New Materialisms in High School Science

• In Event: Science Teaching and Learning: Socioscientific Issues (SSIs)

Abstract

This research inquires into materiality in school science, addressing the following research question: How are non-humans materially constituted in high school science, and what do these constitutions mean for student understanding of nature? A qualitative study was conducted with ten participants. Practices related to constitution of nature were identified in interviews and through collection of teaching documents. Discourse in text of interview transcripts and teaching documents frequently constituted nature as various types of mechanisms, representing atomistic/reductive ontological perspectives. Yet enfolded within this mechanistic discourse exists some organic considerations for students’ engagement with non-humans. This suggests the effectiveness of entanglements that occur over time in school science to incur student interactions with non-humans that could be the basis of holistic understandings.

Author

• Darren Glen Hoeg, York University