SCIENTISTS IN THE CLASSROOM - THE COLD WAR RECONSTRUCTION OF AMERICAN SCIENCE EDUCATION

In this masterly study of federally sponsored efforts to reform K-12 science education in the early postwar era, Rudolph (education, Univ. of Wisconsin) sheds light not only on familiar political debates over the role of the federal government in sponsoring educational reform but on the history of science, the place of science in American culture and society in the 20th century, and the relationship between philosophical debates over the aims of education and curriculum development and reform. "All representations of science in schools embody social and political ends," writes Rudolph, and his study of the impact of these forces on science education reform during the 1950s and 1960s will provide valuable insights for science educators, who continue to face these issues today. Although Rudolph builds on earlier studies of federally funded curriculum programs namely, Barbara Barksdale Clowse's Brainpower for the Cold War and Peter B. Dow's Schoolhouse Politics he provides a much richer context for understanding the role of science (and science education) in 20th-century American culture. Highly recommended. Scott Walter, Washington State Univ. Lib., Pullman
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