The Outsized Influence of "Nature of Science" on How We Position Science Learners

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

Abstract

Objectives
Our analysis of Nature of Science (NOS) literature demonstrates an overrepresentation of white male scholars. Whereas, critical scholars continue to push against normative constructs of NOS which are embedded in curriculum, pedagogies, and practices which children encounter in science classrooms on a daily basis. In this paper I argue that NOS as a construct has had a massive and deleterious impact on the field of science education.

Perspective(s)
In this paper, I am predominantly concerned with the construct of NOS and the ways it is taken up by science teachers, curriculum developers, and most importantly learners. The overarching question is, how do we reframe nature of science in ways that allow youth and teachers to develop understanding, engage in critical science practices, ask ethical questions about their investigations, and to participate in the generation of transformational knowledge?

Methods
Leveraging the same set of papers and techniques as the previous papers, my focus for paper three is on the ways that the NOS literature positions both youth and adult learners. Considering the ways in which persons are positioned in relationship to structures of social practice has been taken up in psychology (Dreier, 2009) and in education (Bell et al., 2012) two frameworks that help to inform this work. Understanding adult learning with respect to NOS concepts is relevant for our inquiry because of the ways that NOS shapes curricula for teacher candidates, in-service teacher professional development, and consequently those teachers’ approaches to working with young people. During our analysis of the extant literature, I focused on this question: “How do scholars position learners in relation to NOS?”

Results and Discussion
The NOS literature discusses youth and what scholars believe young people can do or should engage with when it comes to developing an understanding of science. We have identified a gap between the ways that NOS scholars understand science as changeable and as a collaborative human endeavor and the ways in which they advocate teaching it to young people as stable and immutable body of language. The language that scholars use has a deficit framing of youth and adult scholars. The NOS scholars typically frame learners’ (adults and youth) as wrong or misconceptions.

Significance
There is an enduring tension around what it means for teachers and young people to do science. NOS scholars are engaging in a strange telephone game which results in young people experiencing an adulterated version of science, created multiple steps and interlocutors between what counts as science, and what young people actually do in classrooms. Currently most young people are engaging in a faded facsimile of science that has been adulterated by a deficit framing of their capabilities and shapes what it means to do science, and the science they get to engage in while they are learning about what it means to be a scientist.

Author

• Déana Scipio, IslandWood