This article reports on two types of resistance by preservice science teachers: resistance to ideological change and resistance to pedagogical change. The former has to do with the feelings of disbelief, defensiveness, guilt, and shame that Anglo-European preservice teachers experience when they are asked to confront racism and other oppressive social norms in class discussions. Resistance to pedagogical change has to do with the roles that preservice teachers feel they need to play to manage conflicting messages about what they are expected to do from their cooperating teachers (cover the curriculum and maintain class control) and from their university supervisors (implement student-centered, constructivist class activities), and about what they desire to do as emerging teachers. Although these two forms of resistance are closely linked, in the literature they are extensively reported separately. This study suggests a sociotransformative constructivist orientation as a vehicle to link multicultural education and social constructivist theoretical frameworks. By using this orientation, specific pedagogical strategies for counterresistance were found effective in helping preservice teachers learn to teach for diversity and understanding. These strategies for counterresistance were primarily drawn from the qualitative analysis of a yearlong project with secondary science preservice teachers.
In this critical review essay, I argue that the National Research Council's (NRC) 1996 National science education standards uses a discourse of invisibility to lay out its massive reform for science education in the United States. This invisibility discourse dangerously compromises the well-intended goals of the NRC by not directly addressing the ethnic, socioeconomic, gender, and theoretical issues which influence the teaching and learning of science in today's schools. Herein I propose that the Standards ought to provide strong arguments and evidence in support of the reasons why equity should be a guiding principle in science education reform. In the same manner, the Standards must articulate the theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence on which the numerous recommendations for change are based. Only then would the Standards provide the conceptual guidance necessary to encourage teachers, administrators, parents, and politicians to spring into action and take the necessary risks associated with radically transforming schools. J Res Sci Teach 34: 19-37, 1997.There are 44 photographs in the National Research Council's (NRC) (1996) National science education standards (NSES) document. Fifty-eight percent of all the individuals shown in the photographs are from ethnic groups traditionally underrepresented in science. In fact, most of the photographs depict minority boys (n ϭ 28) and girls (n ϭ 25) actively engaged in some form of hands-on science. Interestingly, another traditionally marginalized group in the sciences-women-is the second largest group (55%) of individuals included in the photographs. Some may think that such an effort to make minority students and women so visible in the NSES should be cause for celebration. I would be one to agree, if it were not for the invisibility of the same social groups in the text of the document.In this essay, I argue that the NRC uses a discourse of invisibility to lay out its massive science education standards reform. This invisibility discourse dangerously compromises the wellintended goals of the NRC by not directly addressing the ethnic, socioeconomic, gender, and theoretical issues which afflict science education today. Hence, a critique is presented below in five parts. First, a brief outline of the NSES is provided. This is followed by a discussion of how ethnicity and gender issues are made invisible in the proposed NSES. By making these social issues invisible, the NSES miss opportunities to make clear why equity should be a concern for all of us and not just for those who teach in inner-city schools. Third, current trends in student JOURNAL
In this paper, I offer a critique of A Framework for K‐12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (NRC, 2012) and of the Next Generation Science Standards (Achieve, 2013). While the new version of the science education standards and the arguments put forward to support them are an improvement from the previous version of the NRC Science Education Standards, we must pause and reflect on the implications on jumping on another education reform, fast moving train. Using sociotransformative constructivism as a guiding theoretical lens, I argued that the Conceptual Framework and NGSS documents fall short due to the lack of retrospection, the on‐going contradictory discourses, and the lack of voice and representation in the development of these important policy documents. Suggestions for improvement and discussion are offered in hope that we might prevent the NGSS from having as little impact on teachers' practice and on students' learning as the previous version of the national science education standards had. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 1031–1051, 2015.
Using a case study approach, this manuscript describes the professional transformation of Gary-an Anglo, male novice teacher-by focusing on his first two years of teaching in a culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged school. As a participant of a larger hybrid, intervention project with peers, Gary received multiple hands-on and minds-on experiences for implementing sociotransformative constructivism (sTc) during the science methods courses and two summer institutes. sTc integrates cross-cultural education with social constructivism to provide a framework for teaching and learning that is more critical, inclusive, relevant, and connected to students' everyday lives. Using the structure-agency dialectic as an analytic tool, Gary's emerging sense of agency is documented in terms of two major themes: institutional challenges and sociocultural challenges. Moving away from traditional narratives of despair, this paper offers instead a narrative of engagement-a frank account of the struggles beginning teachers are likely to encounter (especially in culturally diverse contexts), as well as the potential successes they could enact through their agency. Suggestions are provided for enhancing the professional preparation of science teachers and for teacher education programs and school districts to move beyond good intentions and mission statements toward more transformative action. #
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