The Integration of Modern Sciences into the American Secondary School, 1890--1990s

Abstract

School reforms in the late 19th century, mirroring larger social, economic, and political changes in American society, account für the permanent lodging of science into the high school curriculum. Major changes in science courses, texts, and instruction occurred in these years. These changes then and since, however, were marked by ideological struggles among groups of reformers representing university academics, policy makers, and educators over why science knowledge (should science be taught for its knowledge or its utility in society?) and pedagogy (traditional or progressive methods) reflected deeply embedded value conflicts in American democracy and over the purposes of the high school in such a society.