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Pedagogical Progressivism and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education: a Shared Historical Landscape in Ontario, 1871-1971

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Pedagogical Progressivism and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education: a Shared Historical Landscape in Ontario, 1871-1971 Pedagogical Progressivism and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education: A Shared Historical Landscape in Ontario, 1871-1971 by Alex Chenyu Bing A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Graduate Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto © Copyright by Alex Chenyu Bing 2015 Pedagogical Progressivism and the Education of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math: A Shared Historical Landscape in Ontario, 1871-1971 Master of Arts 2015 Alex Chenyu Bing Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto Abstract This thesis is part of a larger project to sketch a history of how the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects were structured in Ontario public schools. The thesis begins by studying the longstanding forces that have demarcated science from other subjects from the 1870s to the 1960s. It then examines the 1960s as a pivotal decade when the effects of school guidance counsellors, economic imperatives, and the preoccupation with human selection accentuated those longstanding divisive forces in public education. These developments culminated in an institutional entrenchment of disciplinary gulfs within the schooling system, opened the door to a constructed embodiment of subject-specific talents inside the child, and alienated math-related subjects from pedagogically progressive visions of education. The guidance movement and the reforms in mathematics during the 1960s were scrutinized in detail. The role of progressive education in its own marginalization from STEM subjects is also examined. ii Acknowledgements I am grateful to my supervisor and mentor Ruth Sandwell for introducing me to a discipline that promises to answer my lifelong questions, offering academic shelter when I was adrift in a sea of disciplines with no coordinates or compass, and working closely with me in my period of intellectual need even when life rushed us both from one city to another in separate directions. I am thankful to Larry Bencze at the CTL department in OISE for providing an interim safe house in my interdisciplinary journey, for introducing me to Ruth, and for being a role model through his courageous politics and activism in both the school and beyond. I am very thankful to Doug McDougall, chair of the CTL department, who stepped in for me pedagogically and administratively in a time of crisis. My kind thanks go out to Kathleen Imrie at the OISE educational archives for showing me the range of resources available to social historical research, and giving me access to century-old documents that I could not have hoped to know of, let alone find elsewhere. My thanks also go out to Miglena Todorova at the HSSJE department for running a series of encouraging and cozy thesis workshops, where I exchanged interesting interdisciplinary ideas with Ayla Raza, Catherine Lamaison, Tala El-Achkar, and Terence Hamilton. I am also indebted to Terry Louisy, who helped me sail through the administrative reefs that I encountered along my way. At the foundation of all my work is the kind support of my parents, who provided me with a base of operations from which I could launch scholarly pursuits without fear of hunger, homelessness, insomnia, debt, or landlords, even while enduring an adolescence that was as prolonged as it was delayed. That I am able to study anything at all is wholly owing to them. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv Section 1: Introduction 1 Section 2: Key historical themes leading up to the late 1950s 23 Section 3: Key developments from the late 1950s to the 1970s 54 Section 4: Analysis of the interplay between progressivism and STEM subjects 84 Section 5: Conclusions 96 Bibliography 100 iv Section 1: Introduction Brief Synopsis This thesis offers an examination of science education’s complex relationship to the progressive education movements, as well as to broader social changes in the Ontario public school system from the 1870s to the 1970s. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part touches on a range of factors in Ontario education that contributed to the current demarcation of school subjects, starting from the early 1870s to the late 1950s. The second part focuses on a range of educational and social developments during the 1960s. The third part focuses on the role played by progressive educators in these series of developments, and explores ways in which progressive educators might have unwittingly participated in their own marginalization within science education. Underlying areas of interest This paper strives to remain sensitive to three concentric thematic areas. Although they are of equal importance, they can nevertheless be thought of as being concentric in their scope. [1] First, at the subject level, is the rise of science as a mainstream subject within the North American schooling system, and its evolving relationship towards other subjects. [2] Secondly, zooming out to the school level, is the rise of a worldview where education is perceived as a science, often marked by a formalistic view of curriculum and a medicalized view of human learners and even teachers. [3] Thirdly, zooming out to the social level, is the vested interests in science education increasingly held by political, economic, and military forces in North America. 