Material Practice and Materiality: Too Long Ignored in Science Education
Material Practice and Materiality: Too Long Ignored in Science Education

Author: Catherine Milne

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-04-11

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 3030019748

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In this book various scholars explore the material in science and science education and its role in scientific practice, such as those practices that are key to the curriculum focuses of science education programs in a number of countries. As a construct, culture can be understood as material and social practice. This definition is useful for informing researchers' nuanced explorations of the nature of science and inclusive decisions about the practice of science education (Sewell, 1999). As fields of material social practice and worlds of meaning, cultures are contradictory, contested, and weakly bounded. The notion of culture as material social practices leads researchers to accept that material practice is as important as conceptual development (social practice). However, in education and science education there is a tendency to ignore material practice and to focus on social practice with language as the arbiter of such social practice. Often material practice, such as those associated with scientific instruments and other apparatus, is ignored with instruments understood as "inscription devices", conduits for language rather than sources of material culture in which scientists share “material other than words” (Baird, 2004, p. 7) when they communicate new knowledge and realities. While we do not ignore the role of language in science, we agree with Barad (2003) that perhaps language has too much power and with that power there seems a concomitant loss of interest in exploring how matter and machines (instruments) contribute to both ontology and epistemology in science and science education.

Material Practice and Materiality
Material Practice and Materiality

Author: Catherine Milne

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9783030019754

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In this book various scholars explore the material in science and science education and its role in scientific practice, such as those practices that are key to the curriculum focuses of science education programs in a number of countries. As a construct, culture can be understood as material and social practice. This definition is useful for informing researchers' nuanced explorations of the nature of science and inclusive decisions about the practice of science education (Sewell, 1999). As fields of material social practice and worlds of meaning, cultures are contradictory, contested, and weakly bounded. The notion of culture as material social practices leads researchers to accept that material practice is as important as conceptual development (social practice). However, in education and science education there is a tendency to ignore material practice and to focus on social practice with language as the arbiter of such social practice. Often material practice, such as those associated with scientific instruments and other apparatus, is ignored with instruments understood as "inscription devices", conduits for language rather than sources of material culture in which scientists share "material other than words" (Baird, 2004, p. 7) when they communicate new knowledge and realities. While we do not ignore the role of language in science, we agree with Barad (2003) that perhaps language has too much power and with that power there seems a concomitant loss of interest in exploring how matter and machines (instruments) contribute to both ontology and epistemology in science and science education.

An Intense Calling
An Intense Calling

Author: Jesse Bazzul

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2023-02-27

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1487558341

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Positing that education is a movement from one way of being to another, more desirable one, An Intense Calling argues that ethics should be the prime focus for the field of education. The book locates ethics, education, and justice in human subjectivity and describes education as a necessary practice for ethical reflexivity, change, and becoming (ethically) different. It also situates ethics as something that exceeds subjectivity, thereby engaging ethics as a material phenomenon through topics such as aesthetics and solidarity with non-humans. Jesse Bazzul explores various concepts in the book including power, biopolitics, the commons, subjectivity, and materiality, and draws from over twenty years of experience teaching in different countries including Canada, Ireland, the United States, China, and Ukraine. Taking a wide-ranging philosophical approach, the book entangles ethics, urgent political issues, and pressing educational contexts of the twenty-first century. In doing so, An Intense Calling maintains that ethics is the core of education because education involves finding better ways of living and being in the world.

Unsettling Responsibility in Science Education
Unsettling Responsibility in Science Education

Author: Marc Higgins

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-11-19

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 3030612996

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This open access book engages with the response-ability of science education to Indigenous ways-of-living-with-Nature. Higgins deconstructs the ways in which the structures of science education—its concepts, categories, policies, and practices—contribute to the exclusion (or problematic inclusion) of Indigenous science while also shaping its ability respond. Herein, he undertakes an unsettling homework to address the ways in which settler colonial logics linger and lurk within sedimented and stratified knowledge-practices, turning the gaze back onto science education. This homework critically inhabits culture, theory, ontology, and history as they relate to the multicultural science education debate, a central curricular location that acts as both a potential entry point and problematic gatekeeping device, in order to (re)open the space of responsiveness towards Indigenous ways-of-knowing-in-being.

Examining Ethics in Contemporary Science Education Research
Examining Ethics in Contemporary Science Education Research

Author: Kathrin Otrel-Cass

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-08-31

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 3030509214

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This book poses questions on how to work ethically in research on science education. Applying research ethics reflectively and responsibly is fundamental for conducting research with people. It seeks to renew the conversation on how and why to engage with ethics in science education research and to adjust and refine research practices. It highlights both the need for methodological reflections in science education research and the particular ethical research challenges of science education. Science education research involves the study of people – often young and vulnerable people – and their practices. Researchers working within humanities and social science research commonly follow guidelines and codes of conducts set by country-specific ethics committees. Such guidelines function as minimal requirement for ethical reflection. This book seeks to engage the community of science education researchers in a conversation on ethics in science education moving beyond the mere compliance with governmental regulations toward a collective reflection. It asks the question of whether the existing guidelines provided for researchers are keeping up with contemporary realities of the visual presence of individuals in digital spaces. It also asks questions on how participatory research methodologies alters the relations between researchers and practitioners. This book is organized into two parts: Part one is entitled Challenging existing norms and practices. It asks questions such as: What are the conditions of knowledge that shape ethical decision making? Where is this kind of knowledge coming from? How is this knowledge structured, and where are the limitations? How can we justify our beliefs concerning our ethical research actions? Part two Epistemological considerations for ethical science education research centres norms and practices of conducting science education research in regard to methods, validity and scope.

