The Bilingual University - General Reflections on its Origins,Mission, and Functioning

The bilingual university is a product of certain linguistic contexts and traditions. It is also the product of the political and social conditions prevailing at the time the given institution was founded. The origins of bilingual universities are more frequently political, without excluding their social raison d'etre . Their missions are closely linked to their specific situations and to the needs of their regions. Establishing, maintaining, and developing a bilingual policy at a university is a complex and delicate matter. Although a bilingual university is more expensive than a monolingual one, it may represent an acceptable alternative in the case of a multicultural environment. Even if English is gradually becoming a lingua franca of higher education and science, universities operating in smaller regional languages stand a good chance of being multiplied. In such a context, the bilingual university might be an institutional alternative.     

Explanation and metaphor: Some empirical questions in science education

This paper examines how science education becomes institutionalized in Third World countries using Malaysia as a case study. The findings shows that the development of science education in Malaysia has been greatly influenced by international trends and the country's socio‐political development. Science gained a place in the school curriculum in the midst of British colonial rule. The strong colonial influence on school science continued throughout the early independence period but, in the 1980s, external influences on science education came from both Western and Islamic countries. In each of the historical periods, external world cultural forces interacted with internal socio‐political forces resulting in a national science curriculum which is in accord with world cultural rules but at the same time quite indigenous in character. This study also suggests that while each nation‐state aspires to develop an indigenous form of science education that would best suit the national context, the outcome tends to be more universalistic than particularistic due to global influences.     

Portraying Science as Humanism – A Historical Case Study of Cultural Boundary Work from the Dawn of the ‘Atomic Age’

In the late 1950s, when a new curriculum for the Danish upper secondary school was under construction, the reform debates on science were strongly concerned with the scarcity of technologically and scientifically educated labour, and thus relations between science, technology and welfare were stressed. Simultaneously however, the relationship between science and humanism was likewise emphasised and discussed. It is this latter issue that is the subject of analysis here. I argue that describing science as a form of humanism served a number of different purposes both within and without a narrow school context. It was far from clear what the practical consequences of this rhetorical figure was to be, although some attempts were made within the new curriculum plan to break down the boundaries between the sciences and the humanities. However, picturing science as humanism also served legitimising functions both with regards to the new science curriculum and with regards to a general political program of progress and welfare through support of science and education. Thus, the curriculum debates on science education were part of a much broader cultural and political debate in which the image of science was negotiated and transformed. Such curriculum debates can, I argue, be understood as cultural boundary work in Thomas Gieryn’s sense.     

Reworking the science curriculum: A case study in the interdependence between introductory biology and multiculturalism

Multiculturalism has emerged as the major influence in revising science curricula and teaching, yet misunderstanding about the history and theoretical underpinnings of multiculturalism has made the separation of political and education reform contentious and difficult. Within the context of a new college-wide pluralism and diversity requirement, a large introductory biology course at Hunter College of the City University of New York is now the testing ground for an interdependent model of multicultural education. The implications for multiculturalism, science pedagogy, and the pivotal role of introductory courses are discussed.     

The political is personal: reflections on facilitating action research in gender issues in science education

Action research is emerging as a promising means of promoting individual and societal change in the context of university programmes in teacher education. However, significant gaps exist in the literature regarding the use of action research groups for the education of science teachers. Therefore, an action research group, dealing with gender issues in science education, was established within the context of a graduate course in action research at OISE/UT. The group met 14 times from September of 1992 until May 1993, and consisted of the author and five other science teachers from the Toronto area. Two of us were in the primary panel, two in the intermediate panel and two in the tertiary panel. Five teachers are female and one male. The experiences of the group form the basis of this study. A methodology of participant observation supported by interviews, classroom visits, journals, group feedback and participant portfolios provided a means of examining our experiences from the perspectives of the participants in the group. This case study examines the development of the author as a participant, researcher and facilitator of action research through a critical examination of group dynamics and power issues arising within the action research group. The results of this study confirm that facilitators should undertake their own action research within the context of their groups in order to examine their own taken-for-granted assumptions about teaching and learning. Through such reflections, we will continue to problematise the social and political aspects of science education, and make explicit how the political is personal for each of us as science educators.     

Books,Teachers, and Committees‐‐a Comparative Essay on Authority in Science Education

Summaries

English

In this essay, Professor Peter Fensham examines the respective roles of books, teachers and committees as source and authority of scientific information in the context of school science education. In his comparative analysis of recent curriculum development trends in the USA, England and Australia, he detects significant differences in what is accepted in the different countries as ‘authority about science knowledge’ and argues that these differences emerge from the different historical, political and economic development of the three apparently similar countries.     

