Cultural Studies of Science Education最新文献

In reckoning with anti-Blackness and white hegemony in STEM, this study recommits to critical feminist orientations and explores alternative engagements with STEM education that center “matters of care” where learners are encouraged to build upon their existing values of family and collectivism to reinvigorate rather than disrupt relations with/to community. Our view of STEM learning is informed by feminist critiques of technoscience as well as sociocultural studies of learning in classrooms, homes, and community settings. These models acknowledge and value pluralism, affect, context, esthetics, and the ambivalence of labor/care in STEM learning. Within these frames, our research-practice partnership (RPP, named “STUDIO”) reported on here commits to de-centering the myth of individual accomplishment in out-of-school time (OST) STEM learning by engaging the whole scientist (in the context of their community) while also working across various explanatory frameworks. We explore these commitments through literature, showing how we were informed by extant STEM education research, and also extant critiques. Looking at our programming through a critical feminist lens of care, we found STEM learning in STUDIO to be nourishment for participants, a form of maintenance, and supporting families of choice for youth and adult facilitators. In this paper, we provide examples of these findings, as well as implications for STEM educators working in school and OST contexts.

This commentary proposes the metaphor of “languaging-as-practice” in science education as an alternative to “language-as-tool” metaphors. Describing language as a tool implicitly positions language as static and unchanging and assumes that named languages are distinct and bounded entities. In contrast, describing languaging as a practice acknowledges the multiple and advanced ways speakers draw on many aspects of their linguistic repertoires while often crossing purported boundaries between named languages. This approach is grounded in translanguaging theory and offers a dynamic understanding of language in educational settings. It envisions students constructing and expressing scientific knowledge by drawing on their complete linguistic repertoires. By advocating for this approach, we aim to promote practices that acknowledge and leverage the diverse linguistic backgrounds of students, fostering inclusive and effective learning environments. While this approach has gained some traction in language-education circles, we believe it needs more consideration in the science education community. We also critique the limitations of viewing language merely as a tool for reproducing predefined scientific concepts and discourses, proposing that a more expansive approach to language can enhance opportunities for scientific sense-making and knowledge construction. We urge science education researchers and practitioners to shift how we think and talk about language in the science classroom to adopt and act upon a metaphor of “languaging-as-practice.”

This paper will discuss the concepts of Bildung, subalternity, and physics- and engineering education and where these topics intersect and interact with one another. A central part of the concept of Bildung is educating citizens—active participators in society. At the same time, a central characteristic of subaltern groups is that their voices are not heard in society. If subaltern groups thus can be recruited into a Bildung-oriented education, their subalternness can over time be challenged, and the groups can be included as equals within society. In the study, 728 physics and bachelor engineering students are asked via a questionnaire about their motivation for their education choice to chart the potential for Bildung-oriented education within these fields. The responses are sorted through a thematic analysis. As this paper will show, the social background—class structure—differs significantly between physics- and bachelor engineering students, as do their motivations. These data along with documentation from previous research showing working-class students’ predisposition toward STEM disciplines facilitate the possibility of sketching possible paths toward Bildung for these students that at the same time can lift subaltern groups and make their voices heard.

In this study, we investigate the phenomenon of Swedish Natural Science sexuality education. These classes tend to provide factual knowledge, focus on the negative outcomes of sexuality, be heteronormative and include little time for discussion—like much school sexuality education across the world—and this study aims to contribute ideas about new becomings of Natural Science sexuality education. Baradian theorising was used to explore how materialities and space and time travels within the classroom can challenge often-dominant perspectives. Data were produced in a secondary school and consist of teacher-researcher discussions and participatory observations in class. A futuristic case introduced students to spaces, times and materialities that not only helped the group move beyond a medical focus but also made the sexuality education more student centred. The participating teachers suggested imaginary lust-oriented scenarios for the 15–16-year-old students as an entrance to more preventive messages in teaching. A taken-for-granted heterosexual premise was also challenged with gender-neutral words and pronouns, an exercise on how to use both condoms and dental dams, and a time travel into future possibilities for reproduction and parenting. The acknowledgement of spacetimematter intra-activity in teaching thereby enabled new becomings of Swedish Natural Science sexuality education. However, although this study suggests how dominant medical and heterosexual perspectives can be challenged, it also made visible the absence of cultural, religious, asexuality and disability perspectives in Swedish sexuality education.

Children who live in under-resourced communities and attend under-resourced schools deserve access to high-quality teachers and educational opportunities to support their success and well-being. This study emerged from a professional development (PD) for urban teachers working in such schools, to expand educational opportunities for elementary students through outdoor science teaching. Engaging frameworks of communities of practice (CoP) and critical pedagogy of place (CPP), this critical ethnographic study investigates how urban elementary teachers engage in discourse about critical issues of place. Additionally, the investigation seeks to understand how a CoP supports such discourse. The primary data for this study were multiple sets of researcher field notes collected from participant teachers during virtual spring and in-person summer PD. Over the course of the PD, participants shifted from viewing their outdoor teaching spaces with a deficit perspective to an asset-focused one. As they visited one another’s teaching sites, the CoP the teachers were a part of created opportunity for discourse about social justice linked to issues of place within their particular school neighborhoods. The ability of urban elementary teachers to connect social justice to issues of place and to the teaching of science has implications for countering the injustice that characterizes many urban communities in the USA and elsewhere.

