Playing the Paramecium: Science Education from the Stance of the Cultural Studies of Science

Abstract

The recently released National Science Education Standards claim that science is a social process, although that axiom is marginalized in the Standards' overall vision of a restructured science education. This article explores how science education might be shaped if that claim and one body of research that supports it, the cultural studies of science, were taken as a basis for science curriculum. Specifically it analyzes the multiple social positions and knowledges that science and science education create as observations and measurements are carried out and categories are created. These positions produce locations in which multiple contesting knowledges or perspectives are produced. The article argues that these multiple knowledges must be made part of the curriculum. In the conclusion, the article analyzes the importance of the cultural studies of science literature to realizing the Standards' dream of "science for all students."