| Clayton Pierce Post Doctoral Research Associate MBH 378 801-587-7812 clayton.pierce@utah.edu |
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Research
My research utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to investigate how pedagogical models in the past and present have shaped public understandings of science and technology in society. The primary modes of analysis I use are (i) a genealogical assessment of historical and philosophical conceptualizations of science, technology, and democracy in the philosophy of education; (ii) trends and relations between the politics of science, technology, democracy and their impact on educational policymaking and reform; and (iii) the extent to which efforts of policy implementation influences students' engagement with real world problems in K-12 classrooms. Ultimately I am interested in developing ways to couple the act of learning and teaching science and technology with democratic practices that take into account the mounting uncertainties that are byproducts of science and technology and that are increasingly populating our communities and the natural world. Coming up with effective ways to empower students, educators, and citizens to engage problems that remain unaddressed in standard models of science and technology education is a central goal of my research. Grounding inquiry in students' everyday experience in a way that promotes critical engagement with public problems such as ecological devastation, energy policy decisions, how science and technology are constructed in the media, a sustainable vs. a hyper-consumption culture, and a "science for hire" model of knowledge production is one way to begin transforming science and its application in society into a cultural activity based on improving the human condition instead of one that profits from it.
Teaching
I have taught graduate courses in critical theory and education as well as modern European Political theory at the undergraduate level. All of my courses take on an interdisciplinary approach that draws from the fields of philosophy of education, critical theory, science and technology studies, feminist thought, and postcolonial studies of Western science and technology. The goal of my courses is twofold: to provide a space and opportunity for students to engage texts and forms of media in a rigorous and critical manner and to collectively work with students in producing high quality research that is relevant to their work as a scholar and educator.
Selected Publications
Books:
Kellner, D., Pierce, C. (Eds.) (forthcoming). Marxism, Revolution and Utopia: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse Volume Six (New York/London: Routledge)
Kellner, D., Pierce, C. (Eds.) (2009). Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse Volume Five (New York/London: Routledge).
D. Kellner, Lewis, T.E., and Pierce, C (2008). On Marcuse: Critique, Liberation, and Reschooling in the Radical Pedagogy of Herbert Marcuse (Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers).
Kellner, D., Lewis, T. and Pierce, C. (Eds.) (2008) Marcuse's Challenge to Education (Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield).
Journals (peer-reviewed):
Pierce, C. (2007). "Designing Intelligent Knowledge: Epistemological Faith and the Democratization of Science" in Educational Theory. 57(2): 123-140.
Pierce, C. (2006). "Groundwork for the Concept of Technique: Herbert Marcuse and technological society" in Policy Futures in Education 4(1): 61-72.
Chapters in Books:
Kellner, D., Lewis, T. and Pierce, C. (2008) "Introduction: Marcuse's Challenge to Education" in Marcuse's Challenge to Education (Lanham MA: Rowman & Littlefield).
Pierce, C. (2008) "Democratizing Science and Technology with Marcuse and Latour" in Marcuse's Challenge to Education (Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield).
Pierce, C. (2007) "Actor Network Theory and Science Education: describing new assemblies of the social through science education" in Between Paradigms and Method in Educational and Social Research, Boris Kozuh, Richard Kahn, and Anna Kozlowska (Eds.), RODN "WOM" Publishers, Czestochowa, Poland.
Kellner, D., Pierce, C. (2007). "Media and Globalization" in The Blackwell Companion to Globalization, George Ritzer (Ed.), (Oxford: Blackwell).
Pierce, C. (2007). "W.E.B. Du Bois" in Playing with Ideas: Modern and Contemporary Philosophies of Education, Lewis, T., Grinberg, J., & Laverty, M. (Eds.), (Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishers).
Pierce, C. (2007). "Ivan Illich" in Playing with Ideas: Modern and Contemporary Philosophies of Education, Lewis, T., Grinberg, J., & Laverty, M. (Eds.), (Iowa: Kendal/Hunt Publishers).