LEARNING TO TEACH SCIENCE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE IN URBAN SCHOOLS Purvi Vora Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2007UM Number: 3249139 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this repraduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality ilustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscrist and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion UMI UMI Microform 3249139 Copyright 2007 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against, unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 ‘Ann Arbor, MI 48108-1346ABSTRACT Learning to Teach Science for Social Justice in Urban Schools Purvi Vora This study looks at how beginner teachers learn to teach science for social justice in urban schools. The research questions are: 1) what views do beginner teachers hold about teaching science for social justice in urban schools? 2) How do beginner teachers’ views about teaching science for social justice develop as part of their learning? In looking at teacher learning, I take a situative perspective that defines learning as increased participation in a community of practice. I use the case study methodology with five teacher participants as the individual units of analysis. In measuring participation, I draw from mathematics education literature that offers three domains of professional practice: Content, pedagogy and professional identity. In addition, I focus on agency as ‘an important component of increased participation from a social justice perspective. My findings reveal two main tensions that arose as teachers considered what it meant to teach science from a social justice perspective: 1) Culturally responsive teaching vs. “real” science and 2) Teaching science as a political act. In negotiating these tensions, teachers drew on a variety of pedagogical and conceptual tools offered in USE that focused on issues of equity, access, place-based pedagogy, student agency, ownership and culture as a toolkit. Further, in looking at how the five participants negotiated these tensions in practice, I describe four variables that either afforded or constrained teacher agency andconsequently the development of their own identity and role as socially just educators. These four variables are: 1) Accessing and activating social, human and cultural capital, 2) reconceptualizing culturally responsive pedagogical tools, 3) views of urban youth and 4) context of participation. This study has implications for understanding the dialectical relationship between agency and social justice identity for beginner teachers who are learning how to teach for social justice. Also, it suggests teacher agency as an important domain of professional practice when measuring teacher learning from a situative perspective.TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS. LIST OF TABLES sesnennnennaniennmnnnsnn LIST OF FIGURES sesnnsoneinonnninnnnnininnninsnnnnnnnnnnnnnannes ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS w DEDICATION. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION... PURPOSE. RESEARCH QUESTIONS. ns (OVERVIEW OF METHODOLOGY. (CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK URBAN EDUCATION: “THE REALITY". URBAN SCIENCE EDUCATION AND BEGINNER TEACHERS... [DEVELOPING A PEDAGOGICAL TOOLKIT A Commitment to Social Justice: ‘Science Teaching as Culturally Responsive: Empowering Pedagogical Practices... Overship ne . Composite Culture — Everyday Sense-Making ~.. Gent€8~ ern Third Space ~ PROJECT YUVA... Theoretical Framework ‘Constructivist Theory of Learning. (Case-Based Instruction, resenting Theory and Possibilities ‘A Shared Context a8 a Conversational Domain ognive Fei of Mukimei... Multiple Perspectives... . (CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN... RESEARCH QUESTIONS. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTINGS... Selection of Case Study Participants. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS. : ‘METHODOLOGY ~ THE EMBEDDED CASE STUDY .... Type and Form of Case Study Used. METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION. ‘Observations Interviews. Colton of Generated. rics . “TRUSTWORTHINESS.. DATA ANALYSSS. LMITaTions.. (CHAPTER 4: TEACHERS’ PORTRAITS... nonnne TB JANE, Background, Views about urban education.Views about Science Teaching. Social Justice Sophie Backgroun Views about urban education. Views about science teaching Social Justice AMA. ‘Background Views about Urban Education... Views about Science Teaching. Social Justice DANNY. Background. Views on Urban Education Views about Science Teaching. Social Justice ALAN Backgrow Views about Urban Education... Views about Science Teaching Social Justice cross Curtmc THEMES Defining Social Justice. Reflection of Self vs. Other. Student Agency and its. eee to Teacher Responsibilities DISCUSSION... CHAPTER 5: PRESENTING AND NEGOTIATING TENSIONS. PART A- PRESENTING AND NEGOTIATING TENSIONS IN USE 163 1. Culturally responsive teaching vs. “real” science.. . . vn LB 4. Goals of science literacy vs. goals of socal justice 165 '. A commitment tothe child vs. an obligation tothe subject. 169 Social justice as theory vs. practice. 2. Teaching science as a political act ‘Defining their own agency Defining student agency Discussion... PARTB- NEGOTIATING TENSIONS IN PRACTICE 1. Culture as dynamic; Students as agents of change. . 2 Teachers’ understanding of equity. 3. Teachers as agents of change. 4, Teaching as culturally responsive. DISCUSSION vn (CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS [RESEARCH QUESTIONS. IMPLICATIONS. REFERECES... APPENDIX A - COURSE SYLLABUS FOR USE. APPENDIX B - DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENTS IN USE. APPENDIX C - INFORMED CONSENT sn iiList of Tables ‘TABLE 1: RESEARCH DESIGN MATRI ‘TABLE 2: DATA SOURCE AND PURPOSE... ‘TABLE 3: TEACHERS’ DEFINITIONS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AS EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES IN ‘SCIENCE EDUCATION AND EMPOWERMENT THROUGH SCIENCE EDUCATION .. ‘TABLE 4: TEACHERS’ VIEWS OF THE BARRIERS TO STUDENT AGENCY AND DESCRIPTIONS OF THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES AS URBAN TEACHER. iiiLIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: CORE IDEAS THAT FORM A PEDAGOGICAL TOOLKIT FOR URBAN ‘TEACHERS. FIGURE 2: AFFORDANCES AND CONSTRAINTS IN THE DIALECTICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AGENCY AND IDENTITY AROUND TEACHING SCIENCE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE.. 2 ivACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my participants, Jane, Sophie, Anna, Danny and Alan. Without them, there would be no study. I thank them for letting me be a part of their lives at Teachers College and beyond, for being honest and welcoming, and often very patient and accommodating. I hope to continue to build on my friendship and professional relationship with them long after this study is over. I wish them the best in the future endeavors. Second, I thank my advisor, mentor and teacher, Angie. I don’t know where to begin to express my gratitude and respect for her. She is the kindest, most caring, most approachable advisor any graduate student could ask for. Angie not only supported me intellectually and financially throughout the research process, she pushed my thinking and inspired me to work hard, to be honest and to never be afraid to ask those hard questions. Angie has become the standard by which I will always measure myself as a teacher. | want to thank the girls at the Urban Science Education Center, in particular Miyoun and ‘Verneda. These women have been my pillars of support. I could not have completed this thesis, without them. They have been my sounding boards, my devil's advocates, my taskmasters, my teachers, my confidantes and most importantly my friends. I can confidently say that Ihave learnt more from them than I have from any book, article or professor at Teachers College, and that I am the person I am today because of them. Thank you, | want to thank my family here in the United States for their confidence in me and for never letting me feel, even for a moment, that I was far away from home. I particularly want to thank my aunt Saroj Vyas and my cousin Niray, for letting me stay with them, for caring for me, feeding me and giving me a place to sleep every night for four years. Their support allowed me to be carefree and to actually enjoy my experience at Teachers College and in New York City. ‘Tam most thankful for my wonderful family. My parents, for trusting me enough to send me to the United States and letting me become my own woman. For allowing me the peace of mind to ‘know that I could always turn to them for help and support, even in failure. Thank you. I am thankful to have known and learnt so much from my grand parents who were always the first to encourage me to follow my dreams. I am thankful for a brother who continually reminds me to hold myself up to high standards, who looks up to me and makes me feel worthwhile, and who T look up to for his honesty and loyalty. Thank you Mehul, for believing in me. I cannot wait for the day that you graduate with your PhD. Last