What Is Construed as Relevant Knowledge in Physics Teaching? Similarities and Differences in How Knowledge and Power Are Staged in Three Lower Secondary Classrooms

Malena Lidar,Maria Berge,Anna T Danielsson

doi:10.1007/s11165-018-9727-6

Abstract

The content that is privileged in teaching has consequences for what the students are given the opportunity to learn and can thus be regarded as an aspect of power. We analyse power aspects in the teaching of physics by identifying actions that guide or direct other people’s actions, and then analyse similarities and differences in different classrooms in terms of how governance is staged and what potential consequences this can have. The analyses are made on data from classroom activities, documented through video recordings and field notes, in three lower secondary schools in Y8 and Y9, respectively. At first glance, teachers from all three schools adhere to a traditional interpretation of a physics curriculum. But a more in-depth analysis shows that the students in the different classrooms are given quite dissimilar opportunities to participate in teaching and create relationships with the content. What appears to be a desirable way of acting offers different conditions for meaning-making. In an increasingly individualised society where people are expected to be active, reflective and make choices for their own personal good, the students in these three classrooms are offered very different conditions to practice and learn to take part in knowledge-making, connect physics content to their everyday life and exercise informed citizenship.

Highlights

On a general level, there are different purposes for studying science in school
The first lesson of the teaching unit concerning energy sources and the production of electricity begun with the teacher describing what they were going to do during the whole unit, including outlining what parts of the physics national curriculum the unit corresponded to
Delineations were made by the students in an instance where the teacher mentioned that to talk about the ear was one of the goals, a student response was ‘We have studied the body already’, which the teacher responds to by clarifying that the focus now is on the parts of the ear and how sound waves are transported, which serves as a direction towards what counts as physics

Summary

Introduction

There are different purposes for studying science in school. One purpose is that the students are to be introduced to the basic knowledge and skills of the science disciplines. The starting point for the study presented here is that when someone participates in teaching and learning activities, for example in science education, they learn much more than the content knowledge being taught.

Results

Conclusion