TY - JOUR
T1 - “Truth or consequences”
T2 - A feminist critical policy analysis of the STEM crisis
AU - Mansfield, Katherine Cumings
AU - Welton, Anjalé D.
AU - Grogan, Margaret
N1 - Funding Information:
Since the RTTT application requires the integration of STEM, both Illinois and Virginia established initiatives that would strengthen the P-20 STEM pipeline, improve teacher STEM instruction, and foster partnerships between K-12, postsecondary institutions, and industry. In 2007, Virginia received a grant from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. These funds were used to develop criteria for school divisions to implement Governor’s Career and Technical STEM Academies that would include partnerships with business and industry, public school divisions, community colleges, and where applicable universities, and workforce and economic development entities. Illinois will also use $2.3 million of its RTTT funds to form its own version of STEM partnerships coined the Illinois Pathways STEM Learning Exchanges. A STEM Learning Exchange is an innovative public–private education partnership that is organized to support local implementation of P-20 STEM programs of study (POS) including: agriculture, food, and natural resources; architecture and construction; energy; finance; health science; information technology; manufacturing; research and development; and transportation, distribution, and logistics.
Funding Information:
The “STEM crisis” can be traced back to the “Sputnik Crisis” in the 1950s that spurred the development and enactment of The National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in 1958 by President Eisenhower. The intention of NDEA was to counteract the growing national concern that schools in the former Soviet Union were surpassing US schools and thus, US scientists could not compete with Soviet scientists. The policy was also a response to the advent of the electronic computer and the acute shortage of mathematicians needed as programmers to supply this nascent, but burgeoning field. Coupled with the billions of dollars that were infused into the US education system via NDEA were several other government programs designed to beef up research and development in the Department of Defense, which eventually led to the establishment of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Act. Federal support for the National Science Foundation (NSF) also increased dramatically during this period.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - STEM education has received significant attention in the USA and is largely fueled by rhetoric suggesting the USA is losing its global competitive edge and that there is a lack of qualified workers available to fill growing STEM jobs. However, a counter discourse is emerging that questions the legitimacy of these claims. In response, we employed feminist critical policy analysis as both a theory and a method to further critique the STEM crisis discourse. We argue that the nature of the current discourse is misleading at worst and incomplete at best and show who is fueling the crisis discourse and who stands to win or lose as a result. We reveal how the crisis discourse draws attention away from the multi-layered complexity of the issue and surface what is missing in the discourse to re-center public attention on protracted problems that still need dismantling.
AB - STEM education has received significant attention in the USA and is largely fueled by rhetoric suggesting the USA is losing its global competitive edge and that there is a lack of qualified workers available to fill growing STEM jobs. However, a counter discourse is emerging that questions the legitimacy of these claims. In response, we employed feminist critical policy analysis as both a theory and a method to further critique the STEM crisis discourse. We argue that the nature of the current discourse is misleading at worst and incomplete at best and show who is fueling the crisis discourse and who stands to win or lose as a result. We reveal how the crisis discourse draws attention away from the multi-layered complexity of the issue and surface what is missing in the discourse to re-center public attention on protracted problems that still need dismantling.
KW - Critical policy analysis
KW - Feminist theory
KW - Qualitative research methods
KW - STEM
KW - Women and girls in education
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U2 - 10.1080/09518398.2014.916006
DO - 10.1080/09518398.2014.916006
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84988001554
SN - 0951-8398
VL - 27
SP - 1155
EP - 1182
JO - International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
JF - International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
IS - 9
ER -