Troubling identities: teacher education students' constructions of class and ethnicity

Working with diverse student populations productively depends on teachers and teacher educators recognizing and valuing difference. Too often, in teacher education programs, when markers of identity such as gender, ethnicity, ‘race’, or social class are examined, the focus is on developing student teachers' understandings of how these discourses shape learner identities and rarely on how these also shape teachers' identities. This article reports on a research project that explored how student teachers understand ethnicity and socio‐economic status. In a preliminary stage of the research, we asked eight Year 3 teacher education students who had attended mainly Anglo‐Australian, middle class schools as students and as student teachers, to explore their own ethnic and classed identities. The complexities of identity are foregrounded in both the assumptions we made in selecting particular students for the project and in the ways they constructed their own identities around ethnicity and social class. In this article we draw on these findings to interrogate how categories of identity are fluid, shifting and ongoing processes of negotiation, troubling and complex. We also consider the implications for teacher education.     

Gender positioning in teacher education in England: New rhetoric,old realities

This article presents data from a series of life-history interviews with female student teachers of physical education. The intention is to forge links between the experiences of female student teachers, and their 'gender positioning' within the micro-politics of teacher education and the wider discourse that informs these interactions. On first entering teaching these women tended to adopt or enter 'survival mode', which endorsed particular professional identities that were consolidated by a form of instrumental rationality. These professional identities were closely tied to conventional conceptions of masculinity, and legitimated and contributed to, the reinforcement of particular gender inequalities in teacher education. The analysis suggests that a liberal discourse of equal opportunities masks the institutionalisation of social 'otherness' and inequality and supports the 'essentialisation' of male and female identities.     

Exploring identities to deepen understanding of urban high school students' sexual health decision‐making

Sexual health is a controversial science topic that has received little attention in the field of science education, despite its direct relevance to students' lives and communities. Moreover, research from other fields indicates that a great deal remains to be learned about how to make school learning about sexual health influence the real‐life choices of students. In order to provide a more nuanced understanding of young people's decision‐making, this study examines students' talk about sexual health decision‐making through the lens of identities. Qualitative, ethnographic research methods with twenty 12th grade students attending a New York City public school are used to illustrate how students take on multiple identities in relation to sexual health decision‐making. Further, the study illustrates how these identities are formed by various aspects of students' lives, such as school, family, relationships, and religion, and by societal discourses on topics such as gender, individual responsibility, and morality. The study argues that looking at sexual health decision‐making—and at decision‐making about other controversial science topics—as tied to students' identities provides a useful way for teachers and researchers to grasp the complexity of these decisions, as a step toward creating curriculum that influences them. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:742–762, 2010     

Denying the sexual subject: schools' regulation of student sexuality

This article examines some of the discourses and practices through which schools produce and regulate student sexual identities. It suggests that schools' ‘official culture’ can be seen as a discursive strategy which identifies a preferred student subject that is ‘non‐sexual’. This preference is communicated through the contradictory nature of discourses and practices which constitute ‘official school culture’ around student sexuality. These discourses work to simultaneously acknowledge student sexuality and position young people as ‘childlike’. Through the tension created by these contradictory positionings, schools can be seen to undermine the kind of sexual agency that young people might access to support their sexual well‐being. It is concluded that schools' deployment of discourses around sexuality produces student sexual positionings that may in fact dilute sexuality education's ‘effectiveness’ (in terms of the production of sexually responsible citizens).     

