Why read An Elusive Science?

Book cover of An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Education Research

Book description

Since its beginnings at the start of the 20th century, educational scholarship has been a marginal field, criticized by public policy makers and relegated to the fringes of academe. An Elusive Science explains why, providing a critical history of the traditions, conflicts, and institutions that have shaped the study of…

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Why read it?

1 author picked An Elusive Science as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Sanjay Sarma

Author

There is a cottage industry of historical and analytical books attempting to explain where, exactly, our educational norms, structures, and strictures came from. Many of these are terrific, but Lagemann’s An Elusive Science is the best of the bunch for exploring how nineteenth and twentieth-century scientific research influenced modern educational practice. The author is the source of a line oft-quoted in ed circles: “I have often argued to students, only in part to be perverse, that one cannot understand the history of education in the United States during the twentieth century unless one realizes that Edward L. Thorndike won…

From Sanjay's list on The best books to help us reimagine what education could be (for everyone).