International Perspectives on Knowledge and Curriculum
International Perspectives on Knowledge and Curriculum

Author: Brian Hudson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-01-27

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1350167118

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Drawing on the idea of powerful knowledge, this book interrogates the epistemic quality of education in schools, in terms of what students are expected to know, make sense of and be able to do through the curriculum. In doing so the authors acknowledge the significance of transformation processes through which specialized knowledge, developed in subject disciplines, is reshaped and re-presented in educational environments. Moving beyond the narrow knowledge vs skills debate of the 20th century, the authors look at how we might democratise and open up access to 'knowledge of the powerful' for all through the school curriculum. Arising from the work of the Knowledge and Quality across School Subjects and Teacher Education network (KOSS), funded by the Swedish Research Council (2019-22), this book draws on studies conducted in a range of national contexts, including from Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the UK, and considers the implications for curriculum innovation at policy, programmatic and classroom level.

Critical Voices in Science Education Research
Critical Voices in Science Education Research

Author: Jesse Bazzul

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-01-23

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 3319999907

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This book is a collection of narratives from a diverse array of science education researchers that elucidate some of the difficulties of becoming a science education researcher and/or science teacher educator, with the hope that through solidarity, commonality, and “telling the story”, justice-oriented science education researchers will feel more supported in their own journeys. Being a scholar and teacher that sees science education as a space for justice, and thinking/being different, entry into this disciplinary field often comes with tense moments and personal difficulties. The chapter authors of this book break into many painful, awkward, and seemingly nebulous topics, including the intersectional nuances of what it means to be a researcher in the contexts of epistemic rigidness, white supremacy, and neoliberal restructuring. Of course these contexts become different depending on how teachers, students, and researchers are constituted within them (as racialized/sexed/gendered/disposable/valued subjects). We hope that within these narratives readers will identify with similar struggles in terms of what it means to desire to “do good in the world”, while facing subtle and not-so-subtle institutional, personal cultural, and political challenges.

Values in Science Education
Values in Science Education

Author: Deborah Corrigan

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-05-18

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 3030421724

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In 2007, the Monash-Kings College London International Centre for the Study of Science and Mathematics Curriculum edited a book called The Re-emergence of Values in Science Education. This book reflects on how values have been considered since this original publication, particularly in terms of socio-cultural, economic and political factors that have impacted broadly on science, technology and society, and more specifically on informal and formal science curricula. Hence, the title of this book has been framed as Values in Science Education: The shifting sands. As in the first book, this collection focuses on values that are centrally associated with science and its teaching, and not the more general notion of values such as cooperation or teamwork that are also important values in current curricula. Such values have indeed become more of a focus in science education. This may be a response to the changing global context, where technological changes have been rapid and accelerating. In such complex and risky environments, it is our guiding principles that become the important mainstays of our decisions and practices. In terms of science education, what is becoming clearer is that traditional content and traditional science and scientific methods are not enough for science and hence science education to meet such challenges. While shifts in values in science education continue, tensions remain in curriculum development and implementation, as evidenced by the continued diversity of views about what and whose values matter most.

Handbook of Research on Science Education
Handbook of Research on Science Education

Author: Norman G. Lederman

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-03-17

Total Pages: 1916

ISBN-13: 1000828662

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Volume III of this landmark synthesis of research offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art survey highlighting new and emerging research perspectives in science education. Building on the foundations set in Volumes I and II, Volume III provides a globally minded, up-to-the-minute survey of the science education research community and represents the diversity of the field. Each chapter has been updated with new research and new content, and Volume III has been further developed to include new and expanded coverage on astronomy and space education, epistemic practices related to socioscientific issues,design-based research, interdisciplinary and STEM education, inclusive science education, and the global impact of nature of science and scientific inquiry literacy. As with the previous volumes, Volume III is organized around six themes: theory and methods of science education research; science learning; diversity and equity; science teaching; curriculum and assessment; and science teacher education. Each chapter presents an integrative review of the research on the topic it addresses, pulling together the existing research, working to understand historical trends and patterns in that body of scholarship, describing how the issue is conceptualized within the literature, how methods and theories have shaped the outcomes of the research, and where the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps are in the literature. Providing guidance to science education faculty, scholars, and graduate students, and pointing towards future directions of the field, Handbook of Research on Science Education Research, Volume III offers an essential resource to all members of the science education community.

Teaching STEM Education through Dialogue and Transformative Learning
Teaching STEM Education through Dialogue and Transformative Learning

Author: Catherine Montgomery

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-21

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1000022498

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This book focuses on reconceptualising the teaching of STEM education through dialogue and transformative learning, presenting examples of research from Mexico and the UK. It centres on research which introduces critical pedagogies in the teaching of STEM, where in the past there has been an over-emphasis on content and a technicist perspective on science. The research in this book considers critical and dialogic approaches to teacher education for STEM subjects and emphasises the crucial role that teachers play in improving life chances for marginalised young people and their communities. STEM education is not just a way of improving a country’s GDP, but if taught through dialogic and transformative pedagogies it can enable teachers to empower students to improve their own lives. The collaboration between these two countries is timely and comes as Mexico is developing and emerging as a key global economic nation. The work presented here engages in theoretical and empirical work that has application beyond the two countries. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Education for Teaching.