Encyclopedia of Science Education

The Encyclopedia of Science Education provides a comprehensive reference work covering the range of methodologies, perspectives, foci, and cultures of this field of inquiry, and to do so via contributions from leading researchers from around the globe. Because of the frequent ways in which scholarship in science education has led to developments in other curriculum areas, the encyclopedia will have significance beyond the field of science education.§"Science Education" as a name for this discipline of inquiry emerged in the late 1950s, as scholars in North America began to investigate and evaluate the wave of high school science curriculum reforms that were initiated by the USA, and began with the PSSC (Physical Science Study Committee) curriculum in Physics. Hence "Science Education" and Science Education research merged as inquiry with its own modes and traditions before any other of the curriculum areas such as Mathematics Education. And so Science Education has often been the context of the fostering and development of new ways of conceptualising and researching matters of content-specific learning, teaching, curriculum, assessment and policy.§The Encyclopedia of Science Education is a comprehensive and genuinely international reference work, and is aimed at graduate students, researchers, developers in science education and science education research. The topics to be covered encompass all areas of science education and it includes biographical entries on science educators, as well as educators whose work has had an impact on science education as a research field.§The development of the encyclopedia is being undertaken by an Editorial Board, who are responsible for the focus and quality of contributions, and an Advisory Board, who are responsible for advising about the inclusion of research perspectives and understandings from areas other than those represented in the English language literature.