According to the promises: the subculture of school science, teachers' pedagogic identity and the challenge of ict

Abstract

This paper reports findings from the Economic and Social Research Council‐funded InterActive Education Project, in which teachers, researchers and teacher educators have worked together to develop, perform, and evaluate secondary school science department‐based ‘Subject Design Initiatives’. Drawing on notions from sociocultural theory, we have focused on ‘cultural tools’ as material and symbolic mediators of learning. In the Subject Design Initiatives teachers are seen as central to learning in the classroom, incorporating information and communications technology (ICT) into their designed learning situations in a naturalistic way. In this paper we draw upon science teacher interview data to attempt to define and characterise the subculture of school science. The research reported focuses on the problems, possibilities and reality ICT presents to established science subcultures as seen through the eyes of individual teachers. More particularly, we are interested in the ways in which teachers' subject epis...