Page 291 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

20 Critical Pedagogy of Place: A Framework for Understanding Relationships 265

Transformative Potential of Recognizing Difference
as a Resource for Improving Teaching and Learning of Science

Pauline and David’s research readily demonstrates the power of employing autoeth-
nography and autobiography in education research. Findings from their study

support this methodology as being transformative for David’s science teaching
practices. His critical examination of his coming to be a teacher enabled him to
identify and confront the ways in which places and social spaces, shaped by socio/
historical/cultural/economic forces, have informed his educational experiences over
time. Presented from the perspective of the researchers, Pauline and David offer a
thoughtful critique of their experiences as teachers and learners in a dynamic, com-
plicated education system in Hawaii. However, missing from their analyses of
David’s classroom teaching practices and his interactions with members in the
larger community are the perceptions of these same events by the students, teachers,
and families who their research reportedly benefitted. There is no doubt that the
work David and Pauline have done in these schools is supporting students to be
successful. What is unclear is how and why these practices have been beneficial.
Without providing an avenue for accessing the perspectives of all the actors in an
activity system, researchers limit the potential for learning how different individuals
within a community make sense of the same experiences.
A growing group of urban science educators are introducing cogenerative dia-
logue as a means for engaging students in conversations about sense of place and
identity as related to science teaching and learning (e.g, see Martin 2009).
Cogenerative dialogues are discussions involving students and teachers that become
a site to foreground problems occurring in classrooms and schools, and more
importantly, to collectively generate solutions (Roth and Tobin 2001). This method
has been used to generate dialogue among people who differ with regard to age,
gender, race, ethnicity, social class, religious beliefs, and native language (Tobin
2006). Research involving cogenerative dialogues in urban science classrooms has
demonstrated that by engaging different stakeholder groups (including students,
parents, other teachers, and administrators) in conversations around curriculum
choices, pedagogical choices, and classroom/school policies, participants are able
to create solidarity across differences associated with ethnicity, native language,
social class, age, and gender. As a result, teachers and students have been supported
to cogenerate a shared understanding of individual goals for learning and teaching
science, enabling them to collectively transform the way school science is experi-
enced by individuals (Martin 2006).
By employing cogenerative dialogues as a pedagogical tool, teachers, like David,
could empower their students, teaching peers, and community members to chal-
lenge the colonizing power of school curricula. By engaging in a critical, collaborative
discussion about what is currently being taught and learned in school science, indi-
viduals could also identify new roles for all participants that could expand oppor-
tunities for incorporating indigenous knowledge in the science classroom. Used as
a methodological tool, researchers, like Pauline, can engage a wider audience of