Standardization from Below: Science and Technology Standards and Educational Software

Education in the United States is becoming increasingly standardized, with the standards being initiated at the national level and then trickling down to the state level and finally the local level. Yet, this top-down approach to educational standards carries with it significant limitations, such as loss of local autonomy and restrictions on the creativity of educational software designers. This paper reports findings from a study of the design and use of frog dissection simulations used in middle school and high school biology classes. The paper builds on the existing literatures on science and technology standards in education, using interviews, participant observation, and content analysis guided by grounded theory. The results highlight the ways that top-down educational standards constrain science teachers and software designers. The discussion presents an alternative to the topdown regime of educational standards, namely, a bottom-up approach of standardization from below. Finally, the conclusion argues that local control of educational experiences in the form of standardization from below can improve upon the traditional regime of top-down standards.