Sustainable development teaching : ethical and political challenges

C

In-Between Chapter: The Political in Science Education in Cultural, Social, and Political Perspectives in Science Education

Science and technology have been of crucial importance for the development of humanity. Throughout history, new knowledge and technological innovations have made it possible to raise the standard of living for new generations in different parts of the world. However, this has also led to an unfortunate acceleration in the use of the world’s natural resources. Nevertheless, scientific and technological findings are often promoted as the drivers of development in our societal and economic systems

Student impulses and teacher feedback The relevance of teacher feedback for the classroom discourse and students’ meaning making in teaching on socio-scientific issues

AbstractToday teachers face an increased challenge in listening to classroom discourses and students' areas of interest to let these coincides with the overall teaching purpose by feedback. Present study explore how classroom communication can be modeled to allow this. The socio-scientific-issues raised were at the same time aimed at creating relevance in the students’ social life as giving a respond to the curriculum. The data consisted of recordings from science lessons in grade 7 and 8 in Sweden. To make visible the tension that occurred between different discourses and displacement of power in the conversations, practical epistemological analysis has been made. This resulted in a categorization of five different ways the teacher is taking care of and reconnects the students’ impulses in relation to the overall purpose. Consequently, this study is offering opportunities for teachers to, in a consciously manner, reflect on different strategies for discourse feedback in teaching

Barns meningsskapande i ett projekt om biologisk mångfald och ekologiChildren’s meaning making in biodiversity and ecology

Biodiversity loss is becoming an increasingly alarming issue that has significance in the discussion about young children’s learning in science. This article, based on a pragmatic perspective, analyses a group of children and teachers when exploring animals in a preschool project concerning biodiversity. It examines the ways in which children create meaning of the content, the order in which the content emerges, and what impact teachers have on how the process develops. Initially, the results reveal that the organisms’ appearances and movements received morphological and physiological explanations. Further, the knowledge was gained profoundly in a manner which has similarities with ecological and evolutionary ways of explaining biological phenomena. The teachers’ utterances were few, but significant, by raising productive questions in close relation to what the children anticipated they embraced a listening approach

Didaktik för naturvetenskap och hållbar utveckling - Fem former av demokratiskt deltagande Education for science and Sustainable Development - Four forms of Democratic Participation.

Education is often argued as crucial to reverse development towards a more fair and sustainable world. This article uses a wide range of research and literature in the field of education for sustainable development, to discuss an educational, ‘didactic’, framework on areas in the intersection between science, technology and society. First, the introduction outlines an overview of the nature of the issue and its relevance. This is followed by a theoretical approach to education and learning that puts the democratic teaching processes at centre. Finally, based on this we present the framework, "Five didactic forms of participation", focusing on student participation in deliberation, agency, creativity, criticism and authenticity as well as recommendations for, research and further development of education in these areas

Reification in Science Education Research : A Neglected Problem

The purpose of this presentation is to examine problems connected to the search for underlying causes for what occurs in activities in the science classroom. Our concern is primarily with the tendency to reify processes and turn them into underlying structures, thus creating entities out of human activities. Examples include reification of cognitive and emotional processes (e.g. understanding and interest) as well as socio-cultural ones (e.g. norms and power). We high-light theoretical, methodological, and educational problems connected to this habit. Theoretically and methodologically, there is a problematic circularity connected to the habit of studying people’s actions (such as talk in interviews), reify these actions in the form of entities, and finally take the entities as causes for the initially observed actions. Moreover, the field tends to become oversaturated with new entities whose existence it is not possible to verify empirically. Finally, by striving to attain reified competencies within students, the educational system runs the risk of focusing too much on students attaining certain states, at the expense of learning to take part in meaningful activities having purposes. These problems have been discussed previously. Nevertheless, there are few traces of their existence in the science education research literature, and new studies are conducted as if there was never an issue in the first place. Therefore, it is timely to reopen this issue for renewed discussion

Lärarutbildning genom parallellprocesser kring samhällsfrågor med naturvetenskapligt innehåll. ”- När är det rätt att döda ett djur?” : Teacher training through parallel processes focused on societal issues with scientific content. - "When is it right to kill an animal?"

