Justicia social e investigación en didáctica de las ciencias sociales de Iberoamérica, 2014-2024

From June 26 to 29, 2022 — as the global COVID-19 pandemic was drawing to a close — the International Conference on Didactics of the Science (DidSci+ 2022) warmly and lively welcomed more than a hundred researchers, scientists, educators, teachers, and Ph.D. students from the field of STEM education and STEM disciplines, primarily from Central Europe. This special edition of DidSci conferences, celebrating its 10th anniversary, was held, in Košice, Slovakia’s second-largest city, at the Faculty of Science of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University. The DidSci+ conferences present a platform for enduring international cooperation, focusing on the frontiers and current challenges in science education research alongside existing progress in natural, pedagogic-psychological, and social sciences. Concerning history, the Košice DidSci+ conference continues in a legacy of the successful series of prior DidSci conferences that originated in Poland (Krakow 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016), followed by gatherings in the Czech Republic (Prague 2018, Brno 2021) and the Slovak Republic (Trnava 2019, together with IOSTE 2019 conference). The DidSci conference’s history is also interlinked with the DYDCHEM conference, which, in 2004-2008, transformed into the present DidSci format, primarily focusing on research in natural science didactics. The main goal of the Košice DidSci+ conference was to facilitate the exchange of pedagogical experiences in STEM at all educational levels, from primary school through to higher education, with a particular emphasis on innovation and digital transformation within STEM education. Particularly, the Košice DidSci+ 2022 conference centered on the following main educational topics: • Current Results of Natural Sciences Didactic Research • Digital Transformation of STEM Education • Active Learning and Development of Scientific Literacy • Science Education Curriculum • Teacher Training and Lifelong Learning List of International scientific committee & the editorial board and The local organizing committee are available in this PDF.

1: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Science Education Research.- Presidential Address: What can we reasonably expect of research in science education?.- Constructivism in science education: The need for a clear line of demarcation.- Overviews of the Research Presented at ESERA 2001.- On the methodology of 'phenomenography' as a science education research tool.- Conversation Theory and self-learning.- Analysis of video data of secondary school science students.- Longitudinal studies - providing insight into individual themes in science learning and students' views of their own learning.- Changing referential perspective in science classroom discourse.- 2:Learning and Understanding Science.- Students' positions in physics education. A gendered perspective.- Situated conceptions and obstacles. The example of digestion/excretion.- About some of the difficulties in learning Thermodynamics at the University Level.- Metacognitive Experiences in the Domain of Physics: Developmental and Educational Aspects.- How children reason from data to conclusions in practical science investigations.- Mechanistic reasoning on the concept of wave surface, and on the Huygens principle.- Atomic Physics in Upper Secondary School: Layers of Conceptions in Individual Cognitive Structure.- The electric current on its way to our house and the parallel connection of the electric appliances: primary students' (11-12) representations.- Detailed Investigation of Professional Physicists Solving Physics Tasks.- Learning from writing in secondary science: A case study of students' composing strategies.- Seventh-grade pupils' epistemic views in the context of model-based instruction.- Nonlinear Analysis of the Effect of Working-Memory Capacity on Student Performance in Problem Solving.- The Nature Of Growth In Children's Science Understandings: Insights From A Longitudinal Study.- HOCS Problem solving Vs. LOCS exercise solving: What do college science students prefer?.- 3 :Teaching and Communicating Science.- Science and Technology Education: A high priority political concern in Europe.- A mesoscopic model of liquids for teaching fluids statics.- The importance of weightlessness and tides in teaching gravitation.- Making decisions about biological conservation issues in peer group discussion.- Discourse in the laboratory: quality in argumentative and epistemic operations.- Modelling the evolution of teaching -learning sequences: From discovery to constructivism.- Nonlinear Physics in Upper Physics Classes: Educational Reconstruction as a Frame for Development and Research in a Study of Teaching and Learning Basic Ideas of Nonlinearity.- Promoting Understanding through Representational Redescription: an exploration referring to young pupils' ideas about gravity.- Different types of classroom debates on biotechnology. Are these simply an exercise in rhetoric or do they encourage a well-founded critical attitude?.- 4: Science Education and Information and Communication Technologies.- WISE Research - Promoting International Collaboration.- Research about the use of information technology in science education.- Physics Learning and Microcomputer Based Laboratory (MBL) - Learning effects of using MBL as a technological and as a cognitive tool.- Phenomenographical Approach to Design for a Hypertext Teacher's Guide to MBL.- Application of a framework appropriate for a multilevel assessment of educational multimedia software in science (FEVES).- Brain Research in Science Education Research.- Computer modelling and simulation in science lessons: using research into teachers' transformations to inform training.- 5: Science Teachers: Knowledge and Practices.- Exploring science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge.- Relating research in didactics and actual teaching practice: impact and virtues of critical details.- Transforming the Standard Instrument for Assessing Science Teacher's Self-Efficacy Beliefs (STEBI) For Use in Denmark.- Teachers' confidence in primary science and teacher-student interactions.- Teachers' views and attitudes towards the communication code and the rhetoric used in press science articles.- Science teachers' perceptions of the current situation of planetary emergency.- 6: International Research and Development Projects.- A European Research Project for New Challenges in Science Teacher Training.- Quality Development Projects in Science Education.- Video-Based Studies on Investigating Deficiencies of School Science Teaching.- Authors Index.

