Complicating and Countering Exclusion in Science Learning

• In Event: A Conversation Around Challenging the Exclusionary Forces at Work in Mathematics and Science Classrooms

Abstract

Introduction. In science classrooms, a culture of exclusion is constructed by valuing narrow ways of knowing and treating scientists as neutral, objective observers (Louie, 2017; Warren, et al., 2020). To better prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) to disrupt this culture, we are designing and studying a content-focused course to expand what counts in science. This study aims to examine how PSTs construct expansive stances toward science knowledge in this course.

Theory. We conceptualize stance as how participants align themselves and others with respect to knowledge, each other, and their community (Philip, et al., 2018). In stances of enclosure, participants construct alignments that limit how they know and relate with each other and the world. For instance, to construct a stance of enclosure, participants may reject bids to include nondominant forms of knowledge. In expansive stances, participants construct alignments that value multiple possibilities for knowing and relating. For example, to construct a stance of expansion, participants may invite multiple forms of knowledge or validate others’ contributions.

Context/Methods. This study is part of a larger co-design research project on a PST Science Modeling course where students engage in scientific investigations to develop, apply, and evaluate models of natural phenomena. From collected video recordings of class sessions we identified significant interactional episodes (Jordan & Henderson, 1995), developed detailed transcripts, and conducted repeated viewings. In our analysis, we ask: What do PSTs’ stances of expansion that resist culture of exclusion look like in this context?

Findings. We present two episodes from the course to illustrate how stances of expansion were constructed:

In Episode 1, PSTs co-develop a color scale to evaluate the greenness/purpleness of their Wisconsin Fast Plants®. In describing mathematical indices to their classmate with a history background, STEM PSTs collaboratively constructed a narratively-descriptive color scale (the “Grinch-to-Grimace-Index”) resisting dominant constructions of quantification as more legitimate. Here PSTs built off each others’ non-mathematical descriptions for what an index is, intentionally creating a more accessible measurement scale.

In Episode 2, we present a moment in which PSTs resist framing “science as a social activity” and “science as objective” as incompatible. Discussing an assigned reading, several PSTs collaboratively constructed "science as a social activity," by building off each others’ contributions of how "science as objective" obscures sociopolitical dimensions (e.g., research directions funded by corporate and military interests). PSTs made moves of accommodation — neither rejecting nor privileging the notion of '"science as objective," to instead construct objectivity as an instance within a larger category of "science as a social activity." We also consider a complicating element: where one student resisted these moves, and instead constructed dis-alignments positioning these perspectives as incompatible.

Significance. These examples add to a growing body of literature expanding what counts as knowing science, showing how expansiveness is realized (or not) in interactions among PSTs. This episode also shows the pedagogical complexities in responding to sociohistorical power dynamics in creating more expansive science learning environments, inviting questions on making those complexities salient to teachers and teacher educators.

Authors

• Natalie A. De Lucca, Vanderbilt University

• Jessica Watkins, Vanderbilt University