but not least, I want to thank Niraj, my husband and best friend. Thank you for your faith in ‘me when I doubted myself. Thank you for loving me so much that you always put my dreams before your wants. Thank you for your friendship, for valuing my work and for letting me be idealistic, Most of all, thank you for always being honest with your thoughts, opinions and questions, and for pushing me to really stand up for what I believe in.DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my aunt, Saroj VyasCHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Sometimes when I think back to the person I was five years ago, I don’t know how to react. I don’t know if I should smile at my naiveté or frown at my ignorance. I ‘was the person who strongly advocated lecturing. Afterall, it worked for me, didn’t it? T was the person who believed that classrooms should be completely structured in order to avoid conflict and discipline issues. I believed that science was objective and that if someone didn’t “get it,” it was because they were not smart enough. I was the person who truly believed that if research was not “practical” it was useless... in other words, I was everything that we are asking the teachers in this study to not be! Being part of the research group at the Urban Science Education Center completely changed my worldview. I still remember a time when I had never heard the words social justice. I still cannot help but feel amused at my reasons for accepting this project of creating a digital learning environment for science teachers. It would not be difficult at all to forget where my thinking was only four years ago, and the process that, changed my educational philosophy. It would be so much easier to pretend that I was always this way- more conscious, more critical, more deliberate and more reflective. But Thave to force myself to not forget. Because it was only when I remembered who I was and what J believed about education at the beginning of my academic life at Teachers College, that I was able to empathize my participants in this study and not judge them, Rather, I understood that they too were going through a similar process of transformation and development- as teachers, as students, as researchers, as people; and to be able to play a role in that process was exciting and very rewarding (sometimes in a selfish way). It was also a constant reminder for me that my own learning is far from over.I may have started working on this project because I was attracted to the technology, but this study is about more than just technology and its applications. It is about teacher education and about the personal joumeys of these five teachers through the worlds of urban science education and social justice. And it is my story as much as it is theirs. Purpose The focus of this study is teacher education. This project had two major components. The first component involved the creation and implementation of Project Yuva, a case-based digital environment developed in conjunction with the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL). This multimedia-learning environment presented teachers with three cases of middle school youth studying in high poverty urban schools!. The stories of these youth reflected certain ideas that we (the instructors) believed would be useful for teachers to understand if they wanted to teach in high poverty urban schools. Most of these ideas arose from or pushed thinking towards a social justice perspective in science education. Project Yuva was implemented in the course Urban Science Education (USE) as an integral part of the curriculum (See Appendix A for description of the curriculum). The goals of Project Yuva were: 1. To help teachers deconstruct “urban” from an anti-deficit perspective and appreciate the uniqueness of urban classrooms. "| do not use “high poverty” and urban as synonyms. In fact, I recognize that not all urban schools are high poverty schools. However, I wanted to talk explicitly about high poverty schools in urban areas and the kinds of issues they face, which is why I specifically spel out those two terms.2. To explore theoretical constructs for understanding urban youth and the dynamics of urban science classrooms. 3. To observe and interpret real situations and contexts to apply the theories and constructs. 4, To engage in open reflection, discussion and disagreement in a safe classroom environment. 5. To develop personal beliefs and practices as part of an active pedagogical tool kit. I define pedagogical toolkit as a toolkit that consists of several resources that, teachers can access in order to develop specific pedagogical practices that are responsive to students’ needs and that foster student agency. While all teachers would benefit from such a toolkit, my argument is that urban teachers need to be equipped with a specific set of resources that are particular to urban environments. I have broadly categorized these resources into three categories”: a commitment to social justice, science teaching as culturally responsive and developing empowering pedagogical practices. The ideas included in each category were not all-encompassing, but were chosen because they reflected certain core ideas in the science education literature around teaching for social justice; as well as fit well within the time and scope of the syllabus of USE. The assignments associated with the course also echoed one or more of these ideas and could be classified into one of the three categories, if wanted. For example, the first assignment, “Science in the City” (see appendix B for a complete description of the assignments) asked teachers to design a virtual tour of NYC based on their subject area. ? Each of these categories is discussed in greater detail in the conceptual framework.‘The purpose of this assignment was to encourage teachers to explore the city as an active laboratory — to realize the full potential of the city resources that are available to them to teach science that is relevant to their students’ lives. This assignment was one tool that teachers could use to make their own science teaching culturally responsive and place- based. The hope was that as teachers completed the assignment, they would not only create something that was practical and functional but also, they would be able to make connections between their own projects and some of the core theoretical ideas presented in the course e.g., sense of place. The second part of the study followed the development of five of these beginner teachers’ ideas around urban science education, as they participated in the course, and their practice as they started teaching, Specifically, I was interested in how their thinking developed around the ideas presented in the course syllabus and discussed in class. I was also interested in whether these ideas were recontextualizedd their own teaching practices and how the opportunity to reflect further pushed their thinking around teaching science for social justice. The goals of my study are reflected in the research questions, listed below: Research Questions 1) What views do beginner teachers hold about teaching science for social justice in urban schools? a) What are their perceptions about urban youth studying in such schools? b) What do they believe should be the goals of science teaching for urban youth?©) Do their views include a social justice perspective? If so, in what ways do beginner teachers believe they can create empowering and equitable science practices in their own classrooms? 2) How do beginner teachers’ views about teaching science for social justice develop as part of their leaning? a) In what ways are issues of teaching and learning for social justice taken up in USE? 'b) In what ways do teachers negotiate tensions in their own practice? i) What resources do they identify and draw upon? ii) How does their definition of teaching science for social justice develop? ‘The first research question aims at understanding where the teachers were coming from, what their initial ideas and beliefs about urban youth were, what did they think it ‘means to be a science teacher in a high poverty urban school and what perspectives they held on teaching for social justice. The views teachers hold may be a result of personal experiences in urban settings and/or an influence of media; and include their ideas, beliefs, perceptions and attitudes toward urban science education. I chose to include their own definitions and thoughts about social justice because I was especially interested in how these definitions and ideas were later shaped by the readings in class, the cases in Project Yuva and their teaching experiences. Developing a commitment to social justice is an inextricable part of teaching in high poverty urban settings, and a perspective thatpushes teachers to create experiences for urban youth that are not only equitable but also empowering. The second research question focuses more on teacher learning. Here, I took a situative perspective on teacher learning that argues that “how a person leams a particular set of knowledge and skills, and the situation in which a person leams, becomes a fundamental part of what is leamed” (Putnam & Borko, 2000, p.4). According to this perspective, learning is always situated and “... different settings for teachers’ learning give rise to different kinds of knowing” (p.6). In this study, teacher learning occurred in two different settings -the course USE and during teaching in actual schools. Research question 2 is about the leaming that occurred in these two settings. Specifically, in 2a 1 was interested in the development and progression of their thinking around key issues in urban science education as they became more familiar with critical perspectives presented in USE. Because I have taken a situative perspective of teacher learning, “rather than asking whether or how knowledge transfers across situations...