Children's understanding of substances,Part 2: Explaining chemical change

This is the second part of a paper which focuses on the idea of chemical change (see Johnson 2000). The reported data comes from a study which explored the development of children's concept of a substance (ages 11-14). It examines the use of the ideas of elements, compounds and the bonding between atoms to explain chemical change and the intersection of these ideas with 'basic' particle ideas. Evidence is presented which suggests that the particle ideas were the means by which the pupils came to acknowledge the phenomenon of chemical change, having been unmoved by a macroscopic approach which identified substances by melting and boiling point. Furthermore, a basic particle model in which individual particles still retained the macroscopic properties of the substance was found to inhibit an understanding of chemical change. Findings with respect to a burning candle are reported in a separate section. Important implications for teaching are discussed.     

What is this Substance? What Makes it Different? Mapping Progression in Students’ Assumptions about Chemical Identity

Given the diversity of materials in our surroundings, one should expect scientifically literate citizens to have a basic understanding of the core ideas and practices used to analyze chemical substances. In this article, we use the term ‘chemical identity' to encapsulate the assumptions, knowledge, and practices upon which chemical analysis relies. We conceive chemical identity as a core crosscutting disciplinary concept which can bring coherence and relevance to chemistry curricula at all educational levels, primary through tertiary. Although chemical identity is not a concept explicitly addressed by traditional chemistry curricula, its understanding can be expected to evolve as students are asked to recognize different types of substances and explore their properties. The goal of this contribution is to characterize students' assumptions about factors that determine chemical identity and to map how core assumptions change with training in the discipline. Our work is based on the review and critical analysis of existing research findings on students' alternative conceptions in chemistry education, and historical and philosophical analyses of chemistry. From this perspective, our analysis contributes to the growing body of research in the area of learning progressions. In particular, it reveals areas in which our understanding of students' ideas about chemical identity is quite robust, but also highlights the existence of major knowledge gaps that should be filled in to better foster student understanding. We provide suggestions in this area and discuss implications for the teaching of chemistry.     

论习近平新时代生态文明思想及其现实意义

习近平新时代生态文明思想,既是传承马克思主义经典作家生态文明理念的结果,也是发扬我国传统优秀生态文明思想的结果,更是立足于新时代我国社会主义生态文明建设新要求的必然趋势,它是习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想的重要组成部分,这一新思想的产生有着深厚的理论基础、丰富的传统养料和多维的科学内涵。这一新思想对于满足人民对美好生活的需要,实现人民对建成美丽中国和全面小康社会的愿望,以及推进中国特色社会主义生态文明建设不断取得新胜利都有着极其丰富的现实意义。     

Rethinking the introduction of particle theory: A substance‐based framework

In response to extensive research exposing students' poor understanding of the particle theory of matter, this article argues that the conceptual framework within which the theory is introduced could be a limiting factor. The standard school particle model is characterized as operating within a “solids, liquids, and gases” framework. Drawing on an analysis of scientific ideas on matter and research into students' understanding, issues arising from the framework are identified which could contribute towards students' well known difficulties. The analysis leads to the proposal for a particle model based within the framework of the concept of a substance. Results from two exploratory studies using the substance‐based particle model with children (ages 9–10) in two contrasting elementary schools in England are then reported. After a short teaching intervention with a class in each school, individual interviews were held with a sample of 12 students from each class. Data were collected on students' understanding of substances coexisting in different room temperature states and phenomena involving changes of state and mixing. The results gave useful feedback on the specification of the model and its teaching. Overall the students' engagement with the particle ideas was encouraging and suggests a larger scale testing of the substance‐based model is merited. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:130–150, 2010     

European Identity in the Young and Dutch Students' Images of Germany and the Germans

In discussions on the unification of Europe the concept of 'European identity' looms large. European politicians are particularly anxious that the young generation should develop a European identity. This article poses some epistemological and methodological problems of attitude research concerning Europe and national stereotypes. It presents various qualitative studies to demonstrate the complexity of the concept of national or European identity. The written material and group discussions of Dutch pupils demonstrate, among other things, that children are capable of reflecting on stereotyping mechanisms. The hypothesis is launched that interaction situationsimagined ones (written material) as well as real ones (group discussion)-mitigate negative stereotypes and set reflection in motion. On the basis of the results suggestions are made for educators and politicians in the field of 'European education'.     

'Intelligentsia' as an Ethnic Habitus: The inculcation and restructuring of intelligentsia among Russian Jews

This study employs Bourdieu's concept of 'habitus' as an analytical tool to reveal how the notion of 'intelligentsia' is inculcated, transposed and generative during socialisation, and becomes a constitutive force in Russian Jews' personal and collective identity. This analysis is based on the reading of life histories narrated by 43 Russian Jewish university students who have been living in Israel since the 1990s. The findings reveal four distinct socialisation practices employed by the Russian Jewish family in inculcating a notion of belonging to the intelligentsia, and how this notion was restructured in adolescence in Jewish informal frameworks that became widespread during Perestroika. The study corroborates Bourdieu's thesis about the formative force of early socialisation and verifies the transposal quality of habitus--its ability to adjust to major biographical and social-historical changes. The discussion proposes that considering both kinds of change sheds light on the dynamics of habitus in socialisation.     

