Toward a State-Critical STEM Education

Abstract

In this essay, I will explore the role of STEM education (and educators) in efforts for egalitarian social change. This entails asking and attempting responses to the following questions: How does STEM education relate to the state and economy? Is it an outgrowth of the logic and the aims of the state? Is it imbued with capitalistic aims? How might a STEM education opposed to these socio-economic aims appear: one of left-libertarian, even anarchist, sentiments? Is it possible – even preferable to the former? I will also attempt to respond to these questions by relying in part upon Nataly Chesky and Mark Wolfmeyer’s (2015) Philosophy of STEM Education: A Critical Investigation and Judith Suissa’s (2010) Anarchism and Education: A Philosophical Perspective . I will thus explore how STEM education is poised to evolve in various directions and determine which of these would most commensurate with egalitarian educational, social, economic, and ecological aims.