Culturally equipped for socio-scientific issues? A comparative study on how teachers and students in mono- and multiethnic schools handle work with complex issues.
Résumé
Socio-scientific issues (SSI) are said to increase students' interest in science, but also strengthen the generic skills of teamwork, problemsolving and media literacy. At the same time these skills are prerequisites for successful work with SSI. The aim of the study is to analyse what happens when SSI is implemented in science classrooms with various degrees of ethnic diversity and socio-cultural status. We are also interested in how teachers structure the SSI work from discourses on what suits different students. Quantitative and qualitative methods are combined, e.g. questionnaires and ethnographic fieldwork - presented through PLS analysis and thick descriptions. We can notice discursive differences between 'Us' and 'The Other', between mono- and multiethnic schools. In earlier research images of differences between the different student groups emerge, and we can find these in the results from the questionnaires. In the observation study another pattern appears, similarities rather than differences between mono- and multiethnic classrooms stand out. The students are first of all inside the discourse of 'the successful student'. Noteworthy is that the teachers' roles corresponds better with the discourse than with how students actually act. The study also show that SSI articulates a collision between different discourses on education; a discourse on differences between students in multi- and monoethnic classrooms; a discourse on how to become a successful student; and another on the school's mission to educate participating citizens. It is suggested that schools should relate to, expose and articulate discursive clashes that emerge when introducing new work forms.
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