“What’s This?” Script, Counterscript, and Heterogeneity in a Nature Center (Poster 43)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Thursday 1:45 p.m.
  In Poster Session: Innovative Designs and Novel Lines of Inquiry in Formal and Informal Learning Environments

Abstract

Moves toward equity in science education must involve de-linking from colonial matrices of power (Mignolo, 2007) and reimagining disciplinary learning beyond colonial terms (Warren et al., 2020). Warren et al. (2020) advocate for decolonizing disciplinary learning by embracing multiple ways of knowing. In this ethnographic study, we observed interactions among staff, caretakers, and children in a nature center–a learning environment designed to educate visitors about the natural world. We asked: How do interactional patterns in a nature center reflect multiple ways of knowing? We identified a dominant interactional script in the nature center that privileges Westernized, settled scientific knowledge and colonial logics. However, we also identified counterscripts that reflect three sensibilities of onto-epistemic heterogeneity: multiplicity, horizontality, and dialogicality.

Authors

• Molly C. Marek, University of Texas at Austin

• Carla Robinson, University of Texas at Austin