(I ask) questions about the consistency of pattems of participation across situations, conditions under which successful participation in activity in one type of situation facilitates successful participation in other types of situations, and the process of recontextualizing resources and discourses in new situations” (Peressini, Borko, Romagnano, Knuth, & Willis, 2004, p. 70). In 2b, I was more interested in how teachers recontextualizedd some of the tools offered in USE e.g., ownership, funds of knowledge, etc. as they entered real classrooms and embarked on their teaching career. As these teachers stepped into real classrooms, I was able to capture the ways in which they accessed and utilized resources from their toolkits in their schools. I analyzedtheir lesson plans as well as teaching reflections they maintained to trace their ideas about teaching for social justice, indeed to even understand how they defined social justice. I also used interviews and observations to see what resources were drawn upon in creating and enacting these lesson plans, For example, as part of USE, our teachers had to create a unit in which they used the city as an active laboratory, and drew upon resources most easily accessible to urban youth. Was a similar strategy used during student teaching? Did they rely on or draw upon key concepts presented in Project Yuva, such as students’ funds of knowledge, their cultural toolkits, etc.? Did they draw upon the pedagogical practices included in the pedagogical toolkit presented to them in the course? How did they make sense of and reflect on the differences between their own ideas about urban, science education and the reality of their teaching experience? These were the questions I ‘was interested in exploring. Further, I was convinced that as they go through the initial teaching experience, their ideas about teaching science in high poverty urban schools ‘would change. This is an assumption I was curious to investigate. How does the teaching experience transform or further develop teachers’ pedagogical toolkits, their agency and their identities as urban educators? Overview of Methodology The findings of this study are presented as individual portraits of teachers that describe their perceptions of urban youth in high poverty, their philosophies of teaching science to these youth and their views on social justice. These embedded cases narrate what the teachers took away from a course focused on urban science education with a commitment to promoting teaching for social justice. Their initial portraits explore theirinteraction and participation with the curriculum (including Project Yuva), their emergent thoughts and ideas as expressed through their written word, their stereotypes, their efforts to understand the theoretical constructs, their personal experiences during student teaching, their cognitive struggle, their teaching philosophies and finally, the development and enactment of their pedagogical toolkits during student teaching. Because, I wanted to explore teacher interaction within the course but also tell the ‘more in-depth stories of a how that interaction affected five participant teachers from that course, I chose embedded case study as my preferred methodology. The embedded case study design allowed me to describe the experiences of the whole class as they interacted with the course syllabus, with each other and with Project Yuva. Also, within the context of this class setting, I was free to focus on individual beginner teachers. This ‘methodology also gave me the freedom to sample purposefully (Creswell, 1989), so that I could choose my embedded units, By choosing five beginner teachers from this class as my subunits of analysis, I had the flexibility to now describe their individual experiences within the context of the class as well as later on when they began teaching. In order to meaningfully follow teacher development, I participated in USE as the teaching assistant. This allowed me to become familiar with the teachers and hopefully, they too felt comfortable enough with me to have had candid and uninhibited conversations about their ideas and beliefs throughout the semester. Also, my status as, TA allowed me to gain access and be a part of group conversations that normally occur more quietly than whole class discussions and thus may not be adequately captured Consequently, data collected through these observations were richer and more authentic.CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK In the spring of 2004, | attended a session at AERA on “The Craft of Urban Teaching.” In this session, a group of teacher educators from Sacramento raised an interesting question: Is a ‘good’ teacher in an urban setting the same as a “good” teacher in a suburban setting? Definitions of good and bad aside, this is a question that I have been grappling with for some time. Afier al isn’t good teaching just good teaching no ‘matter what the setting? In an effort to answer this question, I tumed to the settings themselves. What is unique about urban schools and urban youth that teachers need to know? Do teachers’ pedagogical toolkits need to be different when they teach at an impoverished inner city school versus when they teach at a wealthy urban school or an impoverished suburban school? What are the components that comprise such a tool kit for an urban teacher? Emerging from these questions is the conceptual framework for the current study. However, it is necessary to elaborate on each of the important terms before I begin to describe my framework. Urban Education: “The Reality” 1 draw my definition of the word ‘urban’ from Calabrese Barton’s work on urban science education as well as my personal experience of being bom, raised and educated in two large urban cities - Bombay and New York. I think of an urban area as being characterized by a high population density with a large number of ethnic groups and immigrant families. I also associate the word urban with other words like “noise,” “traffic,” “crowds,” “concrete.” I agree with Calabrese-Barton (2001) that poverty is a key urban issue that disproportionately affects urban minorities. Further, certain ethnic10 ‘groups are overrepresented in poverty statistics. In 2001, the poverty rate for African Americans (in the US) was 22.7%, 21.4% for Hispanics and 9.9% for Whites (U.S. Census Bureau). It is interesting to note that in New York, the county with the lowest ‘median household income is also the county with the lowest percentage of high school ‘graduates and the county with the highest African American population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001). A broad look at the literature on the statistics of urban education is almost depressing. Accordng to the U. S. census (2001), children constitute the largest poverty group in this country. Almost 17% of all students in the United States live in poverty. However, in many urban areas like New York City, Los Angeles, Detroit and Atlanta, this percentage is much higher ~35 to 45 % (NCES, 2002). In fact more than 40% of all urban students attend high-poverty schools (U.S. Department of Education, 1996). In New York City, the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced lunch is 73.3% - ‘much higher that the 43.2% in the rest of New York state (CGCS, March 2004). Further, “at grades 4 and 8, students in central city locations have lower average scores than students in urban fringe/large town or rural/small town locations"(U.S. Census, 2001). The 2000 NAEP results for grades 4, 8 and 12 show that at all three grades, White students had higher scores, on average, than Black or Hispanic students and that the large gaps between subgroups’ performance have remained relatively unchanged since 1996. This report also showed that at all three grades in 2000, the average score for nonpublic school students was higher than that for public school students. At grade 8, the average score for students who were not eligible for the (free/reduced lunch) program increased in 2000, while those who were eligible had lowerMW scores in 2000 than in 1996. Also, eighth- and twelfth-graders whose parents graduated college had higher scores, on average, than their peers whose parents had lower levels of education, ‘A comparative look at the average science proficiency of thirteen year olds from 1970 to 1996 is a really compelling indicator of the achievement gap. Over two decades, males were consistently more proficient in