Who Appears? Examining the Genealogy of "Nature of Science" and the Authors It Included/Excluded

• In Event: Whose Science? Interrogating the Foundations of "Nature of Science," Uncovering Epistemic Injustices in Science Education

Abstract

Objectives
Science educators have promoted the construct of “Nature of Science” (NOS) to advance what science is (not) and how it should be taught. Drawing from scientists, sociologists and historians of science, and philosophers of science (“STS scholars” henceforth), NOS scholarship has asserted the universal assumptions that drive science and how the PK-12 science curriculum should support students to learn these principles (Lederman et al., 2002). In this study, I interrogate the intellectual genealogy of the NOS scholarship and analyze the 92 most-cited NOS monographs to determine who are the STS scholars that are cited as foundational.

Perspective(s)
We frame knowledge about the natural and social worlds as socially constructed (Longino, 1990; Vygotsky, 1980), reflecting the epistemological, ontological, and axiological commitments of those asking the questions and implementing investigations (Bang et al., 2016). Within academia, the canon is shaped by the knowledge and ways of knowing of those who have institutional power and resources, primarily white cismen. Thus, we frame citation selection and inclusion as political acts that demarcate whose knowledge is valued and worth reproducing (Chacón-Díaz, 2021). The over-, under-, or misrepresentation of certain groups’ knowledge and ways of knowing would clearly signal what is science and who can be a scientist.

Methods
I address the following question: Who are STS scholars that have shaped the most-cited NOS scholarship? Using three scholarly databases, we conducted a systematic literature search and review of the most-cited journal articles and book chapters that focused on NOS. This process yielded 92 monographs, of which 47 explicitly cited STS scholars (Group1) and 45 exclusively cited other NOS authors (Group2). Prompted by the question “who appears?” (Ahmed, 2013), I analyzed who were the STS scholars cited by monographs in Group1, and classified them along race/ethnicity and gender. This yielded three non-null categories: white men, white women, and men of color; no women of color STS scholars were cited. I used descriptive statistics to analyze the patterns of who the NOS literature cited.

Results and Discussion
The 47 monographs in Group1 referenced 189 unique STS scholars: white men comprised 85% of citations; white women comprised 14%; only one SouthAsian man was cited. These 189 unique STS scholars were cited 379 times across Group1, with white men authors comprising almost 90% of those citations, while white women accounted for only about 10%. Finally, almost 65% of monographs in Group1 did not cite any monographs authored by a woman STS scholar.

Significance
If we agree that “citation powers the academy” (Burgess, Cormack, Reid, 2021, p. 59), then these analyses suggest that the most influential NOS scholarship primarily comprises how white cismen see and know the natural world, while simultaneously excluding and/or diminishing the representations of science by feminist and/or race STS scholars. An account of science that focuses on the epistemological, ontological, and axiological commitments of white men can further epistemic injustices by alienating minoritized students. Students need a more expansive vision of science and we hope that NOS colleagues heed the call.

Author

• Enrique Suárez, University of Massachusetts - Amherst