Teacher education programs must prepare their preservice science teachers to center social justice and to meet the academic needs of culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse students, as justice-centered discourses are traditionally absent from science classrooms yet integral to the teaching and learning of rich and relevant phenomena. In this study, we investigated a cohort of preservice secondary science teachers enrolled in a yearlong, post-baccalaureate teacher education program that attended to social justice. We conducted four interviews with each participant across their program and qualitatively analyzed their discussions of social justice ideas and teaching practices using three tenets of a justice-centered science pedagogy framework: enacting an antiracist and equitable science education, grounding instruction in social and environmental justice phenomena, and framing students as transformative intellectuals. We found preservice teacher participants discussed enacting antiracist and equitable science teaching by using a critical lens to identify inequities in classrooms and schools, and by attending to high academic expectations. Preservice teachers described focusing on socioscientific phenomena and local contexts as starting points for teaching about social justice science issues. Participants also shared their work toward framing students as transformative intellectuals by developing teacher-student relationships, building from students’ ideas, and discussing emerging ideas and efforts for student advocacy. Findings from this study underscore the need for more focused work on ways to prioritize the justice component of social justice science issues and the student advocacy component of students as transformative intellectuals so as to prepare preservice teachers to fully enact a socially just science education.

Through Brandon Zoras’ graduate work at OISE on urban boys and science education, he was most interested in papers written on STSE (Science, Technology, Society, and Environment) and social justice in science. Social justice is not always first associated with courses like science, but often is addressed in the social sciences. Nevertheless, many social justice issues are rooted within fields of science; and, ensuring students have some scientific literacy in this regard is critical so they can navigate and understand complex social justice issues. The work of Angela Calabrese Barton and colleagues (e.g., Barton AC, Teaching science for social justice. Teachers College Press, New York, 2003; Barton AC, Tan E, Can J Sci Math Technol Educ 10(3):207–222, 2010), Larry Bencze (e.g., Bencze L, STEPWISE: Science and technology education promoting wellbeing for individuals, societies and environments. Accessed at http://stepwiser.ca, 2013; Bencze L, Bowen M, Alsop S, Sci Educ 90(3):400–419, 2006), Christopher Emdin (e.g., Reality pedagogy and urban science education: Toward a comprehensive understanding of the urban science classroom. In: Fraser B, Tobin K, McRobbie C (eds) Second international handbook of science education. Springer, New York, pp 67–80, 2010; Int J Qual Stud Educ 24(3):285–301, 2011), Wanja Gitari (e.g., Can J Sci Math Technol Educ 9(4):262–275, 2009), and Erminia Pedretti and colleagues (e.g., Sci Educ 17(8):941–960, 2008), had inspired him to get students looking at their own communities for social justice issues that involved science. Focusing on urban education and also teaching in urban schools within Toronto, issues of social justice, equity, and socioeconomic status are important factors to discuss. Having a better understanding of science can lead to better careers, understanding of health diagnosis and power. Through the semester-long apprenticeship and exposure to various types of technology and social media, students reported being able to better understand the STSE issues as well as learning activism strategies that can be applied within their lives. From simple self-advocacy next time they are faced with an issue, to being able to start their own action on an issue, they felt prepared to research and take action.

