Pedagogy And The Practice Of Science―Historical And Contemporary Perspectives

Pedagogy and the Practice of Science provides the first sustained examination of howscientists' and engineers' training shapes their research and careers. The wide-ranging essays movepedagogy to the center of science studies, asking where questions of scientists' training should fitinto our studies of the history, sociology, and anthropology of science. Chapter authors examine thedeep interrelations among training, learning, and research and consider how the form of scientifictraining affects the content of science. They investigate types of training -- in cultural andpolitical settings as varied as Victorian Britain, interwar Japan, Stalinist Russia, and Cold WarAmerica -- and the resulting scientific practices. The fields they examine span the modern physicalsciences, ranging from theoretical physics to electrical engineering and from nuclear weaponsscience to quantum chemistry.The studies look both at how skills and practices can be transferred toscientists-in-training and at the way values and behaviors are passed on from one generation ofscientists to the next. They address such topics as the interplay of techniques and changingresearch strategies, pedagogical controversies over what constitutes "appropriate" or "effective,"the textbook as a genre for expressing scientific creativity, and the moral and social choices thatare embodied in the training of new scientists. The essays thus highlight the simultaneous craftingof scientific practices and of the practitioners who put them to work.

John Paul Slosar, M.A., is the Director of Ethics for Ascension Health in St. Louis, MO. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Center for Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University. His research interests include organizational ethics, ethical issues in genomics, healthcare reform, and ethical issues in end-of-life care.