Reflections on textbooks for teaching TA

Textbooks are a valuable mean in the teaching of Technology Assessment (TA) in various bachelor and master programs. However, the availability of TA textbooks is scarce, despite the fact that the academic teaching of TA is a widely spread practice. The few textbooks that are available are written in non-English languages and are used (and known) only in the specific national context, in this case Germany and The Netherlands (Grunwald 2010a, Smit & van Oost 1999). One of the main reasons for the lack of textbooks is the fact that TA is a relatively young academic field and has not stabilized (yet) into a core body of knowledge and methods. Technology Assessment is historically rooted and shaped in non-academic policy arena’s and is strongly policy and action oriented still. The diverse institutional and socio-political national settings imply a manifold of forms of TA, both conceptually and methodologically (Joss & Belluci 2000, Vig & Paschen 2000, Smits et al. 1995). Furthermore, Technology Assessment has a fundamental trans-disciplinary character as it focuses on the dynamics of the complex interplay of technological and societal development.