This response draws from the literature on adaptive learning, traditional ecological knowledge, and social-ecological systems to show that Brad's choice is not a simple decision between traditional ecological knowledge and authentic science. This perspective recognizes knowledge systems as dynamic, cultural and historical activities characterized…

Bringing a greater number of students into science is one of, if not the most fundamental goals of science education for "all", especially for heretofore-neglected groups of society such as women and Aboriginal students. Providing students with opportunities to experience how science really is enacted--i.e., "authentic science"--has been advocated…

In this case study, we examine a teacher's journey, including reflections on teaching science, everyday classroom interaction, and their intertwined relationship. The teacher's reflections include an awareness of being "a White middle-class born and raised teacher teaching other peoples' children." This awareness was enacted in the science…

Elementary science teaching has been considered by recent researchers as a process in which students should be engaged in a variety of activities to develop science concepts, science process skills and scientific attitudes. From this perspective, hands-on activities are prominent in this approach because it leads the students to both reflect on…

Teaching is a very complex endeavor. Embedded within this complex environment are issues of power, culture, ethnicity, and race. When teachers and students come together, in the classroom, some of these issues become visible and others remain invisible. Attempting to make influences on teaching and learning visible is one of the steps toward…

Conscientization involves a recursive process of reflection and action toward individual and social transformation. Often this process takes shape through encounters in/with diverse and often conflicting discourses. The study of student and teacher discourses, or scripts and counterscripts, in science classrooms can reveal asymmetrical power…

This comment on L. Simonneaux and J. Simonneaux paper focuses on the role of "identities" in dealing with socio-scientific issues. We argue that there are two types of identities (social representations) influencing the students' positions: On the one hand their social representations of the bears' and wolves' identities as belonging to particular…

This article reviews significant contributions made by Joe L. Kincheloe to critical research in science education, especially through a multimethodological, multitheoretical, and multidisciplinary informed lens that incorporates social, cultural, political, economic, and cognitive dynamics--the bricolage. Kincheloe's ideas provide for a compelling…

I describe how Joe Kincheloe experienced learning from a peer during his pre-school life only to see how his friend was unable to succeed at school. Joe's commitment to empowered cognition was grounded first, by his friend, Larry's mentorship--teaching him the environmental nuances of the mountains in rural Tennessee, and secondly, the…

Research on teacher identities is both important and increasing. In this forum contribution I re-interpret assertions about an African American science teacher's identities in terms of Jonathon Turner's ("2002") constructs of role identity and sub-identity. I contest the notion of renegotiation of identities, suggesting that particular role…

As we contemplate on teacher identity research, there is a need to place a teacher's narratives or story-lines at the center of that work. In this forum, in response to the insightful commentary from Stephen Ritchie and Maria Inez Mafra Goulart and Eduardo Soares, I place a greater emphasis on understanding Daisy's narratives from an existing…

This study draws upon a qualitative case study to investigate the impact of the high-stakes test environment on an elementary teacher's identities and the influence of identity maintenance on science teaching. Drawing from social identity theory, I argue that we can gain deep insight into how and why urban elementary science teachers engage in…

In focusing on the Kincheloe and Tobin paper, "The Much Exaggerated Death of Positivism," this forum explores the hegemony of positivism in the professional practices of a group of educators whose research expertise lies in the fields of science education, mathematics education and leadership education. Responding to the first question, "What is…

This paper provides a critical analysis of some of the issues raised in Simonneaux and Simonneaux's analysis of socioscientific reasoning among a group of university level students negotiating three socioscientific issues. I first discuss the labels used to reference approaches in science education that prioritize socially relevant issues and the…

Based on the comments by Lopez-Facal and Jimenez-Aleixandre, we consider that the cultural identities within Europe interfere with the question of the re-introduction of the Slovenian bear, generating a kind of "discrimination." When the SAQs under debate run against the students' systems of value, it seems that the closer the connection between…