Walking the Middle Ground: The Process of Transformation Within a Critical Science Classroom

Abstract

The goal of this critical ethnographic study was to investigate the difficult terrain between theoretical visions of transformation and actual transformative classroom practice. The study articulates how a critical science framework (Fusco and Calabrese-Barton, 2001) facilitated student development of critical stances, how students responded to these critical approaches, and closely documents the difficult process involved when working with transformative issues in the classroom. The study was carried out in a Health Science classroom in the southwestern borderland of the United States. Participants included a beginning teacher, who was committed to a critical science framework and 24 (9th–12th grade) students enrolled in the Health Science course. Over the two-year duration of the study, multiple sets of data were collected including but not limited to student interviews, focus groups, classroom observations, and sample student work. The main findings indicate that critical science approaches to content and pedagogy helped students envision that transformative possibilities do exist and deepened their understanding for how science content could benefit their future lives. Most importantly, students articulated how these approaches have helped them better understand their own points of view and these new understandings will serve as the basis for their current and future actions. Implications for the utilization of critical science pedagogy and impacts on students are also discussed. This project was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Award # 9903328) and a grant from the New Mexico Commission on Higher Education. However, the opinions, views and conclusions in this paper may not reflect the views of the PI and/or the funding agencies. All subjects' names have been replaced with pseudonyms for the purpose of confidentiality within this report.