Critical autobiographical research for science educators

In recent years the popularity of qualitative research in science education has increased dramatically. This is an evolving field in which new forms, such as critical autobiographical research, are emerging. This form of research focuses on the researcher’s own life-history, involves writing in the narrative first person voice, and can give unique insights into the social and cultural forces shaping his/her own practice. Autobiographical research can be part of a multi-method participant-observation study, helping the researcher to deal with his/her own biases prior to interpreting and representing the perspectives of other participants. Autobiographical research also can form the whole inquiry, especially in cultural research, thereby enabling science educators to become cultural researchers and reveal hidden cultural forces influencing the social structures of schooling, the curriculum and their own pedagogies. Autobiographical writing, which is part of the inquiry process, commences with a descriptive account of key-issues and develops further into reflective thinking, generating new insights and heightening the researcher’s sensitivities towards those issues, thereby enabling the researcher to see his/her research in the context of his/her biography and culture. An important goal of autobiographical writing is to develop pedagogical thoughtfulness. Another goal is moral; through the writing process we can come to understand how to make increasingly educative our interactions with others who share a commitment to educating the young. Not surprisingly, there are critical voices questioning the rigor and legitimacy of literature-based autobiographical writing. However, these concerns are largely unfounded because good autobiographical research attends to a set of quality standards. Critical autobiography as research is thus a powerful and legitimate means for making science classrooms more culturally relevant and more meaningful to students worldwide

When Policy and Infrastructure Provisions are Exemplary but still Insufficient: Paradoxes Affecting Education for Sustainability (EfS) in a Custom-designed Sustainability School

Schools willing to implement education for sustainability (EfS) commonly find themselves confronted with curricula, school grounds and buildings and teaching practices that do not lend themselves easily to best practice EfS. In this article, we present what we learned about some of the challenges confronted daily by the staff of a purpose-built sustainability primary school situated in a ‘green’ suburb in Western Australia. Over the period of a year, we regularly engaged with the staff of the school through semi-structured, in-depth interviews and classroom observations as part of an interpretive ethnographic study. We identified three key themes—policy infrastructure, physical infrastructure and pedagogical infrastructure—that serve as both affordances and counter-affordances to best practice EfS. Given the paradoxical interplay of the affordances and counter-affordances shaping the school’s implementation of EfS, we suggest that overcoming these paradoxes requires no less than a transformation of school culture

Ken Wilber's integral philosophy and educational research: Fleshing out the 'seventh moment' (and beyond?)

Ken Wilber’s ‘integral philosophy’ is described as a spiritual, humanist orientation which provides an excellent theory for conceptualising the connections between science, arts, and religion. In this paper, we argue that Wilber’s framework in connection with seventh moment of qualitative research offers "space" to science education research to position itself more comfortably between the so-called "objective" sciences, including the natural sciences and some schools within the human sciences, and the "subjective" human sciences, without the need to privilege or reject either of them. We refer to a current doctoral study into the teaching of ethical issues in school science to illustrate the potential of an integral perspective on research in science education

Dealing with cultural change forces in whole-school professional development

During the past three years, we conducted the Teaching Learning Project (TLP) at Smith College in metropolitan Perth. Over 30 teaching/administrative staff completed one-year action research projects aimed at fostering a 'culture of learning' within this independent K-12 College. Two external consultants (Peter and John) worked with the college's professional development officer (Janelle), within an epistemological framework of action research. An evaluation was conducted (by Elisabeth) into the extent to which the TLP had become embedded within the culture of Smith College, with a special focus on the nature of Janelle's role as an in-house 'change agent'. Selected teachers and administrative staff were interviewed, with a special focus on how the college developed and changed over the past three years, and how much these processes were influenced by the TLP. Evidence was drawn also from Janelle's journal and records of project team meetings. Indices of the project's success include the continuing participation of significant numbers of teachers, a "ripple" effect on other staff members, ongoing support from administration, and the mainstreaming of Janelle as professional development coordinator. Evidence from the various action research projects indicates that the project is having an important impact at the classroom level. Significantly, countervailing anti-change forces also have been identified

Socially responsible science as a step towards scientific literacy: Supporting teachers, challenging students

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Using autobiography to map an interpretive researcher's sensitivities towards her subject/s

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Socially responsible education for sustainability: Challenging students and supporting teachers through ethical dilemma story pedagogy

Worksho

Undercurrents of Buddhism in contemporary practices of science education in Japan 1: Auto/Ethnography as method

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Transformative research as/for science teacher education

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Dilemmas of school-based reform: An interpretive case study of teacher empowerment and dissent

This article reports on a 3-year longitudinal case study of a school-based project designed to restructure and reculture the school's teaching and learning environment. Using a participatory action research framework, groups of teachers from the school worked together to develop a community of inquiry focusing on core teaching values, student learning, professional growth, teamwork, and teacher-leadership (Wallace & Taylor, 1999). This article examines the problematic nature of such a strategy for school change through a description and analysis of the dilemmas faced by the school as it engaged with the reform project