How women physics teacher candidates utilize their double outsider identities to productively learn physics

Larsson, Johanna; Danielsson, Anna

doi:10.1103/physrevphyseducres.19.010140

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The results of our research may eventually lead to gender-specific interventions that may improve teachers' classroom practices. Teachers, after all, are in a special position to influence new generations of students, as Larsson and Danielsson concluded [58].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Views on Gender Differences in the Physics Classroom

Musters,

Aarts,

Van Amelsvoort

et al. 2024

Education Sciences

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Concerns about the differences between boys and girls in educational achievement, school careers and educational choices have existed since the last century. Despite ongoing research, we still do not have a complete picture of gender-based differences in education. In particular, there is little comparative research on how teachers and students experience and deal with gender differences in their classrooms. Therefore, this study focuses on teacher and student perspectives on gender differences in the physics classroom of Dutch upper secondary education. The data were collected through questionnaires distributed among physics teachers (N = 72) and students (N = 212). The questionnaires for students and teachers were designed to reveal their perceptions of gender differences in the classroom, focusing on student learning characteristics and teacher–student interactions. Gender differences are reported to a larger extent by teachers than by students, especially in the area of students’ learning characteristics (e.g., boys showing more talent and interest in physics, girls showing more effort and self-regulation) and some in teacher–student interactions (e.g., girls asking teachers more questions). We conclude that concerns about differences between boys and girls are still present and need further research. More work is needed to fully understand the implications of these differences, which are expected to have an important impact on classroom interventions and guidelines for teachers to use in their classrooms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Views on Gender Differences in the Physics Classroom

Musters,

Aarts,

Van Amelsvoort

et al. 2024

Education Sciences

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“…Only a few recent studies discussed the role of women in teaching physics [26]. Larsson and Danielsson (2023) also conducted a study with pre-service physics teachers and argued that women in physics tended to have difficulties in studying physics and negotiate their identity in relation to masculine norms which were dominant in the field of physics [34]. These studies emphasized the need to understand the experiences of female physics teachers about how they make meaning of their participation and continuation in physics.…”

Section: Review Of the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Learning to Become a Physics Teacher: A Case Study of Experienced Teachers

Sengul

2024

Education Sciences

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This paper focuses on Wegner’s concept of learning to examine how experienced physics teachers conceptualize and explain their professional identity. Participants were four female physics teachers with more than 15 years of teaching experience. These four teachers were selected as illustrative and contrastive cases for the purpose of the study. The data collection included semi-structured interviews and field notes from classroom observations in each participant’s classroom. Interview and classroom observation data were analyzed through the constant-comparative method. The results showed that these teachers had positive and negative experiences in different types of schools; and higher-achieving students motivated these teachers to solve different types of problems. Although teachers believed that science should be taught through experiments or inquiry-based instruction, they did not have any opportunity to teach in a laboratory. Their role was confined to teaching in a classroom to solve problems. They defined their concept of learning to become a physics teacher with metaphors that focused on the cognitive demands of teaching and the learning process. Further research on teacher education should support teacher development through addressing social and epistemic demands of teaching and learning.

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“…The elite status of physics was, however, denounced by some interviewees, notably those from a working-class background and with negative experiences of elitism in school (Omar, Thomas, Amir), who described that they did not want to take part in an environment of competition. Omar had met a kind of arrogance among physics students, and said that the competitive nature of physics and research, compared to the idealistic picture he had of it before, has made him consider the wisdom of his choice at times (see also Larsson and Danielsson 2023). Thomas, who we quoted in the introduction joking about the idea of the arrogant great physicist man who gets a Nobel Prize, also expressed a kind of admiration for some of his fellow physics students who displayed such deep dedication and dreams for physics that they have the "absurd thought of getting a Nobel Prize in something".…”

Section: Aspiring Toward a Prestigious Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performing legitimate choice narratives in physics: possibilities for under-represented physics students

Johansson,

Nyström,

Gonsalves

et al. 2023

Cult Stud of Sci Educ

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Higher education physics has long been a field with a disproportionately skewed representation in terms of gender, class, and ethnicity. Responding to this challenge, this study explores the trajectories of “unexpected” (i.e., demographically under-represented) students into higher education physics. Based on timeline-guided life-history interviews with 21 students enrolled in university physics programs across Sweden, the students’ accounts of their trajectories into physics are analyzed as choice narratives. The analysis explores what ingredients are used to tell a legitimate story of physics participation, in relation to dominant discourses in physics culture, and wider social and political discourses. Results indicate that students narrate their choice as based on motivations of physics being a prestigious and challenging subject, of a deep interest in and a natural ability for physics, as well as a wish to use physics for contributing to the world. While most of these affiliations to physics has been documented in earlier research, the study shows how they are negotiated in relation to social locations such as gender, class and migration history, and used to perform an authentic and legitimate choice narrative in the interview situation. Furthermore, the study reports and discusses the possibility of conceiving the role of physics in students’ lives as something beyond a “pure”, intellectually challenging, and “prestigious” subject. In contrast, and with implications for widening participation, the stories of “unexpected” physics students indicate that physics can be reconceived as socially and altruistically oriented.

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How women physics teacher candidates utilize their double outsider identities to productively learn physics

Cited by 5 publications

References 34 publications

Views on Gender Differences in the Physics Classroom

Views on Gender Differences in the Physics Classroom

Learning to Become a Physics Teacher: A Case Study of Experienced Teachers

Performing legitimate choice narratives in physics: possibilities for under-represented physics students

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