science than females, white students were consistently more proficient then blacks and Hispanic students, students whose parents attended college were consistently more proficient than students whose parents did not and finally, students from private schools were consistently more proficient than students from public schools (U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics, 20036). Berliner (2001, January 28) in his reanalysis of the TIMSS data, exposed how “average” scores reported in the document were completely misleading. On pp. B3, he states, “in science, for the items common to both the TIMSS and the TIMSS-R, the scores of white students in the United States were exceeded by only three other nations. But black American schoo! children were beaten by every single nation, and Hispanic kids were beaten by all but two nations, A similar pattern was true of mathematics scores.” He further states how “one large suburban district near me, in Phoenix, hires no teachers without full certification. But in Arizona's inner cities and rural areas, well over half of math and science teachers do not hold either a major or a minor in math or science, and large percentages of the teachers hold emergency certificates, which means they are not fully trained and receive temporary certification only in response to a shortage in teachers.” (pp. B3).12 In addition to these reports, Ingersoll (1999) has shown how children attending poor urban schools have limited access to certified science teachers or to administrators that support high-quality science teaching. In fact, in impoverished urban districts in Cities like Los Angeles and New York, Darling-Hammond (1999) reports that the percentage of uncertified and under-qualified science teachers outweighs the percentage of certified and qualified teachers. In fact, the latest results published in “The Condition of Education” (2003a) report that the percentage of public high school students taught selected subjects by teachers without certification or a major in the field they teach was ‘much higher in high minority and high poverty schools than in low minority and low- poverty schools in 1999-2000. Oakes’ (2000) study illustrates how students in poor schools (or where the minority population is high) enjoy limited access to high-level science and math and are disproportionately tracked into low-level classes (Oakes, Gamoran & Page, 1992). Is it any wonder then that children living in high-poverty urban areas score disproportionately low on standardized tests in science and related subjects (Council of Great City Schools, 2001)? Or that they drop out of school at a much higher rate than their affluent counter parts (Fine, 1991)? Or that they develop negative attitudes toward science before they even enter high school (Hill, Atkins, & Wiggins, 1995)? ‘As I stated earlier, these reports on the status of youth attending high-poverty urban schools are depressing. However, a critical view of these reports would suggest that this kind of information (that is usually easily accessible) is quite selective in that the ‘questions that get asked about urban youth are themselves selective. For example, while it is important to point out the inequitable distribution of material resources in poor schools, I believe that itis equally important to fund research that explores the more non-1B traditional capital that urban students do have access to, Another example of such selectivity can be seen in reports that talkc about underachievement in high poverty urban schools but fail to address the reasons for this low performance, leaving wide open the space for speculation and false assumptions. If these are the “facts” about youth studying in high poverty urban areas that are presented to pre-service teachers, is it any wonder that they walk into classrooms with negative stereotypes of urban schools, a deficit model of urban youth and an apathy toward urban education? In the next section, I briefly discuss the literature on beginner teachers’ views and beliefs about urban science education. Urban Science Education and Beginner Teachers “Although the largest 100 urban school districts represent less than one-tenth of 1% of the 16,850 public school districts in the United States, these districts serve nearly one-quarter (23%) of all public school students in the country. These same 100 districts also educate approximately 40% of all nonwhite students and 30% of students from low income families” (Improving Academic Achievement in Urban Districts: What State Policymakers Can Do, 2003). Yet, teacher demographics even in these large urban areas do not come close to matching the students’ (Gordon, Della Piana, & Keleher, 2000). In her review on preparing teachers for culturally diverse schools, Christine Sleeter (2001) talks of the overwhelming presence of Whiteness in pre-service programs. According to NCES (2004), the enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools in 2001 was 60% White, 38% Black, 17% Hispanic, 4% Asian/Pacific Islander and 1% American14 Indian/Alaskan Native. In contrast, the teaching force in 2000 was 84% White, 8% Black, 6% Hispanic and 2.5% belonging to other minority groups. ‘These statistics point to the demographic gap between teachers and students. Yet, it is the cultural” gap that becomes problematic when “those interested in teaching largely live in and embody different, often incompatible social worlds from the students they are to teach” (Tobin, Roth, & Zimmermann, 2001). While incompatible may be a strong word, I do agree with the sentiment that teachers largely live and function in worlds that are not just demographically but also economically and culturally different from their students. Just one example from Calabrese-Barton’s (2001) research with two middle school students, Claudia and Maria, living at a long-term homeless shelter displays this cultural distance. In the example, a conflict emerged when the girls’ science teacher asked them to bring to class a shoe box to make a camera, or to bring 50 cents to buy a shoe box. The teacher’s assumption that they should have easy access to an empty shoebox or pocket change is telling of the cultural gap I am talking about. One girl talked about how she could did not have a shoebox at home and was unable to get to a shoe store because her mother did not own a car, or speak English very well and had to take care of her little brother, Also, she was unsure where she would get 50 cents. In the end the teacher gave them a box anyway but the conflict remained alive and the activity proved unproductive for Claudia and Maria who left with the impression that their teacher ‘really did not care about them’ and that ‘science is boring.” 2 1 would like to stress that culture is not merely defined by ethnicity or race. I draw my definition of cculture from Swidler (1986) who defines culture as a toolkit of resources that are available to a community ‘and strategies of action that people from that community use to access those resources.15 This cultural gap becomes more significant when it is characterized by a deficit model of thinking of urban youth. In society, the dominant view on culture is essentially hierarchical; the culture of urban youth, especially those living in high poverty at the bottom of this hierarchy. According to this view, certain cultures e.g,, the culture of ‘western society are better than other cultures e.g, the culture of a nomadic tribe in Africa. Cultures that do not include ways of knowing and being of the more “superior” culture are then seen as somewhat deficient or lacking (rather than being seen as simply different). This hierarchical view of culture is convenient to those who do participate in the culture of power (Delpit, 1995) to help maintain their own status because it automatically positions them higher up on the ladder. The term “culture of power” indicates “a set of values, beliefs, ways of acting and being that for sociopolitical reasons, unfairly and unevenly elevate groups of people- mostly white, upper and middle class, male and heterosexual-to positions where they have more control over money, people, and societal values than their non-culture-of- power peers” (Yang & Calabrese-Barton, 2000, p. 873). Such a view of culture also suggests that the hierarchy is static and essentially positions the non-culture-of-power participants without any agency. Similarly, the deficit model in science education is characterized by the assumptions that, ‘students who come to school not versed in the culture of Wester science are “lacking” and need to engage in extra efforts to catch up to their peers... (that) if students do not accept or model these Western values, they are at fault, not the instruction or the content of instruction... (because) schools operate meritocratically, that science achievement scores are based on one’s efforts and abilities rather than one’s degree of enculturation into the a system” (Calabrese Barton, 2003, p.26).16 According to McIntyre (1997), pre-service teachers typically see themselves as “committed individuals, having good parents, good values, a good education, and a good sense of what is expected from them as teachers. In