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.     

The Use of Criteria in Argumentation and the Construction of Environmental Concepts: A university case study

We have analysed the processes of argumentation of three university student groups (A: six students, C: five students, and J: seven students) while making a decision about an environmental problem (selection of a heating system). The discussions took place in three 1½‐hour sessions that were audio‐taped and transcribed. For the analysis of the oral discussions, on the one hand, we have taken into account some of the dimensions characterising the quality of this decision‐making process, including the number and variety of criteria utilised, whether criteria, which did not favour the selected option, were considered and whether priorities were established among criteria, and, on the other hand, the use of environmental concepts such as renewable and sustainability as well as the meanings that were constructed for both concepts. We have determined that the students in this study proposed and utilised, both explicitly and implicitly, a high number and great variety of criteria to support their choices, although they were rarely able to consider contradictory evidence; that is, those that demonstrated disadvantages of the option selected. In terms of the construction of knowledge, we observed that in some groups the proposed task favoured the construction of a concept of sustainability that took the future into consideration and which was utilised as the most important justification in their selection. In terms of the concept of renewable, we found that they did not relate depletion of resources to economic consequences. We discuss the implications for the educational competence development.     

Planning as action research

Planning contains so much more than the written plan. Early in 2000, an invitation came from the Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN), to people experienced in action research who might want to help plan and present an action research event for elementary school science teachers in Venezuela, South America, in Autumn 2000. This article analyses the outcomes from planning and enacting the resulting workshop to show how planning can be the subject of action research. It goes on to show how planning and teaching interact in a multifaceted way towards technical, practical and emancipatory ends. Planning and teaching are best seen as conversation, a conversation that is both synchronous and asynchronous.     

¿Han sido seleccionados o se han acostumbrado? Ideas de estudiantes de biología sobre la selección natural y consistencia entre ellas

Resumen

Estudiantes universitarios de Biología, ante problemas de respuesta abierta sobre la selección natural, utilizan, en porcentajes alarmantes, interpretaciones que consideran la adaptación como cambios heredables en los individuos. Se encontró un cierto grado de consistencia entre las respuestas de cada sujeto a los problemas en diferentes contextos; pero hay también casos en que una persona empleó esquemas conceptuales diferentes. Se sugiere que una de las condiciones para promover el cambio conceptual es que los profesores tengan en cuenta las ideas de los estudiantes.     

Adult literacy,learning identities and pedagogic practice

This article discusses the relationship between persistence in adult literacy and numeracy programs, changes in the participants’ attitudes to engaging in learning and pedagogic practices using data from eight Scottish literacy education organizations. It argues that literacy learning can act as a resource that enables vulnerable adults to change their dispositions to learning, achieve their goals and make a transition towards their imagined futures. Pedagogic practices that operate from an approach that emphasized learners’ strengths, rather than their deficits, and critically interrogated learners’ experiences used as a resource for learning were the most successful in enabling this transition. Holistic provision that creates a supportive community of practice was found to be the most effective in bringing about the positive changes that learners identified they wished to make in their lives.     

Participation in adult and community education: a discourse of diminishing returns

The terms in which the dominant discourse of participation is framed systematically reinforces one particular view about the relationship between life and learning. It is one in which participation in learning is professionally and institutionally controlled and, consequently, defined largely in vocational, instrumental and individual terms. A significant absence in the dominant discourse is an understanding of participation which draws on the experience of the radical tradition in adult education. In a context where there is potential for greater participation in social and civic politics, as evidenced by the growth of social movements, reconnecting with radical ideas about participation in education can lead to rethinking the ‘problem of participation’ and its implications. We need to understand not only how the discourse of participation has generated knowledge but also excludes and limits what is known. A thorough critique is necessary and overdue and one that is critical of the ‘regime of truth’ which has been seeded, cultivated and harvested through the dominant professional discourse.     

School science education for citizenship: Strategies for teaching about the epistemology of science

One consequence of the advancing globalization and technological dependence of society is that people outside professional science are finding that issues of concern to them have a science dimension. I consider how school science education can support engagement with scientific information. I contend that teaching about the epistemology of science is central to achieving this educational goal. I identify epistemic learning aims appropriate to school science education. These are derived from a survey of case studies of how individuals interact with science outside formal education. I consider different ways in which these learning aims might be achieved in schools. Teaching approaches based on modifications of existing practice are identified. Addressing the full range of epistemic learning aims is likely to require teaching approaches rarely used in current science teaching.     

Conceptions of teaching and educational knowledge requirements

Abstract

This paper scrutinises the educational knowledge requirements of craft, technical, and reflective professional conceptions of teaching, as recently outlined by Winch, Oancea, and Orchard. Drawing on Bernsteinian sociology of knowledge we identify the different requirements each conception makes of educational knowledge, and how it is envisaged that this knowledge will be used in educational practice. While craft conceptions dismiss the value of educational knowledge per se, they nevertheless value other forms of disciplined knowledge. Arguing that technical conceptions of teaching may be either narrowly instrumental or autonomous, we suggest that an advanced technical knowledge base requires a disciplinary aspect, while knowledge for purely instrumental purposes offers a reductive view of educational practice. Moreover, the varying notions of reflection suggested by reflective professional conceptions require certain forms of engagement with educational knowledge, which are challenged by contemporary reforms in teacher education globally. It is suggested that there are often interdependencies between forms of educational knowledge and conceptions of teaching, with potential implications for the trajectories of educational reforms. The argument is briefly illustrated with reference to the national contexts of Germany, England, and Finland.