The Reform Process And Enlightenment Of Science Education In American High School During The Second Half Of The20^th Century

The20th century was the American century, its economic, military, scientific andtechnological level has been living in a world first. The rapid technologicaldevelopment in the United States can not be separated from the United States on theimportance of science education. After World War II, the U.S. high school scienceeducation had several reforms, each reform has achieved some success, scienceeducation in secondary schools turned "elite education to the popularity from the1950s to the1980s. Secondary Science Education in the United States after WorldWar II has been developed rapidly, and laid a good foundation for the economic andtechnological development of the United States. The results achieved by thesecondary school science education reform is obvious, and became the other countrieslearning object. This paper studies the major U.S. high school science educationreform movement during the second half of the20thcentury, explore the socialbackground of each reform, the main elements of each reform, and each impact of thereform of the science education in secondary schools as well as inadequacies, andthen summarize each characteristics of the reform.This thesis is divided into five parts in total. The first chapter is an introduction,it introduce the main topics of the background, meaning, definition of related concepts,methods and ideas, it also introduce the pre-World War II,the U.S. high school broadscientific development; Chapter2, based on "elite education" for scientific concept ofthe American middle school science education reform movement, including the50’s"National Defense Education Act, the reform of science education in secondaryschools in the1960s, and each time the reform of the social background, content,impact and significance; Chapter3, back to the basics of the purpose of U.S. highschool science education reform, introduced the social background of70’s "back tobasics movement", the contents of the reform, impact and significance; Chapter4,thescience education began to move to popularity, the major education reforms are thereports of "Countries in Crisis-Education Reform Imperative ", the Popularization ofScience-United States2061Plan, the National Science Education Standards" and thereform of the social context, content, impact and significance.The fifth chapter，summarizes half of American secondary schools in science education reform andenlightenment of the20th century.