Body talk: students’ identity construction while discussing a socioscientific issue

Vision II school science is often stated to be a democratic and inclusive form of science education. But what characterizes the subject who fits into the Vision II school science? Who is the desirable student and who is constructed as ill-fitting? This article explores discourses that structure the Vision II science classroom, and how different students construct their identities inside these discourses. In the article we consider school science as an order of discourses which restricts and enables what is possible to think and say and what subject-positions those are available and non-available. The results show that students’ talk about a SSI about body and health is constituted by several discourses. We have analyzed how school science discourse, body discourse and general school discourse are structuring the discussions. But these discourses are used in different ways depending on how the students construct their identities in relation to available subject positions, which are dependent on how students at the same time are “doing” gender and social class. As an example, middle class girls show resistance against SSI-work since the practice is threatening their identity as “successful students”. This article uses a sociopolitical perspective in its discussions on inclusion and exclusion in the practice of Vision II. It raises critical issues about the inherited complexity of SSI with meetings and/or collisions between discourses. Even if the empirical results from this qualitative study are situated in specific cultural contexts, they contribute with new questions to ask concerning SSI and Vision II school science.     

Capturing urban student voices in the creation of a science mini‐documentary

It has been widely proposed that student voices should play a crucial role in designing and implementing curriculum and instruction that promote students' engagement in science learning. In this study we examined the voices of two seventh grade boys from a low‐income urban community as they worked together in an after‐school program to create a student‐directed video documentary about science. Our analysis showed that these students used their voices to construct identities that they cared about in school, by reconstructing some aspects of their school identity that did not match who they aspired to be, as well as by gaining new resources to enact their desired identities. The examples provided demonstrate that integrating student voice in a science project can make participation in science a valuable tool in students' identity formation. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 667–694, 2006     

Negotiating multiple identities between school and the outside world: a critical discourse analysis

This article examines interview talk of three students in an Australian high school to show how they negotiate their young adult identities between school and the outside world. It draws on Bakhtin's concepts of dialogism and heteroglossia to argue that identities are linguistically and corporeally constituted. A critical discourse analysis of segments of transcribed interviews and student-related public documents finds a mismatch between a social justice curriculum at school and its transfer into students' accounts of outside school lived realities. The article concludes that a productive social justice pedagogy must use its key principles of (con)textual interrogation to engage students in reflexive practice about their positioning within and against discourses of social justice in their student and civic lives. An impending national curriculum must decide whether or not it negotiates the discursive divide any better.     

Networked texts: discourse,power and gender neutrality in Ugandan physics textbooks

Research within science textbooks has dominantly focused on examining explicit representations of women and men using quantitative methodology. The assumption that gendered arrangements are necessarily explicit and therefore visible and countable, overlooks how power works explicitly and implicitly through discourse to produce specific gendered subjectivities. In taking up feminist post-structuralisms, this study contributes to textbook studies within sciences by illuminating both explicit and implicit representations of gender. Using discourse analysis, ‘gender-neutral’ and/or disembodied subjects and objects were ‘unmasked,’ revealing a generic male and/or masculine subject. Gender-neutrality, which is pervasive within the physics textbooks, was thus exposed as a mask for generic maleness/masculinity. I argue that this objectivist science, which remains compatible with a narrow range of student gendered identities, forecloses possibilities for a wide range of scientist subjectivities, to produce a more inclusive physics curriculum, with a greater possibility of developing physics using diverse subjectivities.     

From professional lives to inclusive practice: Science teachers and scientists' views of gender and ethnicity in science education

To provide insight into issues of gender and ethnicity in science education, we examine the views of approximately 60 secondary science teachers and university scientists from three different research projects. In each project, participants and researcher explored the intersection of professional and personal identities; views of the nature of science; beliefs related to students' experiences in science education; and kinds of curricular and instructional strategies used to promote access and equity for all students. Participants' interviews were analyzed qualitatively for patterns across these four dimensions of inclusive science education. Analysis of data revealed a wide range of beliefs and experiences along each dimension. From our findings, we argue for careful examination of the ways identities shape instructors' professional experiences and educational practices; critical, constructive conversations about feminist science studies scholarship between professional developers and science teachers or scientists; and reasoned reflection on how views of students can inform recommendations for inclusive content and instruction. We conclude with the call for increased sophistication in the conceptualization and implementation of solutions to the “problem” of women and ethnic minorities in science education, for balancing recognition of systematic gender and ethnic bias with sensitivity to instructors and students' diverse interests and experiences. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 511–547, 2000     

