One hundred years ago, Upton Sinclair, in The Jungle, exposed the deplorable working conditions of eastern European immigrants in the meatpacking houses of Chicago. The backdrop of this article is the new Jungle of the 21st century-the hog plants of the rural Midwest. Here I speak to the lives of the Mexican workers they employ, and, more specifically, the science-learning experiences and aspirations of third-shifters, Jesús and María. I use these students' stories as an opportunity to examine the take-up, in education, of the concept of hybridity, and, more particularly, to interrogate what I have come to regard as the ''third space fetish.'' My principle argument is that Bhabha's understanding of liberatory Third Space has been distorted, in education, through teacher-centered and power-neutral multicultural discourse. I call for a more robust approach to hybridity in science education research, guided by the lessons of possibility and constraint contained in Jesús' and María's third-shift third space lives.
Executive summaryHace cien años, Upton Sinclair, en su libro The Jungle (La Selva), expuso las condiciones deplorables de los trabajadores inmigrantes de Europa oriental en las empacadoras de carne de Chicago. Este artículo trata de la nueva Selva en el siglo veintiuno-las matanzas de puercos en el medioeste rural de los Estados Unidos. Aquí hablo de las vidas de los trabajadores mexicanos que son empleados por estas plantas y, más específicamente, sobre las experiencias y aspiraciones en el aprendizaje de ciencia que tienen dos estudiantes, Jesús y María los cuales trabajan en el tercer turno en la limpieza de la planta. Jesús trabajaba en el tercer turno mientras estudiaba la preparatoria, y se graduó con sueños de
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