A perennial challenge for urban education in the United States is finding effective ways to address the academic achievement gap between African American and White students. There is widespread and justified concern about the persistence of this achievement gap. In fact, historical evidence suggests that this achievement gap has existed at various times for groups other than African Americans. What conditions prevailed when this achievement gap existed for these other groups? Conversely, under what conditions did the gap diminish and eventually disappear for these groups? This article explores how sociocultural factors involved in the manifestation and eventual disappearance of the gap for these groups may shed some light on how to address the achievement gap for African American students in urban science classrooms. Our conclusion is that the sociocultural position of groups is crucial to understanding and interpreting the scholastic performance of students from various backgrounds. We argue for a research framework and the exploration of research questions incorporating insights from Ogbu's cultural, ecological theory, as well as goal theory, and identity theory. We present these as theories that essentially focus on student responses to societal disparities. Our ultimate goal is to define the problem more clearly and contribute to the development of research‐based classroom practices that will be effective in reducing and eventually eliminating the achievement gap. We identify the many gaps in society and the schools that need to be addressed in order to find effective solutions to the problem of the achievement gap. Finally, we propose that by understanding the genesis of the gap and developing strategies to harness the students' responses to societal disparities, learning can be maximized and the achievement gap can be significantly reduced, if not eliminated entirely, in urban science classrooms. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 1101–1114, 2001
This article examines the impact of a specially designed in‐service model on teacher understanding of selected science concepts. The underlying idea of the model is to get teachers to restructure their own understanding of a selected science topic by having them study the structure and evolution of their students' ideas on the same topic. Concepts on topics from the life, earth, and physical sciences served as the content focus and middle school Grades 4–9 served as the context for this study. The in‐service experience constituting the main treatment in the study occurred in three distinct phases. In the initial phase, participating teachers interviewed several of their own students to find out what kinds of preconceptions students had about a particular topic. The teachers used concept mapping strategies learned in the in‐service to facilitate the interviews. Next the teachers teamed with other teachers with similar topic interests and a science expert to evaluate and explore the scientific merit of the student conceptual frameworks and to develop instructional units, including a summative assessment during a summer workshop. Finally, the student ideas were further evaluated and explored as the teachers taught the topics in their classrooms during the fall term. Concept maps were used to study changes in teacher understanding across the phases of the in‐service in a repeated‐measures design. Analysis of the maps showed significant growth in the number of valid propositions expressed by teachers between the initial and final mappings in all topic groups. But in half of the groups, this long‐term growth was interrupted by a noticeable decline in the number of valid propositions expressed. In addition, analysis of individual teacher maps showed distinctive patterns of initial invalid conceptions being replaced by new invalid conceptions in later mappings. The combination of net growth of valid propositions and the patterns of evolving invalid conceptions is discussed in constructivist terms.
The central position of this article is that an important component of scientific literacy is an understanding of the reciprocal impact of science and the general culture on each other. The article focuses on the marginalized discourses that have arisen to oppose the racism, sexism, and classism espoused and advocated by mainstream science since its institutionalization until the first half of the 20th century. The article explores the pedagogical value of studying these oppositional discourses to demonstrate the permeability of the boundaries between science and the general culture. It also discusses how the issues raised by these discourses can be used to enhance the scientific literacy of students.
The central position of this article is that an important component of scientific literacy is an understanding of the reciprocal impact of science and the general culture on each other. The article focuses on the marginalized discourses that have arisen to oppose the racism, sexism, and classism espoused and advocated by mainstream science since its institutionalization until the first half of the 20th century. The article explores the pedagogical value of studying these oppositional discourses to demonstrate the permeability of the boundaries between science and the general culture. It also discusses how the issues raised by these discourses can be used to enhance the scientific literacy of students.
Lawson (1992) posited the multiple hypothesis theory to explain the essence of scientific reasoning. According to this theory, the essence of scientific reasoning is "the ability to initiate reasoning with more than one antecedent condition." The present study tests the assumptions of this theory with high school students in general experience areas and in chemistry. The findings are generally in support of the theory's assumptions. This article also contains a theoretical discussion which points out how the theory needs to be extended before it can justifiably "constitute the core of a viable alternative theory of reason- Student scores on Piagetian measures of formal reasoning have consistently shown appreciable correlation with achievements in science and other areas (e.g., Lawson, 1978;Roadrangka, Yeany, & Padilla, 1983). It is still not clear, however, what the essence of this formal reasoning is. Lawson (1992) posited the multiple hypothesis theory as the core of an empirically based view regarding the essence of scientific reasoning. According to this theory, the essence of scientific reasoning is "the ability to initiate reasoning with more than one antecedent condition" (p. 965). This theory therefore predicts that a person with superior formal reasoning powers will tend to use conditional rather than biconditional logic, and furthermore, that the context also plays a role in determining the type of logic used. Lawson (1992) tested the basic assumptions of the multiple hypothesis theory using general logic tasks with college students.The present study was aimed at testing the multiple hypothesis theory by analyzing the responses of high school students not only on general logic tasks, but also on logic tasks based on basic chemical concepts. The Lawson (1992) study identified "the ability to initiate reasoning with more than one antecedent condition" as an important dimension of formal reasoning, and the results from the study suggest that students can exhibit this type of reasoning in "general experience" contexts. The question addressed by the present study was whether students can exhibit this type of reasoning in the context of basic general chemistry. The study also investigated whether those students identified as formal operational exhibit this type of thinking to a greater extent than students identified as concrete thinkers.
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