contrast they see students of color as not having- as somehow deficient” (p. 135). Many teachers hold on to such belief even after undergoing training that specifically focuses on an anti-deficit approach (B. Williams, Newcombe, Woods, & Buttram, 1994). Goodlad’s (1990) study on teacher education in the United States showed that many teachers “were less than convinced that all students can learn. They voiced the view that they should be kind and considerate to all, but they accepted as fact the theory that some simply can’t lear.” Schultz et al. (1996), in a survey of three hundred pre-service teachers, found that they have stereotypic beliefs about urban children e.g, they believe that urban youth have attitudes that interfere with education. In this survey, the education students used words such as unmotivated, screw-you attitude, rougher, violent, more streetwise, lackadaisical and emotionally unstable to describe urban students. A small study conducted by Robert Wolffe (1996) with his own pre-service teachers on their expectations of urban youth, revealed initial perceptions of greater discipline problems, racial conflicts, lack of parental support and a higher rate of abused children. In another survey of 97 undergraduates in a teacher education program, Terrill and Mark (2000) found that, “pre- service teachers expected higher levels of discipline problems, lower levels of parental support, higher levels of child abuse, fewer gifted and talented students, and lower levels of motivation in the schools with children if color.” This deficit model of thinking sometimes extends beyond the students to include the caregivers of urban youth- as reported by Lazar (Lazar, 1998) whose “Anglo pre-7 service teachers believe literacy activity in urban homes is virtually non-existent and hold caregivers primarily responsible for their children’s inabil y to read and write in accord with children in suburban schools.” Similar beliefs were expressed by many pre-service teachers in a survey conducted by (Groulx, 2001). The survey results revealed that, “a number of participants assumed that parent support would be lacking and/or that students would be undisciplined and unmotivated” in urban schools. “In contrast was the common opinion that parental support and ample material resources would make suburban or private school teaching more interesting and comfortable, with students who would be rewarding to teach” (p. 83). Students studying in high poverty urban schools, students of color and other ‘minorities are caught in a catch-22 situation. Negative stereotypes highlighted by the media as well as low achievement rates (compared to more privileged students) tend to create lower expectations among teachers (Tom, Cooper, & McGraw, 1984). Yet teacher expectations themselves are very powerful and can affect student achievement (Gazin, 2004). How can we break this vicious cycle? How can we better prepare our teachers to teach in urban schools in ways that are sensitive and just? I claim that teachers who want to teach science in high poverty urban schools could benefit from a developing a specific pedagogical toolkit during their teacher education experience, Central to this toolkit is a vision of teaching for social justice, an understanding of critical perspectives and ways of knowing as well as a holistic understanding of the realities of science education in high poverty urban settings. Having such a tool kit might not solve all of the problems in urban science education ~ the lack of resources, social inequities, disempowering18 structures, etc. ~ but it could help teachers work together with students to envision and create more empowering learning communities in science. Over the past decade or so, several educators have revitalized the field of urban science education research with their agenda for social justice and action research (Calabrese Barton, 2003; Cochran-Smith, 1999; N. Gonzalez & Moll, 2002; Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez, Alvarez, & Chiu, 1999; Hogan & Corey, 2001; Moje, Collazo, Carrillo, & Marx, 2001; Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992; Rodriguez, 1998; Spillane, 2001; Varelas, 2002). Current critical perspectives have provided us with new ways of seeing urban youth, ways that celebrate their strengths and knowledge. I believe that any teacher who wants to work with urban youth needs to be equipped with a pedagogical tool kit that reflects these critical perspectives and ways of knowing and understanding the kinds of knowledge and resources that urban youth have access to, their goals and aspirations that are a part of their daily struggle, their expectations from schools and teachers and their own authority that emerges from their lived experiences in a world where power is grossly unbalanced, Such an “anti-deficit” perspective is described in more detail in the following sections. In a nutshell, this perspective pushes us to really question the assumptions we make about underachievement and under-representation in science i.e., are certain groups of students underachieving in science because they are “...less capable, are limited English proficient, are poor, do not have the right attitudes for persisting in science course taking, have beliefs about their abilities that do not match the beliefs of students who are good in science, are concrete thinkers, are field-dependent (or field-sensitive), live in high crime areas, are crack babies..2” (Lynch, 2000, p. 84) Or is their19 underachievement related more to “social contexts in which they have encountered the sciences” (p. 86), the lower expectations of their teachers and the way science is decontextualized from their lives? Further, this perspective questions the very definition of achievement and challenges us to redefine our vision of success in science education, The anti-deficit approach is at the heart of a teaching philosophy that has a strong commitment to social justice, and it is a perspective that I believe should frame every urban teacher’s pedagogical toolkit. The next section describes a pedagogical toolkit in more detail. Developing a Pedagogical Toolkit In this section, I present the idea of developing a pedagogical toolkit for teachers interested in teaching in high poverty urban environments. The idea of a pedagogical toolkit is borrowed from Swidler (1986) who defined culture as a toolkit of “symbols, stories, rituals, and world-views, which people may use in varying configurations to solve different kinds of problems.” In other words, culture, as a toolkit, consists of a number of resources ~ material, social and cultural- that people have access to and that they activate using various “strategies of action.” Similarly, a pedagogical toolkit consists of several resources that teachers can access in order to develop specific pedagogical practices that are responsive to students’ needs. The resources that would form socially just pedagogical toolkit have been broadly classified into three categories: a commitment to social justice, science teaching as culturally responsive and developing empowering pedagogical practices. Before I jump to the descriptions of these categories, I think it is important to state that the resources I20 have chosen reflect my personal stance about teaching (science) in high poverty urban schools; I lay this out for you to consider. Robert Moses (2001) in advocating math literacy as a civil right has said that, “...the idea of citizenship now requires not only literacy in reading and writing but literacy in math and science” (p. 12). I could not agree with him more. In today’s high tech world, science and math play a pivotal role in preparing ‘workers’ that are skilled ‘enough to develop, maintain, improve, interact with and use new technologies everyday. If school is the place responsible for creating tomorrow's work force, then every student that goes to school should have equitable access to the knowledge and skills required from that work force- skills that have moved beyond reading and writing, I do not believe that equitable access to science and math exists in American public schools today. The literature in previous sections already points to the gross imbalance that exists with respect to access to material resources, certified teachers and administrators, and high- level science courses in many urban schools. However, for students studying in high poverty urban schools, the situation is even worse. These students find themselves in situations where they are constantly pushed to the margins, silenced, or bureaucratically discriminated against because of their race, class and/or gender. And no one is held accountable to them. Michelle Fine (1991) captured quite vividly and truthfully, how a large comprehensive high schoo! housing mostly low income minority students, successfully institutionalized the process of discharging to the extent that the policies and practices of discharging were themselves rendered invisible and no one but the adolescent was held to blame. She offers the stories of young men and women who ‘dropped out” of21 this school (without ever being questioned) as “evidence of the smooth functioning of public