An Elusive Science

Since its beginnings at the turn of the 20th century, the science of education has been regarded as a poor relation, reluctantly tolerated at the margins of academe. In this provocative history of education research, the author explains how and why this came to be. The text chronicles the consequences of this turn: the traditions, conflicts, people and institutions that have shaped the study of education over the past century. From the development of standardized tests, to the panic occasioned by Sputnik, she takes the reader into the last half of this century when the federal government came to see education research as a tool for increasing equality.