Abstract
Traditional school science has been described as focused on indisputable facts where scientific processes and factors affecting these processes become obscured or left undiscussed. In this article, we report on teachers’ perspectives on the teaching of sociocultural and subjective aspects of the nature of science (NOS) as a way to accomplish a more nuanced science teaching in Swedish compulsory school. The teachers (N = 6) took part in a longitudinal study on NOS and NOS teaching that spanned 3 years. The data consists of recorded and transcribed focus group discussions from all 3 years. In the analysis, the transcripts were searched for teachers’ suggestions of issues, relevant for teaching in compulsory school, as well as opportunities and challenges connected to the teaching of these issues. The results of the analysis show that (a) the number of suggested issues increased over the years, (b) teachers’ ways of contextualizing the issues changed from general and unprecise to more tightly connected to socio-scientific or scientific contexts, and (c) the number of both opportunities and challenges related to NOS teaching increased over the years. The most evident changes occurred from the beginning of year 2 when the focus group discussions became more closely directed towards concrete teaching activities. Tensions between the opportunities and challenges are discussed as well as how these can be met, and made use of, in science teacher education.
Highlights
Introduction and BackgroundResearch has shown that science teaching often focuses on a body of concepts and that uncertainties, processes behind the concepts, and connections to society are absent
We focus on the teachers’ discussions about sociocultural and subjective aspects as a way to challenge the black-and-white image of science that often prevails in the science classroom
Challenges connected to nature of science (NOS) teaching have been thoroughly investigated and has contributed explanations as to why there is a perceived gap between research intentions and classroom practice (e.g., Abd-El-Khalick et al 1998; Akerson and Hanuscin 2007; Brickhouse and Bodner 1992; Clough and Olson 2012; Lakin and Wellington 1994; Hodson 1993; Höttecke and Silva 2011; Leden et al 2015; Lederman 1995)
Summary
Research has shown that science teaching often focuses on a body of concepts and that uncertainties, processes behind the concepts, and connections to society are absent. Extensive efforts have been made to implement NOS in the science classroom (see e.g., Akerson and Hanuscin 2007; Lederman and Lederman 2012; Clough and Olson 2012). Even though teachers’ perspectives are part of these studies, more research focusing on teachers’ perspectives is needed in order to better understand how such efforts are received by teachers. In a previous study (Leden et al 2015), we have shown that teachers perceived NOS teaching as something new. Previous research on challenges (e.g., Henke and Höttecke 2015; Höttecke and Silva 2011) has provided explanations as to why there often is a gap between research intentions and classroom practice. The present article contributes with longitudinal research on teachers’ suggestions of issues, within the scope of sociocultural and subjective aspects that could be considered meaningful and possible to teach in compulsory school. Six teachers were followed for 3 years in their teaching and in focus group discussions
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