政治系统分析:成就、挑战及前景

政治学家运用系统科学的理论和方法，在政治学概念结构、个案研究和单项概括、局部理论及一般理论的构建中取得了很大成就，但同时也受到了一些批评并面临着系统科学发展的挑战。另一方面，系统科学与自身发展不足的现状在一定程度上又制约了政治系统分析的发展，但它毕竟为政治系统分析提供了许多可供借鉴的新理论、新方法和新思路。     

Designing science laboratories: learning environments,school architecture and teaching and learning models

This article on secondary schools science laboratories in Portugal focuses on how school space functions as a pedagogical and political instrument by contributing to shape the conditions for teaching and learning dynamics. The article places the impact of changes to school layouts within the larger context of a public school renovation programme, discussing how school space functions as a pedagogical and political instrument. The focus is on science laboratories as a particular learning environment for science education. The study, conducted between 2010 and 2011 in 13 renovated schools within the framework of the Portuguese Secondary School Modernisation Programme, drew on document analysis, interviews, pupil and teacher surveys and site-specific focus groups. One of the main findings is that teachers found that science laboratories were the most controversial and debated of all the renovated learning spaces. Considering that the science laboratory layout was intended to be universal across all schools, there was little intervention by the architects responsible for the renovation of the schools. Focusing on the analysis of the decision to change the science laboratory design within the aims of the education policy, this article discusses how teachers’ criticisms were a response to some of the educational policy goals underlying the renovation of school buildings and the potential impact on science education, namely, the relationship between flexibility of space organisation and pedagogical approaches.     

京津冀高校思政教育协同发展的问题与策略

京津冀高校思想政治教育协同发展取得重大进展。党和国家高度重视,三地教育主管部门积极推动,三地高校思想政治教育领域日渐频繁的交流均为高校思政教育协同发展奠定基础。同时,存在统筹规划不足,教育资源分布不均衡,"一亩三分地"思维定势等问题。京津冀高校应秉持实事求是、合作共赢的态度,构建促进协同发展的机制并落实具体措施,推动京津冀思政教育协同发展,为国家构建立德树人的大思政格局助力。     

Becoming an urban science teacher: How beginning teachers negotiate contradictory school contexts

Teacher attrition rates are high in urban schools, particularly for new science teachers. Little research has addressed how science teachers can be prepared to effectively bridge the divide between preparation and urban teaching. We utilized the theoretical frameworks of social justice, identity, and structure-agency to investigate this transition. Specifically, we examined the Urban Science Teacher Preparation (USTP) program as a critical case of “well-prepared” urban science teachers. Study participants included one cohort of four teachers. Data, primarily from individual interviews, a focus group, and written reflections, were collected from participants during pre-service preparation and their first year of teaching. The USTP program nurtured the development of a professional identity aligned with teaching science for social justice, with a unique emphasis on identifying structural injustices in schools. Findings indicate all four teachers used their identities to negotiate school policies and procedures that restricted student opportunities to learn science through three processes: deconstructing the context, positioning themselves within and against the context, and enacting their identities. These findings suggest the importance of USTP programs to provide teacher candidates with political clarity for teaching for social justice and sustained induction support to resist school socialization pressures.     

National Science Education Standards: A political document

The National Science Education Standards provides a vision teaching and learning science for the science education system and criteria to measure progress toward that vision. The document contains standards for content, teaching, assessment, three major levers of change identified by policy analysts. The Standards also include program standards for schools and districts and system standards. This article describes how the Standards were developed within a political context, through a process with political aspects and includes political intents. It closes with recommendations about why and how science education researchers might engage in the political process. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 711–727, 1998.     

Learning to argue as a biotechnologist: disprivileging opposition to genetically modified food

In the public discussion of genetically modified (GM) food the representations of science as a social good, conducted in the public interest to solve major problems are being subjected to intense scrutiny and questioning. Scientists working in these areas have been seen to struggle for the position of science in society. However few in situ studies of how the debate about science appears in learning situations at the university level have been undertaken. In the present study an introductory course in biotechnology was observed during one semester, lectures and small group supervision concerning GM food were videotaped and student’s reports on the issue were collected. The ethnographic approach to Discourse analysis was conducted by means of a set of carefully selected and representative observations of how a group of students learn to argue and appropriate views held in the Discourse they are enculturated into. While socio-scientific issues (SSIs) are often associated with achieving scientific literacy in terms of “informed decisions” involving “rational thought and Discourse” this study shows that SSI in practice, in the context studied here, is primarily concerned with using scientific language to privilege professional understandings of GMOs and discredit public worries and concerns. Scientific claims were privileged over ethical, economical and political claims which were either made irrelevant or rebutted. The students were seen to appropriate a Discourse model held in the biotechnological community that public opposition towards GMO is due to “insufficient knowledge”. The present study offers insights into biotechnology students’ decision making regarding socio-scientific issues, while also demonstrating the utility of Discourse analysis for understanding learning in this university context. Implications for reflection on the institutional Discourse of science and teaching of controversial issues in science are drawn and the study contributes to the investigation of claims of scientific literacy coupled to SSIs and argumentation     