Promoting science motivation in American Indian middle school students: an intervention

U.S. national data show that American Indians earn lower math and science scores than other ethnic/racial groups. In the current study, a brief, self-affirmation intervention was aimed at increasing science motivational beliefs in American Indian middle school students (n?=?212, M_age?=?12.7 years). Students, each read a biography of a successful scientist who was matched to them on both ethnicity and gender; ethnicity but not gender; gender but not ethnicity; or no match. Students then wrote a short essay describing traits they shared with the scientist. Pre- and post-intervention science self-efficacy, individual interest, and goal orientations were measured to assess intervention efficacy immediately following the intervention and one week later. Results revealed no benefits of the intervention in increasing motivational beliefs for students in any experimental condition. We discuss the fragile fidelity of self-affirmation interventions and conditions that might be necessary for intervention success.     

Race And Ethnicity: Powerful Cultural Forecasters Of Science Learning And Performance

This article addresses the impact of race and ethnicity on students' science learning in US schools. Specifically, it discusses (a) the constructs of race, ethnicity, and culture, and the racial and ethnic student composition in US public schools; (b) effective classroom practices for curriculum, instruction, and assessment related to race and ethnicity; and (c) future policy and practice regarding race and ethnicity in science education. We discuss the science learning and teaching of African American, Latino, and Asian American students. Even though Asian American students are viewed as the model minority, some struggle with science learning, because their languages and cultures are seen as hurdles. As there is little defendable science education research related to Native Americans at the precollege level, we remain silent in this area.     

Understanding the science experiences of successful women of color: Science identity as an analytic lens

In this study, we develop a model of science identity to make sense of the science experiences of 15 successful women of color over the course of their undergraduate and graduate studies in science and into science‐related careers. In our view, science identity accounts both for how women make meaning of science experiences and how society structures possible meanings. Primary data included ethnographic interviews during students' undergraduate careers, follow‐up interviews 6 years later, and ongoing member‐checking. Our results highlight the importance of recognition by others for women in the three science identity trajectories: research scientist; altruistic scientist; and disrupted scientist. The women with research scientist identities were passionate about science and recognized themselves and were recognized by science faculty as science people. The women with altruistic scientist identities regarded science as a vehicle for altruism and created innovative meanings of “science,” “recognition by others,” and “woman of color in science.” The women with disrupted scientist identities sought, but did not often receive, recognition by meaningful scientific others. Although they were ultimately successful, their trajectories were more difficult because, in part, their bids for recognition were disrupted by the interaction with gendered, ethnic, and racial factors. This study clarifies theoretical conceptions of science identity, promotes a rethinking of recruitment and retention efforts, and illuminates various ways women of color experience, make meaning of, and negotiate the culture of science. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 1187–1218, 2007     

Mathematics Teachers' Positions and Practices in Discourses of Assessment

Recent curriculum reforms have led to a wider variety of methods of assessment in formal 'high stakes' assessment regimes in many countries. Morgan's study of mathematics coursework assessment in UK schools identified a number of positions adopted by teachers as they assessed student texts. Using Bernstein's theoretical framework, we revisit Morgan's study in order to construct a model for understanding teachers' assessment practices and positionings. The model consists of opposing forms, generated by modelling agencies, agents, practices and specialised forms of communication, to identify their principles of construction, displayed as changes in the strength of boundary. This helps to distinguish practices of assessment as different modalities of regulation, and to understand the tensions within and between discourses and practices. Thus, for example, by interpreting tensions between discourses of 'mathematical investigation' and of 'assessment' in terms of the contradictory demands made by different modes of pedagogic practice, we can reveal the social assumptions of the pedagogic discourse.     

