Autobiography and the paradox of change: (Dis)locating ourselves in the process

Abstract

As researchers, we often seek to change science education practices that have become outdated. Throughout such change processes we are faced with the dilemma of embodying relationships of power or discourse that we are trying to transform. A situated cognition framework would suggest that this conundrum is inevitable because a community of practitioners is fundamentally bound by the institution and its resources, concerns and ways of being. If we cannot step outside the institution we are trying to change how can we change something which defines who we, as agents of change, are? We reframe the issue as one of cultural production, where we locate ourselves within a cultural field, struggling to change it. This paper embodies some of the tensions involved in cultural re/production of science education. These tensions are played out both in our autobiographical accounts that are part of this article and in the relationship of the authors as graduate student and supervisor. Through a conversational hermeneutic analysis of the authors' autobiographical writings, we examine some of the salient features of bringing about change in science education.