This article aims to analyze conceptual, epistemological, and didactic perspectives that contribute to the modeling of scientific culture in normative and curricular documents guiding initial teaching education in natural sciences programs in Chile. A qualitative approach was employed, utilizing thematic content analysis to inductively extract codes. These codes were grouped into the following categories: (1) Science literacy, (2) Science for citizenship, (3) Science education, (4) Teacher education and standards, (5) Teaching and learning process, and (6) Epistemological and didactic approaches. These categories provide insights to the modeling of scientific culture from the documents analyzed. The study concludes that the referenced model of scientific culture transcends deficit thinking and simplistic tendencies by incorporating sociocultural aspects, thus offering opportunities for a contextualized scientific education. While the model recognizes multiple cultural dimensions involved in the development of scientific literacy, there are noticeable inconsistencies in the epistemological and didactic aspects, indicating traces of ‘traditional’ visions in cultural and scientific education. Therefore, it is recommended that approaches nurturing the development of southern epistemologies and a scientific culture tailored to local contexts be integrated alongside global trends in teacher education.

This study puts forth the counternarrative of the first author Gislaine, a first-generation undergraduate student, Latina, and computer science major. Gislaine participated in a research internship and STEM mentorship program led by the second author, Meredith. Through this program, Gislaine designed and taught CS lessons to predominantly low-income, African-American middle school students over an 8-day urban summer school program. By analyzing Gislaine’s written account of her journey to CS, as well as planning documents and written reflections on her daily experiences mentoring youth, we explore how Gislaine’s intersecting social identities shape her experiences both as a CS learner and as a mentor to youth. Gislaine’s counternarrative illuminates the systems of oppression present in schools and the CS field, while also highlighting Gislaine’s transformative approaches to mentoring students in CS. Gislaine’s narratives emphasize the importance of humanizing CS and leveraging students’ strengths to promote equitable access to CS education. Through her experiences, she underscores the significance of recognizing and addressing systemic barriers, while also advocating for inclusive and empowering educational practices.

This study aims to explore the meanings communicated by young children with visual cultural semiotic resources available in the science classroom. It is a case study in an Early Childhood Education classroom of 23 children (3–4 years old) and their teacher, all engaged in a long-term science project about snails. We focus on the analysis of two series of drawings of snails made by children a month apart, examined through two complementary lenses: comparative content and social semiotics. The findings show that, during their first year of formal schooling, children acquired a range of semiotic resources to communicate to others, which are part of their classroom culture, rather than explicitly taught. Children used these resources to construct sophisticated meanings through their science drawings, highlighting what they considered important and accounting for different modalities and categories. These results point to the importance of supporting drawing tasks in early years, as well as providing opportunities for discussing and interpreting representations. A methodological contribution of this research regards the combination of two complementary foci in the analysis of children’s drawings that allows for a nuanced examination of their learning and abilities for meaning making.

Politics and science are inextricably connected, particularly in relation to the climate emergency and other environmental crises, yet science education is an often overlooked site for engaging with the political dimensions of environmental issues. This study examines how science teachers in England experience politics—specifically political participation—in relation to the environment in school science, against a background of increased obstruction in civic space. The study draws on an analysis of theoretically informed in-depth interviews with eleven science teachers about their experiences of political participation in relation to environmental issues. We find that politics enters the science classroom primarily through informal conversations initiated by students rather than planned by teachers. When planned for, the emphasis is on individual, latent–political (civic) engagement rather than manifest political participation. We argue that this is a symptom of the post-political condition and call for a more enabling environment for discussing the strengths and limitations of different forms of political participation in school science.

Education by and for Indigenous peoples needs to focus on and honor the life-affirming notions of land- and place-based connections, our individual and collective responsibilities, reciprocity, and relationships. In todays’ school settings, redefining what ‘success’ looks like as well as supporting Indigenous identities are critical to teaching and learning in general, and for science education in particular. In contemporary schools, we, as educators, need to focus on place-based knowledges and the concept of reciprocity as being important to the learning, identities, and well-being of our Indigenous students. This is challenging because western science education often attempts to be objective, which removes context and creates barriers for Indigenous students. For this study, I worked with eight students and two faculty in an Environmental Science program at a small, private, 4-year university in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. I employed a qualitative design, consisting mainly of interviews, observations, case studies, and the sharing of stories with students and their instructors. My participants highlighted many important aspects of Indigenous science learning, learning focused on decolonization and sovereignty, and the role reciprocity plays in their lives and their educational motivation. I focus on three themes that emerged from this work: one, that land-based and place-based education, is critical for Indigenous students; two, that reciprocity must be included in how we educate our Indigenous students; and three, that decolonizing science education will include supporting both place-based learning and reciprocity.