ERIC Number: EJ1419463
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0263-5143
EISSN: EISSN-1470-1138
"The Strawberry in the Pot that Became Something" - Entanglements of Bodies, Materials, and Affect in Science Activities Supported by a Community Organization
Research in Science & Technological Education, v42 n1 p180-201 2024
Background: A move beyond static and representational accounts of science learning and becoming through relations is needed. Purpose: In this paper extra-learning activities in science offered by a community organization to an elementary class over one academic school year are assessed in light of their contributions to science learning and becoming. The latter is explored through a theoretical grounding and focus on the entanglements of bodies, materials, and affect. In doing so, the paper speaks to the affective turn in science education. The study is grounded in a non-representational and subjective reading of the work affect is doing yet also attends to the role of materials and bodies within that process, speaking to materialism, embodiment, and dignity. Sample: One elementary school class, participating in a one-year long activity assumed by a community organization (CO). Design & Method: Data was collected through a video ethnography of the science activities assumed by the CO. Through interaction analysis, telling moments of joint-engagement in science were analysed by centering body-material-affect entanglements. By juxtaposing these moments with background information from interviews of the teacher and the instructor, a bricolage of data sources led to narratives presented as three stories. Results: Making evident entanglements through three stories, the paper offers insights into ways non-representational embodied and material forms of learning and becoming can be studied and documented and the insights they might offer into understanding learning and becoming in science. The stories speak to the kind of work entanglements make evident in terms of lived affect in science but also moments of relations between participants and dignity affirming or undermining work in science learning and becoming. Conclusion: More studies are needed to engage with body-material entanglements in and through affect and report on the manner affect supports dignifying forms of engagement with science.
Descriptors: Science Activities, Elementary School Science, Community Education, Instructional Effectiveness, Teaching Methods, Human Dignity, Self Concept, Experience, Ethnography, Grade 4
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Grade 4; Intermediate Grades
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A