We cannot take access to equitable out-of-school science learning for granted. Data compiled in 2012 show that between a fifth (22% in Brazil) and half (52% in China and the United States) of people in China, Japan, South Korea, India, Malaysia, the United States, the European Union, and Brazil visited zoos, aquaria, and science museums (National Science Foundation, 2012). But research suggests participation in out-of-school science learning is far from equitable and is marked by advantage, not least the social axes of age, social class, and ethnicity (Dawson, 2014a, 2014b; National Science Foundation, 2012; OECD, 2012). For instance, in the UK data suggest that the two-thirds of the population who took part in out-of-school science learning activities1 in the previous year were more affluent (upper and middle classes) and from the White ethnic majority (Ipsos MORI, 2014). If we believe that out-of-school science learning provides valuable educational, cultural, social and political opportunities, then we must take questions of equity seriously. Ideas from social justice can help us understand how equity issues are woven through out-of-school science learning practices. In this paper, I outline how social justice theories, in combination with the concepts of infrastructure access, literacies and community acceptance, can be used to think about equity in out-of-school science learning. I apply these ideas to out-of-school science learning via television, science clubs and maker spaces, looking at research as well as illustrative examples to see how equity challenges are being addressed in practice. I argue that out-of-school science learning practices can be understood on a spectrum from weak to strong models of social justice. Thinking about social justice as a spectrum helps us think through what equitable out-of-school science learning practices might involve, both to analyze existing practices and, importantly, to imagine new, more inclusive ones. Out-of-school science learning is a broad term, used to describe quite different activities, participants, aims, and practices. It can mean enjoying science festivals, watching science documentaries, pursing science-related hobbies as well as activities focused on engineering, mathematics, or technology (see, e.g., Bonney et al., 2009; Dingwall & Aldridge, 2006; Kaiser, Durant, Levenson, Wiehe, & Linett, 2013). In this paper, I focus primarily on the contrasting worlds of television and science clubs as out-of-school science learning contexts2. I use “science” as an umbrella term for science, technology, engineering, or mathematics related subjects. However, I add a caveat to how I use the term out-of-school. Because “out-of-school” invokes the idea of school, there can be a tendency to focus on youth as participants and activities that are for, by, or with youth. But of course adults may not consider their television watching an “out-of-school” activity. Thus, I note here that I keep both adults and youth in mind when writing about equity and out-of-school science learning.

This paper is written in response to Alberto J. Rodriguez and Deb Morrison’s article entitled, “Expanding and Enacting Transformative Meanings of Equity, Diversity and Social Justice in Science Education.” The authors provide a historical account of science education social justice research efforts within the USA and support the need to more critically incorporate social justice research agendas in science education. They summarize four main rationales used in science education research for engaging in equity, diversity and social justice: the economic, moral, demographic shift, and sociotransformative arguments. The authors remind researchers to consider systems of power and privilege when advocating for marginalized people, arguing that social justice should be embodied by the researcher and constantly be enacted within their work. The authors question why few have taken up social justice science education research. This paper expands on these authors’ arguments by offering a critical race analysis of the social justice construct in science education research. I conclude with suggesting the need to deconstruct whiteness within social justice science education research agendas.

