This essay opens with a question about what science teaching would look like in a world where categorical seams of human diversity were not probabilistic determinants of science learning. After revisiting Hewson and Hewson's description of an "appropriate conception of science teaching," I detail the ways in which the field of science…

The future viability of the geosciences is challenged, since as a community we continue to lack demographic diversity representative of the wider population. Fundamentally, dominant cultural, historical, and socioeconomic factors contribute to the lack of diversity and those factors typically change slowly over generations. Proposals for more…

We are writing in response to the Aditomo and Klieme article titled "Forms of inquiry based science instruction and their relations with learning outcomes: evidence from high and low-performing education systems," recently published in the "International Journal of Science Education." In this essay, we follow these authors and…

This forum paper is a reflection about the paper written by Valérie Frède and illustrates how it influences my work as a Ph.D. student in education. It focuses mainly on the relationship to knowledge and the clash between student culture and Western science culture in classroom. In this forum paper, I will briefly explain why these two ideas seems…

This forum paper offers alternative insights into Pei-Ling Hsu's "'It's a magic circle'! Using cogenerative dialogues to create a safe environment to address emotional conflicts in a project-based learning science internship." In her paper, she presented how cogenerative dialogues can be used to create an emotionally safe environment for…

Practices of generating, analyzing, and using evidence play a central role in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the NGSS. However, the construct of evidence remains largely underspecified in these documents, providing insufficient guidance on how to engage students with the broad and complex nature of evidentiary reasoning. This creates…

This column shares reflections or thoughtful opinions on issues of broad interest to the community. This month's issue discusses the value of traditional lecturing.

In this forum article, I reflect on issues related to the implementation of inquiry-based science education (IBSE) in different countries. Regarding education within the European Union (EU), the Bologna system has in later years provided extended coordination and comparability at an organizational level. However, the possibility of the EU to…

The two authors, Thi Phuong Thao-Do and Chokchai Yuenyong, explored the Nature of Science as it is understood in Vietnam, a fast-developing "ancient" and modern country which continues to be shaped by uniquely Asian social norms and values. Upon reviewing their paper, I observed strong parallels to the country, the United Arab Emirates,…

This review explores Jackson and Seiler's "I am smart enough to study postsecondary science: A critical discourse analysis of latecomers' identity construction in an online forum" by considering the analytic framework for figured worlds guiding this study. We consider the specific affordances of cultural production theory for examining…

Marie Ståhl and Anita Hussénius have defined what discourses dominate national tests in chemistry for Grade 9 in Sweden by using feminist, critical didactic perspectives. This response seeks to expand the results in Ståhl and Hussénius's article "Chemistry inside an epistemological community box!--Discursive exclusions and inclusions in the…

Parents, educators, and students have criticized the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects for expecting students to regurgitate evidence from assigned texts rather than think for themselves. This article argues that this popular critique is accurate and that…

This forum article contributes to the understanding of how science teachers' identity is related to their worldviews, cultural values and educational philosophies, and to eco-transformation of science education. Special focus is put on "reform-minded" science teachers. The starting point is the paper "Science education reform in…

We present a comment on "Benefits of completing homework for students with different aptitudes in an introductory electricity and magnetism course", by F. J. Kontur, K. de La Harpe, and N. B. Terry PRST-PER 11, 010105 (2015). Our data show that the conclusions Kontur and coworkers draw from their data may not be generally applicable.

In their article, "Space, relations, and the learning of science," Wolff-Michael Roth and Pei-Ling Hsu draw our attention to the importance of field in the teaching and learning of science. While the Roth and Hsu study is focused on the scientific research laboratory as an internship setting for the teaching of science, this response to…