Hierarchies of Curiosity: Historical Paradoxes of Science Education Reforms

• In Event: Excavating the Past, Present, and Future Through Archival Frames That Elevate Black, Indigenous, and Queer Perspectives for Radical Hope

Abstract

Curiosity appears an ideal anti-standard: promising more expansive, equitable, and culturally responsive science teaching that affirms the agency of minoritized students. However, curiosity has a history as a psychological object and pedagogical tool, one inscribing colonial hierarchies of personhood by dividing children based on the amount or kind of curiosity they display. In this historical epistemology, we draw on archival research and literature analysis to examine how hierarchies of curiosity took shape in postwar social science research and science curricular reforms of the Civil Rights era. We find that at the same moment when IQ falls under critique for dividing populations according to racist principles, curiosity escaped scrutiny for its role in dividing children and reauthorizing segregated school science tiers.

Authors

• Christopher M. Kirchgasler, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Kathryn Lewkowicz Kirchgasler, University of Wisconsin - Madison