education as a system of injustice” (p. 100). The ideas that I have chosen to include in this pedagogical toolkit (for science teachers in high poverty urban schools) reflect my stance on the status of science education today- that it is a process that continues to privilege the privileged, promotes the social reproduction of power asymmetries between classes and races and is so concerned about equality and fairness, that it forgets about being equitable and just. The conceptual tools that are included in this toolkit all promote a social justice perspective. My hope is to unsettle the teachers, to make them uncomfortable about and question what may be considered ‘normal’ or ‘typical’ about urban youth living in high poverty. I purposefully chose to include those concepts as part of the toolkit that reflect critical perspectives of understanding science and understanding education. I hope that teachers who do develop and access such a toolkit are more empowered’ than their counter-parts (who don’t) to not only recognize and fight for their rights and the rights of their students in their own science classrooms and schools, but also teach science in a way that is empowering for their students. In other words, I hope that having access to such a toolkit will allow teachers to become more agentic. I now turn to the pedagogical toolkit. Figure 1. illustrates the three beliefs that, form the core of this toolkit (See Appendix D). While the ideas presented under each group are not all encompassing, these are the ideas that I believe best lend to the * Heeding Michelle Fine's warming (1991), (even as I talk about teacher empowerment) I do not dismiss the fact that teachers are routinely disempowered by their schools, Nor do T intend to use the word ‘empowerment as “an empty rhetoric” to put more responsibility on the shoulders of already overburdened teachers to save the world. But I hope that a teacher who feels empowered is also more aware, more critical, more reflective and more sensitive, so that he or she is able to recognize, criticize and begin to tackle the rationalized disempowerment that Fine talks about.22 understanding of teaching for social justice. These ideas were also selected because they are important contributions to the urban science education literature made by educators to have an explicit social justice agenda (described in detail below). It is also important to keep in mind that these ideas are presented to our teachers as part of the curriculum of Urban Science Education and need to fit the time and schedule permitted in the course. Developing a perspective TWoWUssy re wowUBissy Conceptual Tools Proiect Yuva Cases: Figure 1: Core Ideas That Form A Pedagogical Toolkit For Urban Teachers A Commitment to Social Justice: 1 draw my definition of social justice from Marilyn Cochran-Smith (1999) who claims that, “teaching and teacher education are fundamentally political activities and that, it is impossible to teach in ways that are not political and not value laden” (p.116). Teachers who wish to teach in high poverty urban settings need to recognize science teaching as political (and science as political) in order to take on the role of educator- activist who can help students in these schools understand and take action against the23 inequities they encounter in their lives. An important goal of presenting teachers with such a toolkit is so that they begin to recognize that schools are “contested sites where power struggles are played out” and that “the academic organization of information and inquiry reflects contested views about what knowledge is of most value” (p. 117). In other words, we want our teachers to develop a political consciousness around science education and to question the goals of schooling, of instruction and of the curriculum used. A commitment to social justice requires us to recontextualize our understandings of and assumptions around achievement, resources and opportunity available to inner city youth, Such a reconceptualization would require taking a critical approach to “examining the issues that mark the science education experiences of inner-city youth,” an approach that would “help us move beyond a deficit understanding of youth’s participation and achievement in science” (Calabrese Barton, 2003). Urban teachers’ pedagogical toolkits should include such an anti-deficit approach. While we want teachers to recognize the inequities that exist between inner-city youth and their more privileged counterparts (with respect to access to a quality science education), we also want them to question the practices and policies that cause these inequities in the first place, and not put the blame entirely on the youth and their families i.e., we want to move teachers’ focus away from ‘what urban youth living in high poverty lack to what it is that they possess but that may not be valued or considered important in school culture. The next section describes two ideas that could help teachers move towards an anti-deficit way of thinking of urban youth in high poverty areas.24 A commitment to teaching for social justice on the teachers’ parts indicates that they agree with the anti-deficit approach, that they are conscious of the political nature of science education and that they are willing to learn how to teach in ways that are equitable and culturally responsive to “other people’s children” (Delpit, 1995). Science Tee wulturally Rs As mentioned in the previous paragraph, we need to begin this reconceptualization with recognizing the qualities that youth living in high poverty urban areas already possess. My argument is that these youth bring to the science classroom knowledge and an understanding of the world that is unique to an urban lifestyle and stems from their experiences of living in a high poverty urban environment. As science teachers who want to teach these young people, we need to open our eyes to their distinctive perspectives of the world and of science, and make space in our classrooms to include their experiences. In the next section, I describe some of the conceptual tools available in the literature that offer urban science teachers empowering practices to allow this kind of sociocultural knowledge to be integrated into their science instruction. This section talks about two ideas, “cultural toolkits” and “funds of knowledge” as ways of constructing science knowledge in the historical, social and cultural contexts of inner-city youth (Wertsch, 1991). An important goal of including these two ideas into teachers’ pedagogical toolkits is to broaden their perception of what counts as a resource. We want teachers to recognize the students themselves, their families, their community, their social networks, their own unique insights into life and learning, their culture, their funds of knowledge25 and their experiences as sociocultural resources that are vital and irreplaceable in an urban science classroom. I will now describe each of these in detail. ‘Moll et, al (1992) first defined funds of knowledge as “historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household or individual functioning and well-being.” In other words, funds of knowledge can be referred to as what youth know as a result of where they live. Moll and colleagues argue that an analysis of students’ funds of knowledge “represents a positive (and realistic) view of households as containing ample cultural and cognitive resources with great potential utility for classroom instruction.” This is important because if science teachers understand the kind of “strategic knowledge” that is available to inner-city youth in their households, they can begin to tap into this resource to fa te their science teaching in a ‘more culturally responsive manner. Analyzing and valuing students’ funds of knowledge in science instruction allow teachers to re-define “the resources available for thinking and teaching. in local households, in the students they teach, and in the colleagues with whom they work” (N. Gonzalez et al., 1993). I propose that tapping into students’ of funds of knowledge promotes a kind of socioconstructive learning opportunity in the science classroom because it relies on incorporating practices and knowledge from students’ social networks at home. The concept of funds of knowledge broadens our definition of what we identify as resources. Part of including this concept in the pedagogical toolkit is precisely that — encourage teachers to recognize resources that Thus, I believe that understanding what funds of knowledge are and devising ways to integrate them into science instruction is an important part of urban teachers’ pedagogical toolkits.26 A related concept is that of cultural toolkits presented by Swidler (1986), who defined culture as a tool kit of “symbols, stories, rituals, and world-views, which people may use in varying configurations to solve different kinds of problem. Second, to analyze culture’s causal effects, (her analysis) focuses on “strategies of action,” persistent ways of ordering action through time. Third, it sees culture's causal significance not in defining ends of action, but in providing cultural components that are used to construct