To be or not to be? Discursive resources for (Dis‐)identifying with science‐related careers

Abstract

One of the main objectives of many science educators is to enroll students into science majors and careers. Researchers have investigated students' views of science in terms of factors and influences that guide students to choose science as a career. However, few investigations exist that have studied the forms of language culture makes available for articulating possible careers generally or the ways of grounding (justifying) these possibilities particularly. The purpose of this study is to investigate ways of using language for supporting justifications of career choices in an interview situation. Thirteen high school biology students were interviewed about their career choices. Drawing on discursive psychology as theory and method, we identify four interpretative repertoires that are deployed during the interviews: the (a) formative, (b) performative, (c) consequent, and (d) potential repertoires. These interpretative repertoires do not merely characterize the discourse about different science‐related professions but in fact co‐articulate different science‐related identities. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 1114–1136, 2009

Negotiating White science in a racially and ethnically diverse United States

“…has been a top educational priority in the United States, which has caused the science education community to aggressively advocate for the creation of several influential policy reports, demanding comprehensive changes in science instruction, to include previously marginalized students (Hsu, Roth, Marshall, & Guenette, 2009;Kenny et al, 2007 All of these reform documents, in principle, have a goal of providing curricular support to deliver equitable science education for all children (NRC, 1996(NRC, , 2000NCES, 2012). Yet we observe student disengagement and dismal student achievement for the very same racially and ethnically diverse and gender groups that are under-represented in the STEM fields Yerrick, Schiller, & Reisfeld, 2011).…”

A Discursive Approach in Analyzing Preservice Teachers’ Discourse of Becoming a Science Teacher

“…That is, these repertoires are intelligible and exist in the culture of the discourse that is shared by the speaker and the listener. For career discourses, four repertoires are identified to articulate ways of pursuing a certain career (Hsu, Roth, Marshall, & Guenette, 2009): formative, performative, consequential, and potential. The formative repertoire constitutes discourse about formations, special characteristics, or requirements for becoming a vocational agent.…”

“…Drawing on the framework of formative, performative, consequential, and potential repertoires (Hsu, Roth, Marshall, & Guenette, 2009), the researchers examined preservice teachers' discourses about becoming a teacher. Each repertoire shows different ways of identifying the relation of self and their professional identity as a science teacher in the future.…”

A Narrative Approach to Understand Students’ Identities and Choices

“…The Eccles model presented in Chapter 2 is such an example (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). However, whilst this extensive research has provided a reasonably clear picture of these components (Bergerson, 2010), as higher education institutions are facing an increasingly diverse student body (Reay, David, & Ball, 2005) there is a call to move towards more qualitative research that explores how the students themselves handle and make meaning of their choices (Archer et al, 2010;Hsu, Roth, Marshall, & Guenette, 2009). In the period 2000-2010 research addressing this purpose has been carried out studying how students' identities relate to their choice of education (Archer et al, 2010;Brunila et al, 2011;Illeris, Katznelson, Simonsen, & Ulriksen, 2002;Schreiner, 2006;Schreiner & Sjøberg, 2007).…”