Exploring ‘Gift’ Theories for New Immigrants' Literacy Education in Taiwan

This paper addresses ‘the gift’ as the central concept in a discussion about the literacy education for new immigrants that has been developing in Taiwan since the early 1990s. The point of departure for this discussion is the advent of international marriages that are the consequence of new arrivals from Southeast Asia and China, and their effect guest/host relationship. In the first half of the article, I apply Marcel Mauss' idea of gift in order to examine the interactions within this host/guest relationship, engaging the ideologies that underpin the new immigrants' literacy education, and the ways in which new immigrants are identified in Taiwanese society. In the second half of this article, I use Jacques Derrida's critique of Mauss' theory of the gift to explore Derrida's own idea of the gift, with the particular objective of evaluating the question of how national identity in Taiwanese society relates to the new immigrants' literacy education policy.     

Producing Whiteness: An exploration of working-class white men in two contexts1

In this essay we enter the terrain of 'whiteness' studies, drawing upon data gathered in two ethnographic investigations conducted in a large northeastern city in the United States. In the first study we focus on the ways in which whiteness among working-class men emerges in relation to a constructed 'other', in this case a black/Latino other who is held to have unpleasant characteristics. In the second, we problematize the idea that the white European self emerges necessarily in relation to that of a constructed 'dark other' by focusing on white working-class Irish adults who frequent an Irish community centre in the same city. We explore the ways in which the presence of particular spaces within which ethnic identities can flourish may blunt the effects of possible intergroup violence based on the production of a white identity and at the same time potentially encourage a multi-racial set of political coalitions.     

The Ambivalence of Community: A Critical Analysis of Rural Education's Oldest Trope

The concept of community has been central to the discourse of rural education for generations. At the same time, community has been and continues to be a deeply problematic concept. I begin this analysis with Raymond Williams's characterization of the idea of community as a uniquely positive concept, arguing that this framing is, as Williams pointed out, deeply problematic. This paper interrogates the idea of community and looks at the way it has been used historically in rural education as well as some of the ways that it is understood and used in educational, social science, policy, and governance discourses today. In this analysis I draw on the foundational communitarian analysis of American social thinkers Paul Theobald and Robert Putnam as well as on Williams's critical analysis of rurality and community. I argue that effective rural educational policy today needs to problematize the idea of community and develop it in ways that avoids playing into nostalgic and retrogressive notions of the rural. This argument is based on a conception of place that keeps in focus multiple and complex understandings of emerging postproductivist rural spaces.     

Social difference,cultural arbitrary and identity: An analysis of a new national curriculum document in a non-secular environment

This article focuses on the idea of the Curriculum as a 'selection from the cultures of society' and as a site of contestation for legitimacy and identity affirmation. The purpose is to shed some light on the nature of curricular reform being advocated in a specific context - Malta. Throughout the past four years, there has been a revamping of the National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) document in Malta, established in 1988. The 'old' National Minimum Curriculum was subject to criticism focusing on a variety of issues (echoing criticisms levelled at similar National Curricula elsewhere), including issues concerning difference and identity. The first part of the article deals briefly with the issues concerning difference raised in this criticism, focusing on the issues of class, race/ethnicity, gender and disability. The second part focuses on the long and gradual build up towards the development of the new National Curriculum document. The process centres around two documents, the preliminary Tomorrow's Schoolsdocument and the draft NMC document. The issues of equity and the affirmation of social difference, as well as the move towards de-streaming, are discussed. It is argued that this process of reform benefited from the criticism of the earlier NMC document. The process of reform involved an attempt at widespread participation by various stakeholders - parents, teachers, students, unions, women's organisations, disabled person's organisations etc. The final section focuses on the final new NMC document. In this section, the authors explore the compromises, which have been made in reaction to the draft document, indicating the interests at play. Whose cultural arbitrary is reflected in the final document? The article concludes with a discussion centring around lessons to be drawn from a process of curricular reform, involving issues related to identity and difference, carried out in a country characterised by a non-secular environment.     

Processes of 'Change' and 'Continuity' in Educational Psychology--Part I

The present paper is concerned with processes of 'change' and 'continuity' and their application to educational psychology. It argues that educational psychologists (EPs) need to be aware of and reflect regularly about 'change' and 'continuity' in their profession as a means of evaluating their own short- and long-term development. Such examination includes assessing the impact of external changes on EP practice. In identifying conceptual features of 'change' and 'continuity', the paper claims that 'change' is 'learning', and suggests a list of prerequisites if change is considered. The paper also provides the foundation for the presentation of an exploratory research project into 'change' and 'continuity' in educational psychology, discussed in Part II.     

