by Tobin, Kenneth

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-009-9241-2
Online Date: 10/9/2009
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by Martin, Sonya N.; Siry, Christina A.

Trevor Owens’ paper provides a critique of the role of gender and authority in selected children’s books that presented biographies of Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. In the context of discussing Trevor’s (2009) article about children’s literature, this forum explores issues related to the (a) representation and construction of gender, science, and childhood in literature for children; (b) the need to consider socio/historical/cultural contexts in analytical and theoretical frameworks; and (c) the importance of fostering critical literacy perspectives in pre- and in-service science teachers and the children whom they teach.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-009-9238-x
Online Date: 9/25/2009
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by Choudry, Aziz

In response to Richardson Bruna’s “Mexican immigrant transnational social capital and class transformation: examining the role of peer mediation in insurgent science”, this paper draws on the author’s research on organizing, mobilization and knowledge production among adult im/migrant workers in Canada. While appreciative of the content and concerns of Richardson Bruna’s argument, the paper argues for a clearer position on tensions between agency and structure, and class and capitalist social relations in which to contextualize the schooling of immigrant children in today’s US classrooms. In addition, it explores some implications of Mignolo’s (2000) work on the geohistory of knowledge, notably his concept of ‘border thinking’ for teachers, teacher education, and curricula. Finally, the article suggests the potential of methodological frameworks and approaches of institutional ethnography (Smith 1987), political activist ethnography (Frampton et al. 2006) and global ethnography (Burawoy 2000) to inform research into this field.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-009-9230-5
Online Date: 9/23/2009
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by Milne, Catherine

I respond to Zeyer and Roth’s (Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2009) paper on their use of interpretive repertoire analysis to explicate Swiss middle school students’ dialogic responses to environmental issues. I focus on the strategy of interpretive repertoire analysis, making sense of the stance Zeyer and Roth take with this analysis by synthesizing their argument and comparing their analysis with other researchers that have also used this analytic tool. Interpretive repertoires are discourse resources, including mores, tropes, and metaphors that can be evoked by speakers in support of a tenuous claim. So interpretive repertoires have rhetorical character and function. Interpretive repertoire analysis requires looking for patterns in the contradictions in the speech of a collective of participants that can be codified as interpretive repertoires. Interpretive repertoires provide insight into macro-structures that frame, and are used to justify participants’ behavior. My response to Zeyer and Roth’s argument might also be thought to be contradictory but I think defensible. In this paper, I outline why I am excited by the possibilities I can image for this type of analysis in areas of science education research. However, I also felt the need to identify possible limitations of Zeyer and Roth’s exclusive focus on environmental issues to the neglect of other issues, such as those associated with gender, embedded in participants’ discourse. I argue that a critical and historical focus, in conjunction with interpretive repertoire analysis, offer a rich strategy for analysis in science education research, especially in the study of macrostructures, such as gender, race, identity and power.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-009-9237-y
Online Date: 9/17/2009
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by Mueller, Michael P.

I respond to Zeyer and Roth’s (2009) “A Mirror of Society” by elaborating on how the idea of interpretive repertoires is grounded by education philosophy and sociology. Vernacular languages are carried forward collectively from individuals who lived during a particular period of time, inculcated as root metaphors, which frame our relationships with others. It follows that metaphors (or interpretive repertoires) frame Swiss relationships with others, and what serves as Swiss goals for the environment and environmental protection are deeply embedded in some past conceptualizations of how a society should develop in the world. Indeed these youth’s repertoires are “a mirror of society.” But how do we know whether Swiss ideals are cultivating good, right, or just relationships, and embody a morally defensible environmentalism? Zeyer and Roth emphasize that teaching is a cultural process, which I agree with, but there is a contradiction in the idea that curriculum should be designed in a way that allows students to expand their existing repertoires without culturally mediated changes. Clearly students in Zeyer and Roth’s study feel limited as to what they can do about the environment and environmental protection, in relation to outside influences such as US consumerism. Ecojustice, environmentalism, and sustainability should begin to dissolve this feeling of powerlessness. The purpose of this response is to show why cultural mediation is needed for defensible youth action.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-009-9222-5
Online Date: 9/17/2009
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by Zee, Emily H.

