Abstract
Several countries have implemented educational changes in recent years, most of which generally happen suddenly and abruptly to appease sectors of society that benefit economically. Most educational change watchword is innovation, fulfilling more a propaganda space than a fundamental educational transformation. One of the foremost educational innovations in science education was the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC), a physics education project aimed at improving science education in the USA during the Cold War. In this period, teacher training was critical to the science education imbroglio in which the country found itself, primarily due to the long period the government made little educational investment. The reactions came with the creation of multiple committees, including the PSSC, when the nation faced a shortage of qualified teachers and a crisis in training scientists. In this investigation, we seek to understand the relationship between economic policies and science education in the USA by analysing the administration’s economic reports through document analysis methodology. The findings show that science education had three different levels of priority throughout the period: the first, when it was deemed irrelevant; the second, when it started to be seen as imperative for economic and technological development; and the third, when science education was considered essential for national security. This historical case study shows the lasting impacts of treating education as unimportant, even for a short period, and the enormous inertia to move the complex economic and political network between society’s superstructure and infrastructure activities.
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The Australian educational change began in 2008, but it was only in 2014 that the curriculum was approved. See more in https://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum/history-of-the-australian-curriculum.
See Méndez (1991) and Tavares (2019) for the most used, but most of time the “term ‘education innovation’ is similar. Not simply an empty signifier, with a vague, uncertain meaning, the phrase usually refers to ways to make education faster and cheaper, more flexible, efficient and cost-effective.” (Mintz, 2021).
In 1960 the National Science Foundation’s 10th anniversary edition of Science: the Endless Frontier was published. In this period Alan Waterman was the director of the NSF.
A digital library of USA’s economical documents, available at https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/
The amounts correspond to approx. $33 million and $1 billion in 2023 USA dollars, respectively.
The session dates of Congress are available at https://history.house.gov/Institution/Session-Dates/80-89/
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Felipe Lopez thanks the research grant 2019/27054–0, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). Cristiano Mattos thanks National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for the financial support through the grant numbers 434918–0 and 302100/2019–9.
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Lopez, F.S., de Mattos, C.R. Science Education in the USA During the Cold War. Sci & Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-024-00502-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-024-00502-6