In this chapter, we examine the negative impact of excessive teacher entitlement on school life. We argue that teacher entitlement goes beyond individual traits, intricately linked to sociocultural processes and power dynamics within and outside educational institutions. The focus is on theoretical foundations to understand pedagogical practices…

The past decade has been marked by a series of global crises, presenting an opportunity to reevaluate the relationship between science and politics. The biological sciences are instrumental in understanding natural phenomena and informing policy decisions. However, scholars argue that current scientific expertise often fails to account for entire…

In this article, we examine how the concept of autonomy may be construed as a foundational value which underpins students' coherent sensemaking of how the physical world operates. Autonomy and science both require students to comprehend and assess the quality of evidence, claims, and alternative outcomes. Further, participation in scientific…

This paper explores various theories of curriculum intending to provide a new approach--which we regard as a significant theoretical contribution--to examine the broad set of different discourses that have been shaping science education. We first introduce concepts and values that support traditional and critical curriculum theories and offer some…

Although in-depth educational reviews can be carried out building on curricular theories, the appropriation of this knowledge by science education scholarship can still be considered timid. In this paper, our intention is to work on this interface; we first introduce basic concepts from the main curricular frameworks and bring possible…

The purpose of this paper is to develop and illustrate an analytical framework for exploring how relations between knowledge and power are constituted in science and technology classrooms. In addition, the empirical purpose of this paper is to explore how disciplinary knowledge and knowledge-making are constituted in teacher-student interactions.…

Several researches identified that many students find physics the most difficult science subject. The quest to find ways to make learning physics more meaningful and interesting has lasted for decades. Even with all the new strategies and pedagogies being used, many students still find the subject formidable. This study critically explored the…

This is a critical time for the science education community as we embark on the creation and implementation of new national science standards. The purpose of this essay is to offer insight into how the language of curriculum standards, including that found in state science standards in the United States over the past 15 years, has posed barriers…

This paper provides another way to gaze upon Brad's story as presented by van Eijck and Roth (2010). It raises questions about infrastructural racism in contemporary science education by exploring its association with Whiteness and White privilege. To explore the racial positioning inherent in Western science education specific attention is given…

The Answers in Genesis Creation Museum opened in May of 2007. During the opening day, a loosely affiliated group of scientists joined in a Rally for Reason as they termed it to protest the museum's potential effect on science in the United States. This paper discusses ethnographic data collected before and during the rally. Scientist narratives…

Describes how one college professor begins each semester by asking his students, "How does who you are and where you stand in relation to others shape what you know about the world?" Suggests that by enabling students to speak out of their unique experiences, the class can better cope with the power relations within every classroom…

One dominant approach to reforming science education implements collaborative approaches to learning. Feminist pedagogy is concerned with transforming both how students learn science and the science curriculum that students are expected to learn. Collaborative approaches serve to reproduce the dominant discourse of existing science systems.…

Demonstrates, for a nonscience feminist educator, ways in which science and science education can be arenas for liberatory pedagogical practices where socioeconomic power relations can be challenged. The evolution and practice of scientific knowledge itself operates to exploit and oppress people everywhere in the name of a dominant class. (PVD)

Describes science educators trying to effect systemic change as actors in a cultural field struggling to change it. Uses a conversational hermeneutic analysis of autobiographical writings to examine some of the salient features of bringing about change in science education. (Contains 35 references.) (Author/WRM)

This paper argues that science can be defined with sufficient clarity so as to maintain a coherent boundary for the practical purposes of school science curriculum development. That boundary excludes most forms of indigenous knowledge, if not all, just as it excludes art, history, economics, religion, and many other domains of knowledge. Being…