Session Information
27 SES 12 B, Peer Assesment in Writing, Evaluative Language in Science Tests and Critical Norms in Sex Education
Paper Session
Contribution
General description
Interest in natural science is low and decreasing among 15-year-olds in the world’s richest countries. This trend is particularly pronounced in the Nordic countries (Sjøberg & Schreiner 2010). Many researchers believe that this weak interest is based on the image of science subjects and scientists that has been created and continuously reproduced – an image that many young people do not identify with. Science subjects are seen as difficult and as the domain of an elite group (Lemke 2010; Archer et al. 2010). According to others, this lack of interest is a consequence of the norms and values, ”companion meanings” that are constructed in and around all aspects of the science education discourse (Roberts & Östman 1998).
Nancy Brickhouse and Julie Kittleson (2006) argue that students’ lack of interest and involvement in natural science is a matter of democracy. If the vast majority of young people take no interest in science, then an elite group will be allowed to make all the decisions concerning, e.g., social and ecological justice (Ibid 2006).
Brickhouse believes that if we are to create a form of science education for everyone, we need science teaching that builds on knowledge of (…) how students engage in science and how this is related to who they are and who they want to be (Brickhouse 2001 p. 286). From a broader perspective, this entails saying ’yes’ to an embodied science teaching (Brickhouse 2001).
The present study has investigated one way through which students’ engagement is expressed in the science teaching, namely through using evaluative language resources. Students’ responses (n=198) to an item on the 2009 Swedish national examination in chemistry for 15-year-olds were studied.
The item:
- Explain how the discovery of refining crude oil has had an impact on how we live and how we perceive the world around us.
- Choose another discovery in chemistry. Describe how this discovery has changed humans’ ways of thinking and doing things.
The overall aim has been to investigate the didactic value of allowing students to work with a task that gives them the opportunity to, in part, choose the problem area, express their own viewpoints and take their own moral and ethical stands. This entails gaining insight into what engages students and how, and ultimately – from a classroom perspective and as teachers – becoming aware of the linguistic features students make use of to express their involvement. Based on the above aims, the following specific questions have been relevant to study.
- How and to what extent is evaluative language resources used in the students’ texts?
- What content are foregrounded using these evaluative language resources?
- How is this content related to the norms and values found in the specific test item under study and in the national examination as a whole?
The present theoretical framework consists of two critical strands of research that take norm-critical perspectives and focus on the content of teaching, i.e., its goals, purposes and traditions. This means that the theoretical frames of interpretation consist of critical didactics/critical curriculum theory (Klafki 1997; Englund 1997; Roberts & Östman 1998) and the feminist theories of science (Sandra Harding 1986; Donna Haraway 1988, 1991), science teaching and learning (Nancy Brickhouse 2001). Thus, the present results will be discussed and interpreted using these theoretical frames to understand and gain perspective on some of the factors affecting students’ views on natural science, how they choose to act in relation to the studied item, as well as what teaching should be based on in order to engage students.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
References Archer, L., Dewitt, J., Osborne, J., Dillon, J., Willis, B., & Wong, B. (2010). “Doing” science versus “being” a scientist: examining 10/11-year-old school children's constructions of science through the lens of identity. Science Education, 94, 617–639. doi: 10.1002/sce.20399 Brickhouse, N. (2001). Embodying science: a feminist perspective on learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38, 282-295. doi: 10.1002/1098-2736(200103)38:3<282::AID-TEA1006>3.0.CO;2-0 Brickhouse, N. & Kittleson, J. (2006). Visions of curriculum, community, and science. Educational Theory, 56 (2), 191-204. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.2006.00011.x Englund, T. (1998). Teaching as an offer of (discursive) meaning. In B. Gundem, & S. Hopmann (Eds), Didaktik and/or curriculum: an international dialogue (pp. 215-226). New York: P. Lang, cop. Folkeryd, J.W. (2006). Writing with an Attitude: Appraisal and student texts in the school subject of Swedish. PhD thesis, Uppsala University, Department of Linguistics and Philology. Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14, 575-599. Haraway, D. (1991). Siamans, Cyborgs and Women. The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. Harding, S. (1986). The science question in feminism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Klafki, W. (1997). Kritisk- konstruktiv didaktik. In M. Uljens, (Ed.) Didaktik: teori, reflektion och praktik, (pp. 215-228). Lund: Studentlitteratur. Lemke, J. (1990). Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, cop. Martin, J. R. & White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillian. Miller, P. (2006). Contemporary perspectives from human development: implications for feminist scholarship. Signs, 31(2), 445-469. doi: 10.1086/491680 Milne, C. & Rubin, K. (2011). Embodying emotions: making transactions explicit in science education. Cultural Studies of Science Education. 6, 625-633. doi: 10.1007/s11422-011-93554-2 Orlander, A. A. & Wickman, P-O. (2011). Bodily experiences in secondary school biology. Cultural studies of science education, 6, 569-594. doi: 10.1007/s11422-010-9191-4 Roberts, D. (1998). Analyzing school science courses: the concept of companion meaning. In D. Roberts, & L. Östman (Eds.), Problems of meaning in science curriculum (pp. 5-12). New York: Teachers College Press. Vygotsky, L. (1934/2009). Tänkande och språk. [Thought and language]. Göteborg: Daidalos. Östman, L.(1995). Socialisation och mening: NO-utbildning som politiskt och miljömoraliskt problem. PhD thesis. Uppsala University: Department of education. Östman, L.(1998). How companion meanings are expressed by science education discourse. In D. Roberts, & L. Östman (Eds.), Problems of meaning in science curriculum (pp.54-70). New York: Teachers College Press.
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