strategies of action” (p. 273). Strategies of action are defined as a “general way of organizing action that might allow one to reach several different life goals” (p. 277). Inner-city youth possess their own unique tool kits that are shaped by their individual cultures — being African American or Latina or Dominican or any other ethnic group for that matter, being bilingual or an ESL speaker, being poor, being young, being a student in a diverse, urban neighborhood school and so on and so forth. Their experiences, stories and world-views (that form their cultural toolkits) are resources that these youth draw upon to organize action, to meet goals, to leam. It is important for science teachers to understand this, alternative view of culture that Swidler offers because it defies the concept of a culture of poverty (Lewis, 1966)that claims that children who grow up in poverty have a different set of wants, preferences and values than the dominant culture. In terms of science education, this line of reasoning inevitably leads to a deficit way of thinking; that such children simply do not value school science or do not want to leam science. Swidler would argue that children living in poverty do not scom science because of their culture, but rather that the cultural meanings and skills they possess as part of their toolkit are not valued in the culture of schooling to allow such youth to learn in a ways most resourceful to them.27 ‘We want to offer science teachers in high poverty urban schools a different perspective on culture and Ann Swidler’s definition makes the most sense in keeping in line with a anti-deficit perspective because it forces us to view students’ actions as their way of coping with an unfamiliar culture (¢.g., school culture) rather than viewing them as being deviant, and hence, by default, inappropriate i.e., Including the theory of culture as a toolkit in urban teachers’ pedagogical toolkits could teach them to be more culturally responsive, sensitive and just. Empowering Pedagogical Practices ‘Once teachers have opened their minds to teaching for social justice, there are several conceptual tools available to them (based on-going research) that allow them to teach in ways that are empowering for their students. Empowerment is defined as “the voice that individuals have to enact their rights and responsibilities.” Science teachers can only facilitate empowerment. “It is up to the (students) ultimately to enact their own voices” (Rodriguez, 1998). What follows is a quick look at some of the practices that allow science teachers to enact empowering science instruction in their classrooms and to activate and mobilize the human, social and cultural resources available to them in high poverty urban settings. ‘These “practices” are in fact conceptual tools that help us make sense of student leaning and can be used by science teachers to bridge the gaps that exist between school science and children’s everyday lives. An underlying goal of including these ideas in teachers’ pedagogical toolkits is to drive home the point that learning science is a socio-28 constructive rather than a mentalistic process; the latter being more inclined to put the blame of finding science learning difficult solely on the student. Ownership - In unpacking ownership in science leaming ONeill and Calabrese-Barton (2004) outline five themes that they claim are characteristic of student ownership. These are: (1) Students viewing themselves in ways that are positive, empowering, and full of self- awareness (2) Students actively and purposefully choosing to expend their human, social, and ‘material capital (3) Students expressing pride around the multiple contexts that make up their participation in science (4) Students used their participation in science to affect positive changes in their lives at both the personal and social level and (5) Students expressing a positive and realistic vision for the role that science plays in their lives (p. 14) The authors further claim that ownership is not only an outcome but also a dynamic and generative process; thus ownership is constantly “in development” (p. 22). ‘Ownership is also both personal and social in that it depends on what individuals “know or believe about themselves, about science, or about the context in which they are working, * but is also developed “via the interactions with and among other individuals” (p. 23). Finally, they claim that “a major part of student ownership is (the) dialectic between the identity of cach student and their agency” (p. 25). In describing ownership in science learning, some preliminary pedagogical practices surface: 1. Teachers should be alert and responsive to moments in the classroom when students express the qualities of ownership described in this article. Being responsive is29 described as, “being aware of when moments, such as those mentioned above, occur and using students’ ideas as important starting points to scaffold learning” (p. 26). 2. Cultivating an environment that supports the development of student ownership requires teachers to understand the kinds of choices students make in informal science settings (where there is greater freedom of choice) and the reasons for these choices. ‘This kind of information can be provided to teachers (in our program, at least) using specific tools like Project Yuva’ described later. 3. Based on findings in informal science settings, the authors also suggest that science teachers encourage students to participate in interactive projects such as making exhibits, such as those at museums and zoos. Composite Culture — Hogan and Corey (2001) describe composite culture as the “classroom culture of science that students actually experience.” Composite culture of a science classroom is composed of the ideals of scientific practice (culture of science) as well as teachers’ own pedagogical ideals. In other words, the science that students actually participate in and experience in a classroom is a kind of middle-ground science between the way science is viewed and practiced in the scientific community and the way it is adapted and presented to them by their science teacher. Further, students’ own experiences and perspectives about science intersect these two ideals to shape the composite culture of the science classroom. * Project Yuva is a case-based, digital learning environment that we have developed, to present our science teachers with stories of urban youth living in high poverty. One of the cases in this environment is based on the concept of ownership.30 In presenting this idea of composite culture to teachers, we follow the notion that learning science should be a process of enculturation (Aikenhead & Jegede, 1999) whereby the culture of science should generally harmonize with a student’ life-world culture, and science instruction should support students’ view of the world. ‘Hogan and Corey present four vignettes from a 5” grade urban classroom that show clearly that “students and scientists do science for different purposes and in radically different contexts” (p. 238). These authors push teacher thinking even further than simply recognizing what students “do and do not know” about science concepts, to trying to recognize what students “do and do not value” about science. In doing so, they offer the following pedagogical practices’ (p.239-40): 1, To recognize the cultural dimensions of both professional and classroom science. 2. Tomake norms and epistemological standards a more explicit part of science instruction. 3. To develop alternative modes of discourse in the classroom (other than recitation). ‘These authors suggest that through open, mindful dialogue with students we can gain insight into their cultural and epistemological perspectives. 4, To use instructional scaffolding through which teachers can diagnose the growing edge of students’ capacities, then model, coach, and assist them to reach a new plane of development. " The following points are direct quotes from the article31 Everyday Sense-Making — While composite culture draws our attention to the tensions created in a science classroom as a result of the differences between students’ cultures and the culture of science, Warren et al, (2001) “propose a framework for understanding the everyday sense- making practices of students from diverse communities as an intellectual resource in science learning and teaching.” They claim that a tradition that views the everyday ways of talking and knowing (of urban youth) as largely different from and incompatible with those of science has the danger of viewing these everyday experiences as the principal source of educational problems, especially for minority youth living in high poverty, whose everyday practices, discourses and ways of knowing are seen as the most disconnected from science (compared to other privileged groups of children). Instead, these authors suggest that we “reconceptualize children’s diverse sense-making and scientific sense-making as potentially complementary rather than discontinuous” (p. 547). Warren and her colleagues offer the following pedagogical practices to science teachers who are interested in teaching for social justice: 1. They ask teachers to be critically reflective of their own assumptions about the way children speak in their own homes. 