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STEM Education As a GERM: Reviewing Australia’s STEM Discourse

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Globalisation and Education Reforms

Part of the book series: Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research ((GCEP,volume 19))

Abstract

This paper reviews the Australian discourse on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and STEM education apparent in selected texts including those published by the Australian Government. Like the GERM (global education reform movement) contagion that it is, STEM only really officially reached the shores of Australia when in 2012 our Chief Scientist began a series of utterances (speeches, media interviews, reports, position papers and the like) that purposefully included this acronym. The paper investigates the appointment of Australia’s most recent Chief Scientist whose biography sees him well suited to promoting STEM as human capital production within the enterprise society. It describes the neoliberal underpinnings of STEM including a crisis discourse that marginalises other perspectives of science education, effectively narrowing its possibilities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Australian Catholic University, East Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Lyn Carter

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  1. Lyn Carter
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Correspondence to Lyn Carter .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Joseph Zajda

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Carter, L. (2018). STEM Education As a GERM: Reviewing Australia’s STEM Discourse. In: Zajda, J. (eds) Globalisation and Education Reforms. Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1204-8_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1204-8_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-024-1203-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-024-1204-8

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