Beginning primary science teaching: Entryways to different worlds

This paper reports on a longitudinal interpretive case study of the transtion from preservice to inservice science teaching. We describe four sets of overlapping worlds that provide vantagepoints for the study. Three sets describe the experiences of Katie, the participating teacher. These are the world of the person who is good at science and the world of the person who is not, the world of the student teacher and the world of the novice teacher, and the world of the primary science classroom and the world of the primary classroom during other subjects. The final set describes our development as researchers during this period—the world of the specialist science teacher and the world of the generalist teacher. In our analysis of the transition experience, we employ the term entryways to describe understandings and strategies that helped the teacher and ourselves to move between contrasting perspectives.