Students' ease in crossing cultural borders into school science

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to fine-tune a grounded-theory scheme originally proposed in this journal by Costa (1995). She categorized students according to the ease with which they succeed in school science; an ease related to the similarity between their life-world culture and the culture of school science. In this article I propose an additional category, "I Want to Know" Students, to her five-category scheme. These are students who are just as interested in science as Costa's Potential Scientists but who find school science intimidating in some way, though not as intimidating as Costa's "I Don't Know" Students. By adding another category to Costa's scheme, researchers and teachers can better understand the range of differences between a student's lifeworld culture and the culture of school science. This understanding has direct implications for the ease with which students cross cultural borders into school science.

“We do not know what is the real story anymore”: Curricular contextualization principles that support indigenous students in understanding natural selection

“…We propose that contextualization can be culturally relevant by accounting not only for the ideas and experiences that students bring to the classroom, but for the culturally based psychological patterns of reasoning that underlie those ideas, and for the cultural practices, traditions, and societal structures that render those ideas meaningful for students. This approach aligns with Kawagley et al (), Aikenhead (), Castagno and Brayboy (), and Bang and Medin (), among others. We propose that, for science curricula to be culturally relevant for students, it must bridge students' cultures and Western science culture, so that students' cultures are respected and valued as resources for learning.…”

“…These five additional contextualization principles were designed to bring students' TIK to the forefront of the learning process to support them in understanding how Western science has developed particular ways of explaining the natural world that may or may not be aligned with their own TIK. These principles concretize the idea of border crossing as a tool for learning science that have been already proposed by scholars such as Aikenhead (, ) and Bang and Medin (), but we add an emphasis on border crossing as an experience of empowerment for adolescents from communities that experience oppression and discrimination.

Principle 3: Using traditional knowledge as a context to explore Western science concepts and to engage adult members of the community in the classroom .

…”

“We do not know what is the real story anymore”: Curricular contextualization principles that support indigenous students in understanding natural selection

“…We propose that contextualization can be culturally relevant by accounting not only for the ideas and experiences that students bring to the classroom, but for the culturally based psychological patterns of reasoning that underlie those ideas, and for the cultural practices, traditions, and societal structures that render those ideas meaningful for students. This approach aligns with Kawagley et al (), Aikenhead (), Castagno and Brayboy (), and Bang and Medin (), among others. We propose that, for science curricula to be culturally relevant for students, it must bridge students' cultures and Western science culture, so that students' cultures are respected and valued as resources for learning.…”

“…These five additional contextualization principles were designed to bring students' TIK to the forefront of the learning process to support them in understanding how Western science has developed particular ways of explaining the natural world that may or may not be aligned with their own TIK. These principles concretize the idea of border crossing as a tool for learning science that have been already proposed by scholars such as Aikenhead (, ) and Bang and Medin (), but we add an emphasis on border crossing as an experience of empowerment for adolescents from communities that experience oppression and discrimination.

Principle 3: Using traditional knowledge as a context to explore Western science concepts and to engage adult members of the community in the classroom .

…”

Inquiry-based Learning in China: Lesson learned for School Science Practices

“…Teacher can stimulate students' learning based on understanding about nature of science and practical science. Students have space learn science as social and cultural involvements (Aikenhead, 2001;Ferriera & Gendron, 2011;Yang & Chen, 2013).…”

Secondary school students' responses to epistemic uncertainty during an ecological citizen science inquiry

“…School science teaching tends to appear as rigid system that is difficult to fully disrupt toward knowledge development in a way that characterizes science (e.g., Aikenhead, 2001; Sharma & Anderson, 2009). Whereas we focused on the interactions in which students reframe uncertainty in line with science practices, we cannot know to what extent the individuals consider the activity as a (citizen) science inquiry versus a school task.…”

“We do not know what is the real story anymore”: Curricular contextualization principles that support indigenous students in understanding natural selection

“…We propose that contextualization can be culturally relevant by accounting not only for the ideas and experiences that students bring to the classroom, but for the culturally based psychological patterns of reasoning that underlie those ideas, and for the cultural practices, traditions, and societal structures that render those ideas meaningful for students. This approach aligns with Kawagley et al (), Aikenhead (), Castagno and Brayboy (), and Bang and Medin (), among others. We propose that, for science curricula to be culturally relevant for students, it must bridge students' cultures and Western science culture, so that students' cultures are respected and valued as resources for learning.…”

“…These five additional contextualization principles were designed to bring students' TIK to the forefront of the learning process to support them in understanding how Western science has developed particular ways of explaining the natural world that may or may not be aligned with their own TIK. These principles concretize the idea of border crossing as a tool for learning science that have been already proposed by scholars such as Aikenhead (, ) and Bang and Medin (), but we add an emphasis on border crossing as an experience of empowerment for adolescents from communities that experience oppression and discrimination.

Principle 3: Using traditional knowledge as a context to explore Western science concepts and to engage adult members of the community in the classroom .

…”

Inquiry-based Learning in China: Lesson learned for School Science Practices

“…Teacher can stimulate students' learning based on understanding about nature of science and practical science. Students have space learn science as social and cultural involvements (Aikenhead, 2001;Ferriera & Gendron, 2011;Yang & Chen, 2013).…”

Secondary school students' responses to epistemic uncertainty during an ecological citizen science inquiry

“…School science teaching tends to appear as rigid system that is difficult to fully disrupt toward knowledge development in a way that characterizes science (e.g., Aikenhead, 2001; Sharma & Anderson, 2009). Whereas we focused on the interactions in which students reframe uncertainty in line with science practices, we cannot know to what extent the individuals consider the activity as a (citizen) science inquiry versus a school task.…”

“We do not know what is the real story anymore”: Curricular contextualization principles that support indigenous students in understanding natural selection

“…We propose that contextualization can be culturally relevant by accounting not only for the ideas and experiences that students bring to the classroom, but for the culturally based psychological patterns of reasoning that underlie those ideas, and for the cultural practices, traditions, and societal structures that render those ideas meaningful for students. This approach aligns with Kawagley et al (), Aikenhead (), Castagno and Brayboy (), and Bang and Medin (), among others. We propose that, for science curricula to be culturally relevant for students, it must bridge students' cultures and Western science culture, so that students' cultures are respected and valued as resources for learning.…”

“…These five additional contextualization principles were designed to bring students' TIK to the forefront of the learning process to support them in understanding how Western science has developed particular ways of explaining the natural world that may or may not be aligned with their own TIK. These principles concretize the idea of border crossing as a tool for learning science that have been already proposed by scholars such as Aikenhead (, ) and Bang and Medin (), but we add an emphasis on border crossing as an experience of empowerment for adolescents from communities that experience oppression and discrimination.

Principle 3: Using traditional knowledge as a context to explore Western science concepts and to engage adult members of the community in the classroom .

…”

Inquiry-based Learning in China: Lesson learned for School Science Practices

“…Teacher can stimulate students' learning based on understanding about nature of science and practical science. Students have space learn science as social and cultural involvements (Aikenhead, 2001;Ferriera & Gendron, 2011;Yang & Chen, 2013).…”

Secondary school students' responses to epistemic uncertainty during an ecological citizen science inquiry

“…School science teaching tends to appear as rigid system that is difficult to fully disrupt toward knowledge development in a way that characterizes science (e.g., Aikenhead, 2001; Sharma & Anderson, 2009). Whereas we focused on the interactions in which students reframe uncertainty in line with science practices, we cannot know to what extent the individuals consider the activity as a (citizen) science inquiry versus a school task.…”