Gender Politics and Conceptions of the Modern Teacher: Women,identity and professionalism

The main purpose of this paper is to critique the concepts of 'teacher professionalism' and 'professional identity' as they are currently manifest in the field of teaching and teacher education from two related feminist perspectives. In the first instance, feminist critiques of liberal democracy are drawn upon to expose the gendered assumptions which underlie dominant conceptions of the 'professional' teacher. Particular attention is paid to the now dominant view of the teacher as a rational and instrumental actor, and its gendered dimensions are explored. Second, the gender dualisms which reside at the heart of the concept 'teacher professionalism' are identified and discussed. The discussion is then widened to examine the role of gender politics in shaping the epistemological premises upon which teacher professionalism is developed and its more formative role in the exploitation of women teachers' labours. Drawing upon examples of current feminist research and my own preliminary empirical data, the paper concludes by presenting an alternative conceptual framework for assessing the gendered nature of identity formation in teaching.     

Effect of the kinesthetic conflict on promoting scientific reasoning

The importance of the kinesthetic-cognitive conflict (bodily experience that contradicts cognition) in the development of thinking is rooted in Piaget's theory. This article presents three studies which demonstrate the efficiency of the kinesthetic conflict in promoting the understanding of three scientific concepts among children aged 5–12. The first study examines the effect of the kinesthetic conflict on promoting the concept of length in children aged 4.5–5.5 years; the second study compares the effect of four types of cognitive conflicts—two physical ones (visual and kinesthetic) and two social ones (between peers and between children and adults)—on promoting the concept of balance among children aged 5–6 years; and the third study compares the effect of the kinesthetic conflict with the visual conflict on promoting the concept of speed among sixth graders. In all three studies, the kinesthetic conflict was found to be the most efficient in causing a significant cognitive change. The results support Piaget's theory which determines that scientific thinking begins with the sensomotoric experience of the physical surroundings. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 34: 1083–1099, 1997.     

Sustainability,Higher Education and the Learning Society

The Dearing Report emphasised the idea of a 'learning society' as the new context of UK higher education, but conceived this on a model of adaptivity to economically- and technologically-driven change. While there are real shifts in their social relations here with which universities have to reckon, they can also be understood on a much richer model of exploratory social intelligence. The growing concern for environmental sustainability is both a recognition of the need for this alternative model, and a major ground of its importance.     

Self,Space and Place: Youth identities and citizenship

This paper is concerned with questions of identity, citizenship and social change as these are experienced by young people in the UK today. In the course of recent changes to the context and content of youth transitions the notion of citizenship has come to the fore as a means of discussing young people's move into independent membership of society. Debates about citizenship in the UK currently encompass a range of complex themes - competency, responsibility and active (community) participation which go beyond an understanding of citizenship as a simply technical or legal term. In this paper we adopt a broad conceptualization of citizenship in order to explore the identity work that young people engage in as they negotiate their way through to social majority. In particular, we consider how young people's need for space, and their emergent sense of place, are aspects of a citizenship identity which young people 'learn', work at and negotiate over in their leisure time.     

以学生为本创建化学实验教学示范中心

介绍如何贯彻以学生为本的科学理念,从加强实验教学软硬件建设、转变实验教学观念,构建实验课程新体系、规范管理,逐步形成特色,浅谈创建化学实验教学示范中心的一些做法和体会。     

DSLM Instructional Approach to Conceptual Change Involving Thermal Expansion

This article examines the process of students' conceptual change involving thermal expansion as a result of employing the Dual Situated Learning Model (DSLM) (She, 2001, 2002) as a classroom instructional approach. The dual situated learning events of this model are designed according to the students' ontological viewpoint of the science concepts as well as the nature of these concepts. Moreover, these events serve two functions in creating dissonance with the pre-existing knowledge and providing new schema for constructing a more scientific view of the concept. DSLM has been shown to promote students' conceptual change using one-to-one instructional procedure (She, 2002). This study further demonstrates that DSLM holds great potential to facilitate the conceptual change process involving thermal expansion through classroom instruction, even the difficult concept or higher hierarchical level one.     

Student affect and conceptual understanding in learning chemistry

This study explores the relationship between affective and cognitive variables in grade 9 chemistry students (n = 73). In particular, it explores how students' situational interest, their attitudes toward chemistry, and their chemistry‐specific self‐concept influence their understanding of chemistry concepts over the course of a school year. All affective variables were assessed at two time points: at the middle of the first semester of grade 9, and at the end of the second semester of grade 9, and then related to students' postinstructional understanding of chemical concepts. Results reveal that none of the affective variables measured at the earliest time point have a significant direct effect on postinstructional conceptual understanding. Looking at the different affective variables as intermediary constructs, however, reveals a pattern in which self‐concept and situational interest measured at the middle of grade 9 contribute to self‐concept measured at the end of grade 9, which in turn, has a positive, significant effect on students' postinstructional conceptual understanding. These results reveal the importance of a strong and positive self‐concept, the feeling of doing well in the chemistry class, for developing a meaningful understanding of scientific concepts. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 908–937, 2007