Synoptic textbooks have played a major role in the intellectual advancement of U.S. curriculum studies. William F. Pinar argues for a new synoptic text, summarizing recent and relevant research in the academic disciplines toward the subjective and social reconstruction of the public sphere that is the school classroom. Such a reconceptualization of curriculum development enables teachers to complicate the classroom conversations they themselves will lead. Subsequent essays demonstrate the thematic and methodological forms such curriculum development might take.
