2024 AESA Critics' Choice Book Award In this collection of writing and reflection, readers are invited to reclaim the connection between curriculum studies and the work of educators in schools and society. As the curriculum field has grown more complex and theoretical, our schools have become more corporatized, standardized, and dehumanized. This volume focuses on curriculum theory’s power to assist practitioners in creating positive change. Chapters highlight the work of seven influential curriculum studies scholars: Maxine Greene, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Janet Miller, William Pinar, William Schubert, William Watkins, and Carter G. Woodson . After introducing and contextualizing the work of each featured theorist, the text includes chapters by scholar–practitioners working as K–12 teachers, teacher educators, and community educators who have been influenced by the theorist’s ideas. These essays illustrate how curriculum studies scholarship influences practice in a variety of places; explore the ways that curriculum studies theorizing can be an intervention against technical pedagogical or curricular approaches; and focus on the importance of “conversations” between theory and practice. Book Features: Presents a historical overview of curriculum studies by recounting a brief history of the field from the 1800s through the present. - Provides a beginner-friendly introduction to seven highly influential theorists in the field of curriculum studies. - Pairs the ideas of key curriculum scholars with practitioners who illustrate how curriculum studies theories influence their practice. - Concludes with a chapter that highlights key themes and calls for increased focus on curriculum work in schools. - Includes an appendix of curriculum studies resources, including key journals, conferences, organizations, and suggestions for future reading. “Kelly P. Vaughan and Isabel Nuñez have assembled a smart and committed group of educators to dive into the living legacies of seven of the most dazzling educational thinkers of our time. Enacting Praxis is part inspiration and celebration, part meditation and provocation, and it is always and on every page a call to action. Students, teachers, parents, and activists will find here an invitation to get busy in projects of repair, joining a growing community in the critical work of resisting, reimagining, and rebuilding this broken world.” ― William Ayers , education activist, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar, University of Illinois at Chicago (retired) “This pivotal text centers curriculum studies with praxis in the context of the scholarship of the field's most notable scholars from the voices of today's scholar–practitioners. A must-read for scholars who care about knowledge and the power of knowledge.” ― Theodorea Regina Berry , vice provost and dean, College of Undergraduate Studies, University of Central Florida “Kelly P. Vaughan and Isabel Nuñez have imaginatively created a unique book that illustrates the influence of seven curriculum theorists on scholar–practitioners who work in diverse realms of education: teacher education, teaching, and leadership at school or university levels. They do this by inviting exemplary scholar–practitioners to write autobiographically about the selected scholar’s influence on them. While it might seem strange to ask one of the theorists presented in the book to write a blurb, it might seem equally strange to omit that perspective; with that caveat, I acknowledge deriving valuable insight and inspiration from the perspectives advanced by the three writers who portrayed the influence of my work on them. We can never fully grasp the impact of our work on the evolving perspectives of others; however, this book brings us much closer to perceiving it. Enacting Praxis admirably illustrates the value of intergenerational and mutual influence in educational work.” ― William H. Schubert , professor emeritus, University of Illinois Chicago Kelly P. Vaughan is an associate professor of English education at Purdue University Northwest. Isabel Nuñez is professor of educational studies and dean of the School of Education at Purdue University Fort Wayne. Her books include Hope and Joy in Education: Engaging Daisaku Ikeda Across Curriculum and Context (coedited with Jason Goulah).