Socioscientific issues (SSI) are problems involving the deliberate use of scientific topics that require students to engage in dialogue, discussion, and debate. The purpose of this project is to utilize issues that are personally meaningful and engaging to students, require the use of evidence-based reasoning, and provide a context for scientific information. Social justice is the pursuit of equity and fairness in society by ensuring that all individuals have opportunities to challenge and address inequalities and injustices to create a more just and equitable society for all (Killen et al. Human Development 65:257–269, 2021). By connecting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts to personally meaningful contexts, SSI can empower students to consider how STEM-based issues reflect moral principles and elements of virtue in their own lives and the world around them (Zeidler et al. Science Education 89:357–377, 2005). We employed a qualitative research design to answer the following questions: (1) In what ways, if any, did teachers help students grow their knowledge and practices on social justice through socioscientific issues? (2) In teachers’ perceptions, what components of SSI did students learn and what are their challenges? (3) In teachers’ perceptions, what are students’ stances on social justice? After completing the first year and second-year professional development programs, grades 6–12 STEM teachers were asked to complete a reflection on classroom artifacts. Teachers were asked to select student artifacts (e.g. assignments, projects, essays, videos, etc.) that they thought exemplified the students’ learning of SSI and stance on social justice. Based on 21 teacher-submitted examples of exemplar student work, we saw the following example pedagogies to engage their students on social justice: (a) making connections to real-world experiences, (b) developing a community project, (c) examining social injustice, and (d) developing an agency to influence/make changes. According to teachers, the most challenging SSI for students was elucidating their own position/solution, closely followed by employing reflective scientific skepticism. Moreover, the students exemplified reflexivity, metacognition, authentic activity, and dialogic conversation. Using SSI in classrooms allows students to tackle real-world problems, blending science and societal concerns. This approach boosts understanding of scientific concepts and their relevance to society. Identifying methods like real-world connections and examining social injustice helps integrate social justice themes into science education through SSI. Overall, SSI promotes interdisciplinary learning, critical thinking, and informed decision-making, enriching science education socially. This study highlights the value of integrating SSI in science education to engage students with social justice.

In this conceptual paper, we argue that social justice, morality, and healing must be at the core of an equity agenda for science education. When we view equity through this lens, teachers’ and researchers’ historically informed moral stances become just as important as the equitable distribution of teaching and learning resources and the achievement of excellent learning outcomes for all students. Without looking back to the history of science and its prejudices, we miss the reasons why equity in science education continues to be so hard to attain. Incorporating insights from critical race theory, we see ideas of social justice and morality overlapping as well as supporting our understanding of a new direction for equity in science education. We do not frame moral decisions as autonomous actions carried out on the basis of universal a priori principles; rather, we believe they are dialogically informed by culture and context. We therefore place emphasis on responsibilities rather than rules. In this article, we first describe equity through the lens of social justice and present an overview of recent equity research in science education. We next examine the idea of collective morality as we have conceptualized it as science educators and researchers. Then we discuss how morality and social justice intersect with histories of science and offer a different way to consider equity in science education. Finally, we propose some historical case studies that might be of use to the science education community to illustrate how morality and social justice could be a part of rethinking equity-oriented science education.

New Feminist Approaches to Social Science Methodologies: An Introduction

Abnormal Justice

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The meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences was held in Budapest, Hungary from the 27th to the 29th of January, 2017 at Eötvös Lorand University. It was organized by the Doctoral School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences of University of Debrecen and the Department of Mathematics Teaching and Education Centre Institute of Mathematics. The 62 participants – including 43 lecturers and 20 PhD students – came from 7 countries, 22 cities and represented 35 institutions of higher and secondary education.

The meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences was held in Novi Sad, Serbia from the 23th to the 25th of January, 2015 at the University of Novi Sad. It was organized by the PhD School of Mathematics and Computer Sciences of the University of Debrecen and the Department of Mathematics and Informatics of the University of Novi Sad. The 70 participants – including 42 lecturers, and 18 PhD students – came from 9 countries, 28 cities and represented 40 intstitutions of higher education.

The meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences was held in Baja, Hungary, at Eötvös József College, from the 1st to the 3th of April, 2022. It was organized by the Doctoral School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences of the University of Debrecen and by Eötvös József College. The 62 participants - including 18 PhD students - came from 8 countries and represented 26 institutions of higher and secondary education. There were 3 plenary and 40 session talks in the program.

The meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences was held in Debrecen, Hungary from January 21 to January 23, 2010. The 42 Hungarian participants – including 16 PhD students – came from 5 countries, 14 cities and represented 25 institutions of higher education. The abstracts of the talks and the posters and also the list of participants are presented in this report.