1 2 Different existing literatures touch on some combination of these three areas, although, as I will argue, most fall within four distinct perspectives or approaches: technical instrumental, critical sociological, social constructivist, and comprehensive historical. Literature review What I call the “technical instrumental perspective” on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education focuses on how effectively and efficiently science-related social practices, mainly science teaching, accomplish certain intended tasks, be it liberating the individual child or increasing the quality of the labour market. Such a perspective often naturalize a scientific view of education itself, and might even regard the medicalized curriculum1 as a crucial tool in making the school at once more sympathetic and efficient. As suggested later on in the paper, reports published by government agencies and policy circles also tend to fall into this category. As a major example, the Journal of Research in Science Teaching has, in recent years, frequently included articles that branch out to psychology, sociology, and cultural studies, in order to address factors that render their students less receptive to what science educators consider scientific knowledge.2 The journal started out in 1963 as a periodical steeped in 1 “Medicalized curriculum” is a term used by George Tomkins. See Tomkins, George S. A Common Countenance: Stability and Change in the Canadian Curriculum. Vancouver, BC: Pacific Educational Press, 2008, p162-172. Within the scope of my paper, medicalized curriculum refers to using biology to explain why students succeed or fail. 2 The Journal of Research in Science Teaching is an ongoing publication that originated in the United States during the 1960s but has included international sources since then. In recent years the magazine has taken a somewhat critical turn, and studies of social and cultural concerns in science education appear on a regular basis. For example see Jack, B. M., Lin, H., and Yore, L. D. “The Synergistic Effect of Affective Factors on Students Learning Outcomes.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching. Vol. 51, no. 8 (2014): 1084-1101.; Gazley, J. L., Remich, R., Naffziger-Hirsch, L. D., Keller, J., Campbell, P. B., and McGee, R. “Beyond Preparation: Identity, Cultural Capital, 3 discourses of content knowledge, intelligence testing and human selection,3 but has taken a more critical turn in recent years to challenge what Archer, DeWitt, and Willis call a “pipeline model” of science education where, they argue, some children are to be picked out and railroaded on an insular path towards science degrees and science jobs.4 (In those latter cases, the work being done gravitates toward what I call “critical sociological” and “social constructive” perspectives, which I will talk about shortly after.) Another example of the “technical instrumental perspective” is the Journal of STEM Education, which originated in 1999 and is comparatively more conservative in its thrust. The journal openly and officially aims to “respond to employer needs and expectations.”5 Instead of attributing student failure and poor retention rates in STEM disciplines to factors such as social inequalities and market failure, some articles in this magazine instead attribute them to being cut off from their families, lacking a source of authority, and showing insufficient resilience in the face of neglect.6 Other entries are aimed at providing new models and pedagogies that will make STEM education conform better to the labour market by producing graduates that are more in and Readiness for Graduate School in the Biomedical Science.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching. Vol. 51, no. 8 (2014): 1021-1048.; Archer, L., DeWitt, J., and Willis, B. “Adolescent Boys’ Science Aspirations: Masculinity, Capital, and Power.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching. Vol. 51, no. 8 (2014): 1-30. 3 See for example, Scandura, J. M. and Nelson, J. L. “The Emerging Research Role of the Subject Matter Educator.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Vol. 3 (1965): 51-53.; Grobman, H. “Identifying the “Slow Learner” in BSCS High School Biology.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Vol. 3 (1965): 3-11.; Brakken, E. “Intellectual Factors in PSSC and Conventional High School Physics.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Vol. 3 (1965): 19-25.; Blankenship, J. W. “Biology Teachers and Their Attitudes concerning BSCS.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Vol. 3 (1965): 54-60. 4 Archer et al. Journal of Research in Science Teaching. Vol. 51, no. 8 (2014): 1-30 5http://ojs.jstem.org/index.php?journal=JSTEM&page=index accessed on Oct.
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