Science Teachers' Conceptions of Science: An Analysis at the Intersection of Nature of Science and Culturally Relevant Science Teaching

Abstract

Science education policies and standards have called for educators to teach students about the Nature of Science (NOS) and engage them in Culturally Relevant Science Teaching (CRST), which requires critical shifts away from traditional science teaching. As such, teachers are being asked to possess or take up conceptions of science that challenge the status quo. Are teachers making these shifts? Do they conceive of science in these anti-traditional ways? To explore this matter, I developed a conceptual framework around five key science topics: (1) Revision/Static; (2) Scientific Method; (3) Objective/Subjective; (4) Society and Culture; and (5) Critical Space, then surfaced traditional and anti-traditional conceptions regarding each topic drawn from science standards and prior literature. I operationalized this framework to critically analyze 20 secondary science teachers' discourse to determine whether they aligned with a traditional science ideology, an anti-traditional ideology, or somewhere in the middle (conflicting ideology). I found that for the most part participants demonstrated alignment with the anti-traditional conception when it came to the first two topics, however, when it came to the latter three topics, tensions arose and there was noticeably less consensus. As participants discussed concepts related to the latter topics, which I argue are more closely related to society, culture, and humanness, they demonstrated strikingly greater alignment with the traditional conceptions. These findings have implications for science teachers' capacity to teach science with NOS and CRST in mind. Findings also highlight key areas of consideration for teacher educators, curriculum developers, and policymakers when guiding teachers on the journey to attend to NOS and CRST.