A Multilayered Actor Network Pedagogy: Teaching for Citizenship in the Context of Socioscientific Issues

• In Event: Teaching Science for Citizenship, Agency, and Sociopolitical Action

Abstract

Acknowledging gaps between science education and democratic participation on socio-scientific issues (SSI) (Levinson, 2010), scholars have been urging educators to engage their students in educational activities that extend beyond debating SSI to acting on them. For students to act on SSI, a more democratic practice would be for teachers to shed light on various actors, both living and non-living, that sustain networks of SSI. In this study, we explored the extent to which: 1) use of Actor Network Theory (ANT) influenced student-teachers’ critical thinking about SSI and 2) participants considered ANT to be an important aspect of critical science education. A multi-layered ANT pedagogy emerged that may have partly contributed to student-teachers’ willingness to adopt ANT in their future practice.

Authors

• Sarah Halwany, University of Toronto

• Majd Zouda, University of Toronto

• Chantal Pouliot, Université Laval

• John Lawrence Bencze, OISE/University of Toronto