A critical history of United States science education.
Item
-
Title
-
A critical history of United States science education.
-
Identifier
-
AAI3083639
-
identifier
-
3083639
-
Creator
-
Ausch, Robert.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Joseph Glick
-
Date
-
2003
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Psychology, Developmental | Education, History of | Education, Sciences
-
Abstract
-
The dissertation argues that one cannot fully appreciate US science education without recognizing the rationalizing and legitimating role particular versions of science (e.g. instrumental, empiricist, value-neutral), scientific knowledge/technology and education (e.g. schooling-dominated, skills transmission oriented, non-critical) have come to play in liberal-democratic societies as well as the ways in which science and education use each other for mutual legitimation all in the service of reproducing the status quo with respect to the inequities which pervade US society. The dissertation offers a "critical"---that is, anti-foundational, skeptical, conceptual, and political---history of US science education with a focus on two specific aspects of science education which lie at the conceptual heart of US society in general: the logics of technology---expressed as a tension between facts and inquiry---and evolution. The entry of science education into schools must be understood in the context of modernization, industrialization and the changing makeup of American society, all of which precipitated a crisis in traditional notions of American exceptionalism which was reconfigured as science and technology become signs of progress and modernity. Further, the call of the Progressive era---in educational policy documents, texts, in John Dewey, etc.---to make sure school-science contains a prominent laboratory component reflected a broader debate around values, in this case the idea that freedom of thought in science was an expression of (even guaranteed) a more general freedom, the kind found in liberal democratic societies. Today, globalization, corporatization, fundamentalism and the new science standards effect these questions, particularly as the vocabularies of science are used to further legitimate certain educational reforms and disguise the politics they import. Finally, I consider the implications of this critical history for the actual practices of science educators and the teaching of science in public schools, articulating an alternate vision of science education which does not "sell" science nor rationalize contemporary social relations, but teaches students to think critically about their lives and the world around them.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