Boys and Literacy: Lessons from Australia

ABSTRACT This paper examines the complexity of the issues associated with boys and literacy. It initially reviews Australian research documenting gender differences in literacy performance, highlighting the interplay between gender, class and ethnicity within this research. It then develops a framework for considering the interconnectedness between literacy, various masculinities, and schooling. The paper argues that literacy, as it is constructed in the school, becomes a domain of knowledge and a set of technologies that run counter to various dominant constructions of masculinity. As a result, school literacy is often in contrast to other electronic and visually-based 'literacy skills' that boys have access to. The paper suggests an approach which works with social constructions of masculinity, and discourses on 'critical literacy', to provide strategies for boys' literacy education that will not be in conflict with the education of girls reform agenda of the past 20 years.     

Can middle‐school science textbooks help students learn important ideas? Findings from project 2061's curriculum evaluation study: Life science

The transfer of matter and energy from one organism to another and between organisms and their physical setting is a fundamental concept in life science. Not surprisingly, this concept is common to the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993 ), the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996 ), and most state frameworks and likely to appear in any middle‐school science curriculum material. Nonetheless, while topics such as photosynthesis and cellular respiration have been taught for many years, research on student learning indicates that students have difficulties learning these ideas. In this study, nine middle‐school curriculum materials—both widely used and newly developed—were examined in detail for their support of student learning ideas concerning matter and energy transformations in ecosystems specified in the national standards documents. The analysis procedure used in this study was previously developed and field tested by Project 2061 of the AAAS on a variety of curriculum materials. According to our findings, currently available curriculum materials provide little support for the attainment of the key ideas chosen for this study. In general, these materials do not take into account students' prior knowledge, lack representations to clarify abstract ideas, and are deficient in phenomena that can be explained by the key ideas and hence can make them plausible. This article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this study to curriculum development, teaching, and science education research based on shortcomings in today's curricula. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 538–568, 2004     

Gendered distribution of ‘knowledge required for empowerment’ in Swedish vocational education curricula?

Sweden is internationally commended for a high degree of gender equality, but many divisions in Swedish society, including the labour market, disadvantage women. This paper addresses gendered divisions of preparation for civic participation in the vocational upper secondary national curricula, which may participate in reproduction of the pattern. In a comparative analysis of the curriculum guidelines for different vocational upper secondary programmes, we focus on the inclusion of important knowledge for empowerment and how knowledge is contextualised in terms of valued labour positions. We deploy Bernstein’s concepts of horizontal and vertical discourse and Connell’s concepts of production, consumption and gendered accumulation. A general finding is that vertical discourse is contextualised towards discourses of consumption in girl-dominated programmes and towards discourses of production in boy-dominated programmes. Boy-dominated programmes include more knowledge that can be clearly classified in recognised disciplines or fields, whereas girl-dominated programmes include courses of undefined knowledge, such as creativity and entrepreneurship. We conclude that the vocational curricula reinforce rather than challenge existing gender structures in the labour market and wider society. In a historical perspective, it can be concluded that Swedish vocational education policy has a continuum of ‘gender-blindness', and thus confirming with wider norms.     

What counts as knowing: Constructing a communicative repertoire for student demonstration of knowledge in science

The purpose of this study was twofold. One purpose was to identify the locally negotiated literate practices that defined ways of communicating information and knowledge across the curriculum in a fourth/fifth grade classroom. Through an ethnographic and sociolinguistic set of analyses, this investigation illustrated how the teacher worked to construct a learning environment that valued the use of multiple discourses as a way of communicating competence as a learner. Another purpose was specifically to address the ways that these practices contributed to student demonstration of knowledge in science. This was accomplished by an analysis of one student's presentation of science knowledge after a study of simple machines. A comparative analysis between his use of two discourses, written and oral, showed that the opportunity to choose between multiple discourses led to his success in demonstrating competence in ways that may have otherwise remained questionable. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 139–165, 2005