 It is often emphasized that teacher training should be close to real practice. Starting with tasks based on socio-scientific issues (SSI) is one way of making science teaching more interesting and relevant. This approach allows the students a greater opportunity to be involved in determining the content. In this study, we wanted to visualize some different aspects that appeared when teacher students discussed a socio-scientific issue. Furthermore, the aim was to develop a method that could help the students to reflect on how they could arrange similar activities in their future classrooms within a parallel process. The data collection was carried out when the students discussed an authentic question concerning the right to kill animals. To analyse the content and meaning making that emerged in the students’ discussions, we used practical epistemological analysis (PEA). In the results we highlight three aspects, which could be important to consider when organizing instruction around SSI in a pluralistic spirit. First, the student discussions lead to broadening and clarification of various choices and circumstances needed to make a moral decision. Secondly, on several occasions, scientific facts were required to advance the discussion. Finally, the students formulated ethical principles in order to find out about and decide on the questions at hand. These three didactical aspects can be expected to be helpful for the teacher students in the context of their own teaching. Consequently, this parallel process is a feasible way of creating ‘a continuity’ between practice and theory in teacher education

Antropocen och utbildning : direkta naturmöten och demokratiska processer

reclaim the climat

Teachers as agents for social change? Myths and Subject positions in transformative sustainability education

In educational practice there is an ongoing discussion, about social change in relation to sustainability (Ferreira 2013; Jickling & Wals 2008, 2013; Laessö 2010). When our contemporary way of living is declared as unsustainable, and education is put to make a ‘social change’ towards a more ‘sustainable living’, we interpret this from a discourse theoretical view as the educational system becomes dislocated in the attempts of interpret this new order to strive for (Laclau & Mouffe 2001; Laclau 1990). In this state, new articulations develops to interpret how to make a new structure to stabilise the new order. Social change does not have any inherent meaning per se, it becomes formulated through its contextual use in practice. Therefore we find it fruitful to gain empirical knowledge of how teaching for ‘social change’ can be articulated in relation to sustainability. More specifically, we have formulated the following research questions as: - Which subjects positions among teachers can be identified in ESD discourses of social change? - Which 'myths' of social change can be identified in ESD discourses? By using theoretical frameworks of Laclau and Mouffe and Biesta, we identifies teachers’ subject positions and emerging ‘myths’ through analyses of articulations in teacher colleagues discussions of important aims of sustainability in relation to ESD. Discourse theory, analysing teachers discussions To analyse how 'social change' (re)articulate desirable aims in educational practice, we start from teacher discussions. The analyses focus articulations where students are supposed to act in relation to sustainability. Through the central meaning of those articulations, new spaces of representations are opened where it becomes possible to legitimate actions as natural, in the light of this new order (myth). In this study we have been able to identify three struggling ESD-discourses of ‘social change’, comprising desirable teacher-specific-positions and emerging myths of ‘social change’. twenty teachers in total were selected and divided into five groups which consisting of three to six colleagues in each group. The participants were science and social science teachers in secondary and upper secondary schools in Sweden. The chosen schools were either certified ESD-schools or actively involved in projects concerning sustainability. Each group discussion, which lasted about an hour, were recorded and transcribed. The result shows how the teacher is simultaneously identified in three struggling positions; the rational subject as a neutral conductor; the responsible subject as a role model or the reconstructing subject as a reconstructor. This depending on how schooling, socialisation towards sustainable lifestyles and political and ethical perspectives are identified as aims and educational functions (Biesta 2009), to formulate the myth of ‘social change’ in ESD. This has implications on how to acknowledge ‘social change’ as mainly being a process to empower students for ‘right’ choices or to uphold ‘social change’ as a way for students to explore new interpretations of a more sustainable living, to develop as political subjects (c.f. Lundegård & Wickaman 2012)

Didaktik och didaktiska modeller för undervisning i naturvetenskapliga ämnen

Didactics and didactic models in science education This article reviews what didactic models are, how they can be produced through didactic modelling and how didactic models can be used for analyses of teaching and learning and for educational designs. The article is as an introduction to this Nordina special issue on didactic models and didactic modelling in science education research