theoretically with Pinar and examined their connection to phenomenological education theories. Finally, the paper addresses the questions directed toward curriculum studies by Aoki and van Manen, who have each played a central role in the development of phenomenological educational research at the University of Alberta.
