ERIC Number: EJ1161127
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0013-1946
EISSN: N/A
Science Education and the Nature of Nature: Bruno Latour's Ontological Politics
Gleason, Tristan
Educational Studies: Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, v53 n6 p573-586 2017
This article explores recent developments in the field of science and technology, and the work of Bruno Latour in particular, to problematize the nature of Nature in science education. Although science and technology studies, and the scholarship on science education alike, have become increasingly attentive to the antidemocratic habits of science as a way of knowing, less attention has been directed toward science's ontological commitments, and the politics that follow from a theory of Nature that is uniform, homogenous, and unchanging. Latour suggests that the Nature toward which scientific knowledge is directed serves as a transcendent authority with the potential to circumvent the democratic deliberations of a supposedly subjective social world. Rather than treating Nature as a social construct, Latour explores the methodological and political implications of a reality composed of plural worlds and multiple modes of being, and this article suggests that these theoretical tools offer exciting new possibilities in the field of educational case study research.
Descriptors: Science Education, Politics of Education, Scientific Principles, Science Education History, Educational Development, Schematic Studies, Case Studies, Educational Research, Ecology, Outdoor Education, Science and Society, Grade 6, Educational Practices
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Grade 6
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A