Power and Control in Math and Science Faculty Instruction: A Cultural Strategies Approach

• In Event: Higher Education, Science, and Society

Abstract

While researchers have made important gains in understanding the barriers to meaningful pedagogical change in higher education, there has been surprisingly little attention given to the broader context of power and control embedded in the teaching act. Toward this end, this paper uses a critical sociological framework and multidimensional scaling to explore the underlying principles that differentiate teaching techniques and instructional goals among undergraduate faculty in the natural sciences and mathematics. It is argued that teaching techniques and goals contain important assumptions about the distribution of power and control in the pedagogical relationship between instructors and students. Further, the selective adoption of these techniques and goals is shaped, in part, by a broader competition for scarce scientific and academic resources.

Authors

• Joseph J. Ferrare, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Matthew Tadashi Hora, University of Wisconsin - Madison