Positivism and post-World War I elementary school reform in Ontario

Following the end of World War I, the Ontario Department of Education initiated a series of reforms aimed at both elementary and secondary schooling. This article examines the reforms that were made to elementary school curriculum and pedagogy. These were initiated within the context of a call for a general reconstruction of education and society as a response to the tragic consequences of World War I. They were also based on a series of denunciations that identified scientific materialism, the unity of science and psychology, as the principal causes of war. In numerous public declarations, the religious, political, and education elite of the province expressed their belief that scientific materialism and the unity of science posed an obstacle to the development of education in the province. Although these reforms were the result of a political assessment that fervently rejected scientism, they were, in fact, underpinned by a positivist science that entailed processes of counting, measuring, and sorting to build a system of state-directed human capital formation. This article considers the nature of the scientific knowledge that underscored elementary school reform and assesses whether it represented a significant departure or simply a reconfiguration of knowledge and techniques that ensured the state’s ability to govern and administrate.     

Which Multiculturalism?

This paper discusses the debates around multiculturalism both as a politics of recognition and as a proposed epistemic position in the context of science education. It concludes that there are neither uncontroversial ethical and political grounds, nor tenable epistemic reasons, for linking a multiculturalist approach to science education with a non-universalist approach to science, nor for a refusal to make evaluative comparisons between different sorts of knowledge claims originating in different cultures.     

A Case Study of Elementary Science Teaching as Mediated Action: Transformations of Context,Meaning, and Action

The research described in this article is a case study of a fifth grade teacher's (Melissa) efforts to construct a teaching and learning environment within her science teaching. Qualitative research methods were used to examine and analyze Melissa's science teaching practice. Drawing from socio-cultural theories, I argue that her teaching and learning environment was constructed as a form of mediated action through which she articulated and transformed the context, meaning, and action of her science teaching. In particular, she forged links between a number of factors, such as historically recognizable forms of pedagogy, perceptions of her students' socio-economic positions, knowledge of appropriate science teaching, and her experiences in a preservice teacher education program. Through her pedagogical work, the teaching and learning environment was articulated into a complex network of meanings, physical spaces, and concrete actions in which each element transformed the other. I suggest that mediated action is a form of transformation that constitutes context, meaning, and action into a dynamic and constantly-shifting teaching and learning environment. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

民主执政是党执政能力的核心

科学执政、民主执政、依法执政是党提高执政能力的重要目标。民主执政是这个重要目标的核心，这是由中国特色的政治制度和政党制度决定的。科学是民主的产物，没有民主理念和启蒙运动对迷信和专制的荡涤。科学就不会昌盛，民主本身就是科学。依法执政总是以民主为前提，没有民主就不可能科学地立法。更不会产生有效执法。依法执政是民主执政的本质要求。     

Multiple Aims in the Development of a Major Reform of the National Curriculum for Science in England

In the context of a major reform of the school science curriculum for 14–16‐year‐olds in England, we examine the aims ascribed to the reform, the stakeholders involved, and the roles of differing values and authority in its development. This reform includes an emphasis on socioscientific issues and the nature of science; curriculum trends of international relevance. Our analysis identifies largely ‘instrumental’ aims, with little emphasis on ‘intrinsic’ aims and associated values. We identify five broad categories of stakeholders focusing on different aims with, for example, a social, individual, political, or economic emphasis. We suggest that curriculum development projects reflecting largely social and individual aims were appropriated by other stakeholders to serve political and economic aims. We argue that a curriculum reform body representing all stakeholder interests is needed to ensure that multiple aims are considered throughout the curriculum reform process. Within such a body, the differentiated character of the science teaching community would need to be represented.     

和谐社会语境中建立大学生教育新理念

构建社会主义和谐社会现已成为当今中国社会的发展目标,已成为中国共产党的政治理念和政治理想,已成为中国共产党倡导和推广的核心价值观.在和谐社会语境中,大学生的思想政治教育、人文素质教育、科学创新教育须要赋予和谐的理念,并使三者融会贯通.     

Social control as a factor in science curriculum change

The contemporary school science curriculum may be regarded as the end‐product of a smooth evolutionary process or as the outcome of a series of decisions made by powerful individuals. The latter view is taken here and an attempt is made to interpret those decisions in terms of the vested interests of the decision makers. Attention is drawn to the need to scrutinize all proposals for science curriculum reform for underlying socio‐political motivation.