Lived Histories of Science Education in Modern Luxembourg: Interactions between Global Policies, National Curriculum and Local Practices.

The current paper is part of a larger research project, that seeks to gain insights into the policy and curricular reform of science education in Luxembourg’s primary schools through a state of the art approach that integrates research in educational sciences (interviews and classroom observations) with research in the history of education (interviews and document analyses). Beginning with the premise that “science education” as a school discipline is the product of culturally shaped expectations, we examine the interface of international and national educational policy with local educational practice through the lens of primary school science education in Luxembourg (from 1920 through the present). This papers focuses on the historical analysis of science education and policy changes in modern Luxembourg using (1) a document-based historical analysis of curricula, textbooks and public discourses and (2) interviews with curriculum developers from the 1980s and 1990s and with key participants in science education in Luxembourg to examine the lived practices in a local context. In the synergy of the different approaches, local analysis of historically shaped notions of science education can be integrated with a transnational global perspective. Our analysis shows, among other findings, that the science education curriculum was conceived as a response to a variety of specific national educational needs (e.g. environmental protection, love of nature, scientific rational thinking, economy development, technological progress, social progress, demographic changes and challenges). But at the same time, it was covertly in line with international “scientization” policies (e.g. Drori & Meyer, 2009) building on transnational ideas such as the “spiral curriculum”. The analysed educational reform is thus a relevant example to understand culturally and historically embedded perspectives of what “science” is, and how this shapes ideals of “science education” as a discipline in school.