Minds for the Making

Using a highly original blend of history, social analysis, and cultural criticism, this remarkably enlightening volume offers the first examination to date of the history of science education in America. It reveals the profound impact science has had upon the changing theory, debate, and practice of schooling from the pre-revolutionary era through the recent conflicts of the 1980s and 1990s. Although a number of excellent studies have dealt with the separate topics of American science and American education, no single volume has yet explored the deep and lasting connections between these two essential influences on the national culture. With a great deal of attention now being turned to the subject of curriculum reform--much of it either aimed at science education itself or else guided by ideas and philosophies that emerged in the past under the rubric of the "scientific"--the need for this book has become particularly acute.