When Science is Strangely Alluring: Interrogating the masculinist and heteronormative nature of primary school science

Starting from the literature that interrogates the gendered nature of science and school science, this article considers the ways in which primary school science is masculinist and heteronormative. The author takes up Jane Miller's (1991) notion of the seductiveness of grand narratives (in this case school science) to envision the largely implicit ways in which school science may attract or repel certain students and teachers. Using this framework, the author 'reads' examples from the realms of pedagogy, curriculum and policy in primary school science, and concludes by examining some of the reasons why it is important to critically probe how these heterogendered boundaries are produced and reproduced with/in school science.     

Investigating the relationships between informal learning and player involvement in digital games

In the last few years, digital games have become increasingly popular with both ‘hardcore’ and ‘casual’ audiences. At the same time, it has been argued that games can be powerful learning environments, since they are seen to encourage active and critical learning through participation in affinity groups and semiotic domains but there is a need for further empirical evidence to explore how this participation occurs and how prevalent it actually is. In addition the effectiveness of games within education indicates mixed results, though it has been suggested that this may indicate that learning through immersive worlds involves a more complex understanding of learning, one that is not so easy to tie to specified learning outcomes. It would seem the area would benefit from research that seeks to develop our understanding of how player involvement and learning come together in this context. This paper presents the preliminary results of a survey carried out in order to explore these issues. The initial findings suggest that how a player identifies as a gamer relates to what they think they gain from their gaming experiences with respect to learning.