knain, erik (2000). science_textbooks

8/12/2019 Knain, Erik (2000). Science_textbooks

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The first four categories represent degrees of ease at crossing cultural bor-ders into school science. The fifth category arose from abject discrimina-tion against sorne students by the school.

In the article cited aboye, Aikenhead has included a new category, 1want to Know Students but this category does not seem to fit any of theinterviewed students in the present study.

Making meaning is a rich and dynamic process, in which those whotake part negotiate on which contextual frames should matter in the situa-tion. The categories aboye cannot predict, which meanings students actu-ally derive from a given text, and so they are unable to catch the dynamicand immediate aspects of meaning making. At best, the categories maygive sorne expectation of how the student will meet the subject. In anycase, knowledge about genre is a set of more or less specified expectationsto a given text. The categories referred to aboye belong to this contextuallevel aboye the specific social situations in which the texts were used. Stu-dents interests, plans for further education, and what they think of schoolcan be considered more or less stable across situations. Interpretations ofinformation students gave on their interests, career plans, how they likedschool and science suggests that these categories are usable, but may needrefinement by future analysis.

Brief1y put, the students in the general track were Other Smart Kids,whereas students in vocational studies tended to be don t Know Stu-dents or Outsiders. One of the vocational students appeared to be an In-side Outsider . He showed an interest in science for practical purposes andenjoyed experiences in nature, but was indifferent to school science. Thetextbook meant little to him; he read only the books he considered inter-esting on his own terms.Of course, one cannot conclude whether these students are typical fromthese interviews alone. There are reasons to believe these students aretypical of their c1ass, or even their school. Because of to the sampling pro-cedure, the 12 students interviewed were not as diverse a group as onemight have preferred.

3. 1 don know students whose transitions tend to be hazardous be-cause the cultures of family and friends are inconsistent with the cul-tures ofboth school and science.4. Outsiders whose transition are virtually impossible because the cul-tures of family and friends are discordant with the cultures of both

school and science.5. Inside Outsiders whose transitions are frustratingly difficult becausethe cultures of family and friends are irreconcilable with the culture ofschool, but are potentially compatible with the culture of science


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The school context is more important than the context of science for theinterviewed students when they talk about the textbook. The Other Smart58

tudent conceptions of science nd the science textbook s insti-tution

In lower grades in school, scientific reality can be labelled a kind of naiverealism , or better (as everyday thinking is extremely complex, rather thannaive ) everyday, common-sense reality (Knain, 2001). This means thatthe fundamental mechanisms of the world are of the same kind as themechanisms that we experience in everyday life. In the tenth-grade text onenergy, however, an intermediate level ofreality is introduced. The text onenergy transfer mentioned describes not merely everyday actions and theoretical knowledge, but rather actions in an abstract world. This is realisedby a change of lexicogrammar that implies not only a reconstrual of reality, but also an introduction of a new kind of re lity that can be traced backall the way to Galileo:[But] We can see in Galileo s practise, if not in his words, a most important intervening layer emerging between theory and the brute world -the realm of theorized objects. These are natural objects as conceived nddescri ed y the relevant theoretical concepts. Planets and falling appleshave colour, texture, irregular surfaces, heat, solidity and any number ofother properties of relations. But when they become the subject matter ofmechanics they are merely point masses with specific accelerations; [... ]they are no longer natural objects, but theoretical objects (Matthews, 1994,p. 125).

This means that tenth-grade students, taking the last compulsory science course, are meeting discourses that are typical of the physical sciencesorne of the students will encounter in university or college courses. In thisdiscourse students shall not only trust science and understand sorne of themethods and coneepts of the scientific enterprise, it is also assumed thatthey will adopt the world view implied as their own understanding.Whereas the text on the same topie for the vocational track students belongs to a cl ssifying science genre (cf. below), this text, intended for general track students, was within the genre of expl n tion (Martin, 1993).

new kind of re lity

What does this mean for students attitude to and use of the sciencetextbook? First, an example is given from the textbook for the generaltrack students.


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knain, erik (2000). science_textbooks

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