The number of science education research papers has been rapidly rising in recent years. This number has been particularly influenced by researchers from non-English speaking countries who contribute to the field. With this number of papers, literature reviews gain in importance as they help researchers more easily orient themselves in problem…

Although communities and schools in North America are increasingly diverse and positioned in a global web, schools continue to adhere to Western norms and the teacher workforce remains largely White, continuing an ideology of collective sameness and conformity. Hybridization of teacher identity and of science teaching are suggested as ways to…

This dissertation describes the teaching methods and educational philosophies of natural philosophy instructors at several of the colleges in colonial and early national North America. It finds two distinct approaches: the demonstrative, in which the instructor centers the course on visually engaging lecture-demonstrations, and the catechetical,…

In the early twentieth century, a curriculum known as nature study flourished in major city school systems, streetcar suburbs, small towns, and even rural one-room schools. This object-based approach to learning about the natural world marked the first systematic attempt to introduce science into elementary education, and it came at a time when…

This report summarizes the characteristics of physics education in 12 countries: Argentina; Brazil; Canada; Chile; Colombia; Costa Rica; Ecuador; Guatemala; Jamaica; Mexico; the United States; and Venezuela. An introductory chapter describes the goals of the Council on Inter-American Conferences on Physics Education, historical background,…

This study investigates the relationship between the students' understanding of the aims of an investigative activity and their performance when conducting it. One hundred and eighty-one year nine students from a public middle school in Brazil took part in the study. Students working in pairs were asked to investigate two problems using a…