Tackles the question of whose interests are being served by the current science education practices and policies, and offers perspectives from culture, economics, epistemology, equity, gender, language, and religion. Promotes a reflective science education that takes place within people's cultural lives rather than taking it over. Among the topics are situating school science in a climate of critical cultural reform, the influence of language on teaching and learning science in a second language, a cultural history of science education in Japan, and the philosophy of science and radical intellectual Islam in Turkey. Of interest to students, researchers, and practitioners of education. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book presents a collection of critical thinking that concern cultural, social and political issues for science education in the Nordic countries. The chapter authors describe specific scenarios to challenge persisting views, interrogate frameworks and trouble contemporary approaches to researching teaching and learning in science. Taking a point of departure in empirical examples from the Nordic countries the collection of work is taking a critical sideways glance at the Nordic education principles. Critical examinations target specifically those who are researching in the fields of science education research to question whether conventional research approaches, foci and theoretical approaches are sufficient in a world of science education that is neither politically neutral, nor free of cultural values. Attention is not only on the individual learner but on the cultural, social and political conditions and contexts in science education. The different chapters review debates and research in teacher education, school teaching and learning including when external stakeholders are involved. Even though the chapters are contextualized in Nordic settings there will be similarities and parallels that will be informative to the international science education research community.

Global science education is a reality at the end of the 20th century - albeit an uneven reality - because of tremendous technological and economic pressures. Unfortunately, this reality is rarely examined in the light of what interests the everyday lives of ordinary people rather than the lives of political and economic elites. The purpose of this book is to offer insightful and thought-provoking commentary on both realities. The tacit question throughout the book is `Whose interests are being served by current science education practices and policies?' The various chapters offer critical analysis from the perspectives of culture, economics, epistemology, equity, gender, language, and religion in an effort to promote a reflective science education that takes place within, rather than taking over, the important cultural lives of people. The target audience for the book includes graduate students in education, science education and education policy professors, policy and government officials involved with education.

"In this book, the author posits that the exploration of urban students' engagement with school science using sociocultural perspectives may uncover factors that influence students learning and success in the science classrooms. The author further proposes that using curricula framed around sociocultural perspectives may develop students' understandings about the role science and technology plays in their lives, as well as well as in the larger society, thus making science more accessible and relevant for these children in urban settings." "There has been no study to date that examines the impact of curricular approaches guided by a sociocultural framework (contextualized curriculum in this study) on the comprehension level and attitudes of students. The study fills that gap and holds implications for the inclusion of alternative curricular framework in urban middle school science classrooms." "The author has used a mixed-methods study and draws upon both quantitative and qualitative data sources. The study design allows the reader to appreciate the perspectives of participating students and teachers on the use of contextualized curricular framework versus curricular framework guided by IVF practices in urban middle school science classrooms"--BOOK JACKET.

This volume brings together conceptualizations and empirical studies that explore the socio-cultural dimension of new media and its implications on learning in the 21st century classroom. The authors articulate their vision of new-media-enhanced learning at a global level. The high-level concept is then re-examined for different degrees of contextualization and localization, for example how a specific form of new media (e-reader) changes specific activities in different cultures. In addition, studies based in Singapore classrooms provide insights as to how these concepts are being transformed and implemented by a co-constructive effort on the part of researchers, teachers and students. Singapore classrooms offer a unique environment to study the theory-practice nexus in that they are high achieving, implicitly grounded in the eastern cultural values and well-equipped with ICT infrastructure. While these studies are arguably the state-of-the-art exemplars that synergize socio-cultural and technological affordances of the current learning environments, they also serve as improvable ideas for further innovations. The interplay between theory and practice lends support to the reciprocal improvements for both. This book contributes to the continuing debate in the field, and will lead to better learning environments in the 21st century.

This book analyses higher education from cultural perspectives and reflects on the uses of intellectual devices developed in the cultural studies of higher education over the last decades. It presents fresh perspectives to integrate cultural studies in higher education with wider societal processes and studies the internal life of higher education. The book uses cultural perspectives developed in previous studies to understand a variety of processes and reforms taking place.