Whose Science? Expanding Views of Student Participation in Science in a Community of Practice

• In Event: Science Teaching and Learning: Equity and Social Justice

Abstract

In this paper, I use a communities of practice framework to analyze the practice, participation, norms and discourses of second-grade students, their teacher, and a university entomologist as they work together to do a moth research project. Through a case study using ethnographic methods, I determine that this particular community of practice was shaped by adults’ narrow views of what counts as science. This resulted in the formation of a knowledge hierarchy with students at the bottom and the exclusion of students’ science practices that did not conform to adults’ expectations. This illustrates the importance of adults critically examining their own epistemologies before establishing norms that will exclude students with differing epistemologies, particularly girls and students of Color.

Author

• Sinead C Brien, Michigan State University