Innocent experiments : childhood and the culture of public science in the United States

Since World War II, the American discourse around children and science has been held in the form of a postmortem: a series of diagnoses pointing to a commitment gap that never seems to be fixed. The formation “Children don’t love science like they used to” points to an imagined past, full of the joy of experimentation and discovery. Although some now argue that we no longer actually face a scientific “manpower shortage,” the popular __belief__ that we do is deeply ingrained, coming, as it does, from this vision of a lost time of utopian explorations. This book, a twentieth-century cultural history of the “science kid,” asks what the stakes of this belief might be. It argues that the nostalgic vision of “a time when American kids loved science” tends to represent these “science kids” as male. If we’re stuck associating the qualities of a potential young scientist—curiosity, mischievousness, a certain free way of thinking that sometimes borders on the antisocial—with masculinity, what effect might this persistent set of associations have on the attempt to recruit women into STEM fields? From The 1950s To The Digital Age, Americans Have Pushed Their Children To Live Science-minded Lives, Cementing Scientific Discovery And Youthful Curiosity As Inseparable Ideals. In This Multifaceted Work, Historian Rebecca Onion Examines The Rise Of Informal Children's Science Education In The Twentieth Century, From The Proliferation Of Home Chemistry Sets After World War I To The Century-long Boom In Child-centered Science Museums. Onion Looks At How The United States Has Increasingly Focused Its Energies Over The Last Century Into Producing Young Scientists Outside Of The Classroom. She Shows That Although Americans Profess To Believe That Success In The Sciences Is Synonymous With Good Citizenship, This Idea Is Deeply Complicated In An Era When Scientific Data Is Hotly Contested And Many Americans Have A Conflicted View Of Science Itself. These Contradictions, Onion Explains, Can Be Understood By Examining The Histories Of Popular Science And The Development Of Ideas About American Childhood. She Shows How The Idealized Concept Of Science Has Moved Through The Public Consciousness And How The Drive To Make Child Scientists Has Deeply Influenced American Culture. -- Provided By Publisher. Introduction: A Curious Century -- 1. Wonder House : The Brooklyn Children's Museum As Beautiful Dream -- 2. Science In The Basement : Selling The Home Lab In The Interwar Years -- 3. Embryo Scientists : Finding And Saving Postwar Science Talent -- 4. Space Cadets And Rocket Boys : Policing The Masculinity Of Scientific Enthusiasms -- 5. The Exploratorium And The Persistence Of Innocent Science -- Conclusion: Looking Closer At Kids Are Little Scientists. Rebecca Onion. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. From the 1950s to the digital age, Americans have pushed their children to live science-minded lives, cementing scientific discovery and youthful curiosity as inseparable ideals. In this multifaceted work, historian Rebecca Onion examines the rise of informal children's science education in the twentieth century, from the proliferation of home chemistry sets after World War I to the century-long boom in child-centered science museums. Onion looks at how the United States has increasingly focused its energies over the last century into producing young scientists outside of the classroom. She shows that although Americans profess to believe that success in the sciences is synonymous with good citizenship, this idea is deeply complicated in an era when scientific data is hotly contested and many Americans have a conflicted view of science itself. These contradictions, Onion explains, can be understood by examining the histories of popular science and the development of ideas about American childhood. She shows how the idealized concept of "science" has moved through the public consciousness and how the drive to make child scientists has deeply influenced American culture. -- Résumé de l'éditeur project_muse_48237-1877286.pdf 1 project_muse_48237-1877287.pdf 5 project_muse_48237-1877288.pdf 9 project_muse_48237-1877289.pdf 15 project_muse_48237-1877290.pdf 31 project_muse_48237-1877291.pdf 54 project_muse_48237-1877292.pdf 87 project_muse_48237-1877293.pdf 127 project_muse_48237-1877294.pdf 157 project_muse_48237-1877295.pdf 179 project_muse_48237-1877296.pdf 185 project_muse_48237-1877297.pdf 219 project_muse_48237-1877298.pdf 237 project_muse_48237-1877299.pdf 241