Time and space: undergraduate Mexican physics in motion

Abstract

This is an ethnographic study of the trajectories and itineraries of undergraduate physics students at a Mexican university. In this work learning is understood as being able to move oneself and, other things (cultural tools), through the space-time networks of a discipline (Nespor in Knowledge in motion: space, time and curriculum in undergraduate physics and management. Routledge Farmer, London, 1994). The potential of this sociocultural perspective allows an analysis of how students are connected through extended spaces and times with an international core discipline as well as with cultural features related to local networks of power and construction. Through an example, I show that, from an actor-network-theory (Latour in Science in action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1987), that in order to understand the complexities of undergraduate physics processes of learning you have to break classroom walls and take into account students' movements through complex spatial and temporal traces of the discipline of physics. Mexican professors do not give classes following one textbook but in a moment-tomoment open dynamism tending to include undergraduate students as actors in classroom events extending the teaching space-time of the classroom to the disciplinary research work of physics. I also find that Mexican undergraduate students show initiative and display some autonomy and power in the construction of their itineraries as they are encouraged to examine a variety of sources including contemporary research articles, unsolved physics problems, and even to participate in several physicists' spaces, as for example being speakers at the national congresses of physics. Their itineraries also open up new spaces of cultural and social practices, creating more extensive networks beyond those associated with a discipline. Some economic, historical and cultural contextual features of this school of sciences are analyzed in order to help understanding the particular way students are encouraged to develop their autonomy.

A new lens for supporting and studying science teacher reflections: situating the self in the [activity] system

“…Drawing connections to Antonio Candela's (2010) work allows us to better evince the need for this shift. Discussing the nature of physics teaching and learning in Mexican undergraduate physics courses, Candela observed that, ''… schools are local spaces where practices are constituted by other everyday practices such as academics, economics, political, and cultural from extended times and spaces.…”

Science Education in Post-Truth Age: Metaphysical Reflections from Bruno Latour’s Science Studies

“…The proposal that we make, in dialogue with the research studies in Science Education that already bring a deep reflection on the work of Latour (Candela, 2010;Coutinho, & Silva, 2014Massoni, & Moreira, 2017;Mody, 2015;M. A. Oliveira, 2010;Queiroz, & Almeida, 2004;Rezzadori, & Oliveria, 2011;Richard, & Bader, 2010;Roth, & Tobin, 1997;Roxael et al, 2015;Vianna, & Carvalho, 2001a, 2001bWeinstein, 2008), is an investment in a metaphysical turn.…”

“…In the research in Science Education, there are several papers that use the ANT as a theoretical-methodological foundation. This perspective allows the investigation of different themes, such as didactic activities(Candela, 2010;, scientific projects(Faria, & Coutinho, 2015), textbooks(Coutinho, & Silva, 2014), student laboratory(Rezzadori, & Oliveria, 2011) and "content"(Pierce, 2015;Van Eijck, 2010). Still, there are proposals for the elaboration of didactic units from ANT.…”

Visualizing time: how linguistic metaphors are incorporated into displaying instruments in the process of interpreting time-varying signals

“…However practices occurring outside the school become of primary concern to understand students' conceptions and ideas that constitute the starting point for the development of academic knowledge (Hammer 1996). Relying on previous work (Nespor 1994(Nespor , 2004 more recently Antonia Candela provided an ethnographic account on the students' trajectories as spatially and temporally distributed events institutionally organized as obligatory passage points on the route to stabilize the identity as scientists or engineers (Candela 2010). Recalling our previous accounts on cultural traditions, classrooms can be then seen as privileged locations for cultural hydridation (Burke 2009).…”