Contemporary U.S. schools and professional reforms call for teachers to have greater disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge for teaching school subjects. Reform efforts leave unexamined the rules and standards of “reason” that historically order school subjects. The notion of alchemy provides an analytic “tool” to consider the processes of translation from disciplinary knowledge to teaching practices. It is argued that the intellectual tools of school pedagogies have little to do with the disciplinary fields. The psychological strategies for defining school subjects historically are strategies of governing who the child is and should be. There is an ironic quality to this alchemy of schooling subjects. Efforts to increase student participation may narrow the possibilities of reflection and action. An alternative style for thinking about the translation of disciplinary fields into the curriculum and “methods” of school subjects is discussed, drawing on studies of science, technology, and mathematics.
Ball, D. ( 2001). Teaching with respect to mathematics and students. In T. Wood, B. S. Nelson & J. Warfield (Eds.), Beyond classical pedagogy: Teaching elementary school mathematics (pp. 11-21). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
2.
Brousseau, G. ( 1997). Theory of didactical situations in mathematics. Didactique des mathematiques, 1970-1990. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer.
3.
Czarniawska, B., & Sevón, G. (2005). Translating is a vehicle, imitation its motor, and fashion sits at the wheel. In B. Czarniawska & G. Sevón (Eds.), Global ideas. How ideas, objects and practices travel in the global economy (pp. 7-14). Malmo, Sweden: Liber & Copenhagen Business School Press.
4.
Depaepe, M. ( 1997). Differences and similarities in the development of educational psychology in Germany and the United States before 1945. Paedagogica Historica, 33(1), 69-97.
5.
Dewey, J. ( 1892/1967-1990). Christianity and democracy. In The collected works of John Dewey, 1882-1953. The electronic edition. The early works of John Dewey, 1882-1898. (Database based on The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953: Vol. 4. 1893-1894 [Jo Ann Boydston, Ed.]). Springfield : Southern Illinois University. Retrieved from http://library.nlx.com/titles/index.cfm
6.
Elzinga, A. ( 1997). The science-society contract in historical transformation: With special reference to "epistemic drift." Social Science Information, 36(3), 411-445.
7.
Foucault, M. ( 1979). Governmentality. Ideology and Consciousness , 6, 5-22.
8.
Foucault, M. ( 1984). What is the Enlightenment? Was ist Auflärlung? In P. Rabinow (Ed.), The Foucault reader (pp. 32-51). New York: Pantheon Books.
9.
Franklin, B. ( 1986). The first crusade for learning disabilities: The movement for the education of backward children. In T. Popkewitz (Ed.), The formation of school subjects: The struggle for creating an American institution (pp. 190-209). New York: Falmer.
10.
Goodson, I. ( 1987). School subjects and curriculum change. London, England: Falmer Press.
11.
Grossman, P., & A. Schoenfeld (with Lee, C.). (2005). Teaching subject matter . In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.) (in collaboration with P. LePage, K. Hammerness , & H. Duffy), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 201-231). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
12.
Hacking, I. ( 1990). The taming of chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13.
Hacking, I. ( 1992). "Style" for historians and philosophers. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 23, 1-20.
14.
Hacking, I. ( 2002). Inaugural lecture: Chair of philosophy and history of scientific concepts at the College de France. Economy and Society, 21(1), 1-14.
15.
Kliebard, H. ( 1986). Struggle for the American curriculum. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
16.
Knorr Cetina, K. ( 1999). Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
17.
Krug, E. ( 1964). The shaping of the American high school, 1880-1920. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
18.
Latour, B. ( 1991/1993). We have never been modern (C. Porter, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
19.
Latour, B. ( 1999). Pandora’s hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
20.
McCalman, I. ( 2003). The last alchemist: Count Cagliostro, master of magic in the age of reason. New York: HarperCollins.
21.
McEneaney, E. ( 2003a). Elements of a contemporary primary school science. In G. S. Drori, J. W. Meyer, F. O. Ramirez, & E. Schofer (Eds.), Science in the modern world polity: Institutionalization and globalization (pp. 136-154). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
22.
McEneaney, E. ( 2003b). The worldwide cachet of scientific literacy. Comparative Education Review, 47(2), 217-237.
23.
Moran, B. ( 2005). Distilling knowledge: Alchemy, chemistry, and the scientific revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
24.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. ( 1989). Curriculum and evaluation standards for school mathematics . Reston, VA: Author.
25.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. ( 2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: Author.
26.
Nelson, B.S., Warfield, J., & Wood, T. ( 2001). Introduction. In T. Wood, B. S. Nelson, & J. Warfield (Eds.), Beyond classical pedagogy: Teaching elementary school mathematics (pp. 5-9). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
27.
Ó, J.R. ( 2003). The disciplinary terrains of soul and self-government in the first map of the educational sciences. In P. Smeyers & M. Depaepe (Eds.), Beyond empiricism: On criteria for educational research ( Studia Paedagogica34, pp. 105-116). Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press.
28.
Polani, M. ( 1967). The tacit dimension. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books.
29.
Popkewitz, T. ( 1984). Paradigm and ideology in educational research: Social functions of the intellectual. London: Falmer.
30.
Popkewitz, T. (Ed.). (1987). The formation of school subjects: The struggle for creating an American institution . London, England: Falmer Press .
31.
Popkewitz, T. ( 1991). A political sociology of educational reform: Power/knowledge in teaching, teacher education, and research. New York : Teachers College Press.
32.
Popkewitz, T. ( 1998a). Dewey, Vygotsky, and the social administration of the individual: Constructivist pedagogy as systems of ideas in historical spaces . American Educational Research Journal, 35(4), 535-570.
33.
Popkewitz, T. ( 1998b). Struggling for the soul: The politics of education and the construction of the teacher. New York: Teachers College Press.
34.
Popkewitz, T. ( 2004). The alchemy of the mathematics curriculum: Inscriptions and the fabrication of the child. American Educational Research Journal, 41(4), 3-34.
35.
Popkewitz, T. ( 2008). Cosmopolitanism and the age of school reform. Science, education, and making society by making the child. New York: Routledge.
36.
Popkewitz, T., & Gustafson, R. ( 2002). The alchemy of pedagogy and social inclusion/exclusion . Philosophy of Music Education Review, 10(2), 80-91.
37.
Rabinow, P. ( 2003). Antropos today: Reflections on modern equipment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
38.
Rancière, J. ( 1987/1991). The ignorant schoolmaster.Five lessons in intellectual emancipation (K. Ross, Trans.) . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
39.
Rancière, J. ( 2004). The politics of aesthetics: The distribution of the sensible (G. Rockhill, Trans.). London: Continuum.
40.
Reese, W. ( 1995). The origins of the American high school. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
41.
Reusch, J., & Bateson, G. ( 1951). Communication: The social matrix of psychiatry. New York: Norton.
42.
Serres M. ( 1983). Noise. SubStance, 12(3), 48-60.
43.
Skinner, Q. ( 1998). Liberty before liberalism. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
44.
Sklansky, J. ( 2002). The soul’s economy: Market society and selfhood in American thought, 1820-1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
45.
Sutherland, R., & Balacheff, N. ( 1999). Didactical complexity of computational environments for the learning of mathematics. International Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning, 4, 1-26.
46.
Tröhler, D. (in press). Languages of education: Protestant legacies in educationalization of the world, national identities, and global aspirations. New York: Routledge.
47.
Wilford, J.N. (August 1, 2006). Transforming the alchemists. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/science/01alch.html?_r=1&ref=john_noble_wilford
