Knowledge at the Crossroads?: Physics and History in the Changing World of Schools and Universities

There is much discussion about what needs to change in education institutions in the 21st century, but less attention given to how core disciplinary studies should be considered within that context. This book is based on a major 4-year research study of history and physics in the changing environment of schools and universities in Australia. Are these forms of knowledge still valuable for students? Are they complementary to, or at odds with the concerns about ‘21st century skills’, interdisciplinary and collaborative research teams, employability and ‘learner-centred’ education? How do those who work in these fields see changes in their disciplines and in their work environment? And what are the similarities and differences between the experiences of teachers and academics in physics and those in history? The book draws on interviews with 115 school teachers and university academics to provide new perspectives on two important issues. Firstly, how, for the purposes of today’s schools and universities, can we adequately understand knowledge and knowledge building over time? Secondly, what has been productive and what has been counter-productive in recent efforts to steer and manage the changes in Australia?

Table of Contents:
Introduction.- Chapter 1 Researching the changing world of education.- Part I: Re-thinking and reform of education today - Foundations and debates.- Chapter 2 Knowledge and education in the 21st century.- Chapter 3 History and physics as disciplines.- Chapter 4 New public management and the changing governance of universities.- Chapter 5 The changing agendas and governance of the school curriculum.- Part II Schools.- Chapter 6 Australian 'history wars': The contested purpose of history in the curriculum.- Chapter 7 The physics curriculum: What is the 'discipline' that needs to be nurtured?.- Chapter 8 Inward and outward facing knowledge: Curriculum purposes and slippages.- Part III Universities.- Chapter 9 'What does your discipline look like and how does it matter?' Historians and physicists talk.- Chapter 10 Disciplines and interdisciplinarity.- Chapter 11 Performance measurement and management.- Part IV: Knowledge, disciplinarity and the future.- Chapter 12 Regulation and governancein Australia: Implications for knowledge work.- Chapter 13 Genericism and specialisation: An ongoing problematic for schools and universities.- Chapter 14 Knowledge, disciplines, identities and the structuring of education.

About the Author :
Lyn Yates is Foundation Professor of Curriculum and a former Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Melbourne. Lyn has an MA in history and M Ed and PhD in education. Her previous projects and publications include Reconstructing the Lifelong Learner (Routledge), Making Modern Lives (SUNY), Australia’s Curriculum Dilemmas (MUP), Curriculum in Today’s World (Routledge) and Women in the Scientific Research Workforce (L H Martin). Lyn is former president of the Australian Association for Research in Education; has served on the Australia Research Council; and is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Science. Peter Woelert is a research fellow at the University of Melbourne. He has had training in philosophy (PhD, University of New South Wales, Australia) and sociology (M.A, University of Frankfurt, Germany). His current research focuses on the politics and effects of performance governance at universities and the opportunities and challenges afforded by institutional forms of university autonomy. Victoria Millar is a lecturer in science education at Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She has previously taught physics in schools, and has lectured on tertiary teaching and learning at the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education. Victoria has an MSc in physics and her previous research projects include national studies of female participation in non-compulsory physics, and on the future of the academic workforce in Australia. Her doctoral and subsequent research has focussed on higher education, the sociology of education, disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and curriculum issues. Kate O’Connor is a PhD student who has previously worked as a policy officer in the Australian Department of Education, and more recently on research projects and publications concerned with Australian curriculum and with education governance. Kate has degrees in history and policy studies, and she co-edited Australia’s Curriculum Dilemmas. Her PhD focuses on curriculum practice and policy in the context of online learning reforms. 

Review :
“This book is concerned with forms of knowledge in relation to the role of the disciplines and school subjects and their positioning in institutions during the twenty-first century. … Knowledge at the Crossroads? is beautifully written and the scholarship is impressive and timely. It is required reading for those of us who work in the fields of history and physics in schools and universities.” (Deborah Henderson, Curriculum Perspectives, Vol. 37 (2), September, 2017)