Ruling Relations and Enactment of Activist Science Education in Early Secondary School Science

• In Event: 63.084 - Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: 63.084-5 - Science Education Pedagogies 1

Abstract

This study investigated one teacher’s experiences implementing activist-based science education in a grade 10 school science class. Institutional ethnographic perspectives and methodologies, which aim to identify and describe reproductive patterns of institutional activity (ruling relations), were used to collect data on school/institutional factors that enabled activist activities, as well as those that resisted them. The teacher was able to develop activist-based lessons, however school/ institutional factors appear to have imposed a non-ideal linear progression of lesson delivery that limited the extent to which the teacher could enact activist-based lessons. Students demonstrated relatively weak commitment to activism. We discuss these findings in the context of school science ruling relations that appear to marginalise, rather than support, teacher and student activism.

Authors

• Darren Glen Hoeg, University of Toronto - OISE

• Tanya Williamson

• John Lawrence Bencze, OISE/University of Toronto