Abstract
Using a theoretical-critical and historical approach, this paper analyses the implications of the Cold War in national curricula and educational reforms of the second half of the 20th century with emphasis on the 21st century. The context of the time after the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War is shown, as well as the social and political changes that are significant for education and were prompted by the wars. The emergence of the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (whose focus is not educational but economic) and the role of behavioural psychology were also analysed, which explained their significance in later educational reforms. The role of the Cold War in reducing socio-humanistic teaching contents and the implementation of natural sciences and mathematics has also been explained. The synthesis of the analysed aspects suggests that the Cold War military and technological race resulted in the implementation of the STEM area, thus the measurability of learning outcomes, which influenced the psychologisation, standardisation, economisation, and globalisation of education. Most of the current (un)successful national educational and curricular reforms were initiated in that direction without respect for the social, cultural, and historical features of individual countries. These changes have left a mark in pedagogy, in which the humanistic approach appears to counteract other approaches. Some educational systems demonstrate a shift from such trends, from the technical-scientific curriculum towards the didactic tradition of Bildung and the philosophy of education. The reasons can be found in the above-average results on international standardised evaluations of those countries that have national curricula, in contrast to what is recommended by the globalisation and standardisation of education as some of the elements of the Cold War heritage.
Highlights
The ‘Sputnik shock’ launched the military race of the Cold War for arms and the space race: since education began to be seen as a mechanism of achieving the desired goals, which triggered the process of the pedagogisation of social problems
The Cold War race influenced the reduction of socio-humanistic content from the curriculum and their substitution with the content from the STEM area, and stopped the developing and spreading the directions and movements of reform pedagogy
That created the psychologisation of education, which displaced the philosophy of education in didactics
Summary
The historical and conceptual development of the curriculum will be analysed as well as the beginning of the formation of the role of the Cold War. the role of psychology on the formation of new approaches towards learning and teaching will be analysed, as well as the reduction of socio-humanistic content in curricula and their substitution with the content from the STEM area. The significance of the European (mostly German) didactic thought of the humanistic approach, as well as the methodological turnaround towards the quantitative research, will be analysed In this regard, this paper aims to describe and correlate the features of the curriculum, the role of the Cold War in the formation of modern education, and the relationship of the mentioned elements towards the humanistic and holistic approach to curriculum research. Regardless of different definitions and approaches towards curricula, the most common practical form is a scientific or technical curriculum, which was established in the circumstances of the Cold War
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