In this commentary, I first consider what Oliveira defines inquiry-based science instruction to be. Next I discuss what the discourse practices are that he is advocating. Then I examine what he presents as evidence of changes in two teachers’ discourse practices due to a summer institute and how their pragmatic awareness seems to have been enhanced through institute activities. Finally I ponder whether, when, how, and why professional development should include a focus on ways of speaking during inquiry-based science instruction.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-009-9220-7
Online Date: 7/14/2009
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by Steinberg, Shirley R.

I describe how Joe Kincheloe experienced learning from a peer during his pre-school life only to see how his friend was unable to succeed at school. Joe’s commitment to empowered cognition was grounded first, by his friend, Larry’s mentorship—teaching him the environmental nuances of the mountains in rural Tennessee, and secondly, the contradiction of schooling being unable to afford learning for Larry. This article discusses how Kincheloe became a scholar, the salience of Einstein’s work with his own, and the evolution of his research and scholarship. Examples of Kincheloe’s work addressed are: postformalism, bricolage, critical theory, and alternative knowledges, and how this work has contributed to science education.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-009-9219-0
Online Date: 6/25/2009
Print publication date: 9/1/2009
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by Luitel, Bal Chandra; Settelmaier, Elisabeth; Pereira, Les; Joyce, Paula; Nhalevilo, Emilia; Cupane, Alberto; Taylor, Peter Charles

In focusing on the Kincheloe and Tobin paper, ‘The Much Exaggerated Death of Positivism,’ this forum explores the hegemony of positivism in the professional practices of a group of educators whose research expertise lies in the fields of science education, mathematics education and leadership education. Responding to the first question, ‘What is your personal/professional experience of the hegemony of positivism?’, four key issues arise: is positivism part of the external world or is it within us (and thus what is our agency)?, the role of positivism as a driver of Western cultural imperialism, dualism as the chief logic of positivism, and the difficulty of responding to positivism from a pluralist perspective. The second question, ‘Is rapprochement between positivism and other paradigms possible and/or desirable without being re-colonised?’, raises a number of key issues that, although relatively new to science education, are of increasing interest to cultural studies researchers keen to embrace alternative research paradigms with which to create culturally inclusive science curricula. The discussants reveal their personal experiences of being marginalised by the hegemony of positivism and give voice to a range of opinions about how best to respond. The integral perspective of spiral dynamics is proposed as a model of paradigm evolution, our fundamental assumptions about modern progress are questioned, and the non-dualist logic of dialectics is explored as a more inclusive rationality for researchers. In the spirit of counter-hegemonic cultural studies, the discussants draw on their personal Buddhist and Hindu perspectives to open new doorways into complex ontological systems lying beyond the simplistic materialism of crypto-positivism. We are given a glimpse of powerful means of generating new insights into the emergent universe (within and without) that an evolving science endeavours to explain.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-009-9216-3
Online Date: 6/10/2009
Print publication date: 9/1/2009
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by Tobin, Kenneth

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-009-9218-1
Online Date: 6/6/2009
Print publication date: 9/1/2009
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by Bayne, Gillian U.

This article reviews significant contributions made by Joe L. Kincheloe to critical research in science education, especially through a multimethodological, multitheoretical, and multidisciplinary informed lens that incorporates social, cultural, political, economic, and cognitive dynamics—the bricolage. Kincheloe’s ideas provide for a compelling understanding of, and insights into, the forces that shape the intricacies of teaching and learning science and science education. They have implications in improving science education policies, in developing actions that challenge and cultivate the intellect while operating in ways that are more understanding of difference and are socially just.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-009-9204-7
Online Date: 5/27/2009
Print publication date: 9/1/2009
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