2. They ask science teachers to expand their definition of resources and to value the everyday language and the everyday logic and practice of sense-making of poor, minority urban youth as an intellectual resource. 3. They suggest that science teachers do not obsessively focus their instruction on “appropriate production of particular terms” and instead “allow students to talk about experiences using the full range of their linguistic abilities” (p. 539).32 Genres — Varelas et al, (2002) define genres as, “staged, goal-oriented, social processes” that are “purposive ways of doing things in a culture” (p. 581). Genres may be used as tools to analyze student learning because they “incorporate social aspects of our ways of doing and knowing,” Once again, this conceptual tool is included in the pedagogical toolkit because it stresses on the socio-constructive nature of learning, an epistemological stance that I believe to be most aligned with a social justice perspective. The authors describe three genres that meet in science classrooms — youth genres, classroom genres and science genres ~ and they stress the significance of the meeting of these three genres in science leaming by providing teachers “a language to capture, appreciate, and inquire into the complex ways that children in our classrooms appropriate and make sense of science and ways of teaching and leaming science” (p.600). On the one hand, the analysis provided by Varelas and colleagues is parallel to the idea of composite culture offered by Hogan and Corey (2001) in that it views youth, classroom and science genres as distinctive (rather than continuous) from one another with marked elements of practice and discourse defining each one. Also, like composite culture, the meeting of genres may create tension and conflict in science classrooms (including resistance to learning) that require teachers to negotiate opportunities available to students to express their youth genres as well as maintain their own favored classroom genre. However, the focus of analysis in composite culture is the learning environment itself (i.e., the classroom) and the effect that the players in that environment (students, teachers and science) have on its composite nature; genres, on the other hand allow us to examine in greater depth the individual cultures that actually contribute to that environment. In33 describing the meeting of genres the authors offer the following pedagogical practices to science teachers to resolve such tensions: 1. Allow students to express themselves in ways that are most meaningful to them (e.g., plays or rap songs) and that allow them the maximum opportunity for sense-making. 2. Encourage non-traditional science writing genres that allow students to “portray their developing identity as science learners through their own strengths” (p.601). 3. In transforming personal practice and instruction to a classroom genre unfamiliar to science students, teachers can avoid the “tensions of change” by explicitly and consciously differentiating for the students what is being offered in their own classroom and may anticipate based on prior experiences in other science classes. Third Space ~ Third space is a hybrid space in which seemingly oppositional everyday spaces and literacies, social and cultural practices and identities of young people work together to generate “new knowledges, new Discourses, and new forms of literacy”(Moje et a., 2004). ‘Moje’s idea about third space draws heavily on students’ funds of knowledge, an idea that is also included in the pedagogical toolkit. One could argue that creation of third space is similar to that of the meeting of genres in science classrooms. However, Moje and colleagues take this convergence of “disciplinary, classroom and everyday Discourses” a step further, and contend that third space is only constructed when these discourses (or genres) “inform one another and build new knowledge and Discourse” (p. 490). Thus, I ‘would say that a meeting of genres is part of creating third space. An additional requirement of congruent third spaces is that teachers not only draw from students’ everyday Discourses34 and funds of knowledge and make connections with the science discourse genre to construct, anew kind of Discourse, but also that the students themselves develop an awareness of the various Discourses and knowledges at play. The concept of third space offers science teachers the following pedagogical practices to consider: 1. Youth do not routinely offer to share their experiences and practices in the classroom (Moje et al., 2004). So teachers should openly invite students to talk about their funds of knowledge in the science classroom. 2. Determine a driving question and acknowledge students’ interest in the driving question by asking them to think of incidents related to the question or providing prompts that that connect students’ Discourses to science Discourse. 3. Plan to include more than one type of Discourse during science instruction. “The inclusion of multiple funds, from classroom textbooks to parents’ jobs to episodes of The Simpsons, can demonstrate to youth that many different funds are valued and validated in the classroom space” (Moje et al., 2004, p. 65). 4, Be explicit about the different Discourses at work in the classroom so that students remain aware of them. For example, teach students how the language of science is often different from the language of everyday even when the same words are used (Moje et al., 2001). 5. Recognize that language and cultural knowledge are not only resources, but can also be used as vehicles for building new social practices in and outside the school (Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez, & Turner, 1997). Having described the components of a pedagogical toolkit, I now move on to describe how we have tried to provide such a toolkit to our science teachers in the course Urban35 Science Education at Teachers College Columbia University. The next section describes the learning tool we have developed (Project Yuva) to be used in Urban Science Education to ‘meet our need of providing science teachers with the specific information that forms an urban pedagogical toolkit. A detailed description of the course itself (which is also the research setting) is provided in the methods section Project Yuva Project Yuva is multimedia case-based environment designed specifically for science teachers who wish to teach in high poverty urban schools. Three cases form the core of this. environment, The three cases are entitled “Ownership,” “Agency” and “Sustained Interest.” Data for these three cases were drawn from the work of several graduate students (in the Urban Science Education Center) at two urban schools in Harlem and the Bronx. Listed below are the goals of Project Yuva as it was implemented in Urban Science Education: 1. To help teachers deconstruct “urban” from an anti-deficit perspective and appreciate the uniqueness of urban classrooms. 2. To explore theoretical constructs for understanding urban youth and the dynamics of urban science classrooms. 3. To observe and interpret real situations and contexts to apply the theories and constructs. 4, To engage in open reflection, discussion and disagreement in a safe classroom environment, 5. To develop personal beliefs and practices as part of an active pedagogical tool kit.36 Project Yuva was used as an integral part of the curriculum of the course Urban ‘Science Education (described in the methods sections). The following sections describe the theoretical framework and the design principles used in creating Project Yuva. Theoretical Framework Bednar and colleagues (1992) argue that “effective (instructional) design is possible only if the developer has developed reflexive awareness of the theoretical basis underlying the design” (p. 19). This section describes the epistemological stance I have taken in creating and implementing Project Yuva, a stance that also reflects the epistemology embodying the instruction in the course (Urban Science Education) in which this leaming environment was used. The following section talks about the guiding design principles of Project Yuva. Constructivist Theory of Learning The theory underlying the design of Project Yuva was the constructivist theory of leaming. This theory views learning as an active and “constructive process in which the leamer is building an internal representation of knowledge, a personal interpretation of experience” (p. 21). According to this theory, there is no such thing as objective knowledge; everything that we consider “knowledge” is a human interpretation of the world as we experience it. Since learning is grounded in experience, it becomes important to situate one’s leaming in a specific context. The more authentic and rich that context, the more reflective it will be of the ‘real-world’ and consequently, the more relevant that context becomes. Situated in such contexts, learning will be more meaningful i.e.,37 transfer of that learning between the classroom and the ‘real-world’ will be easier (reducing the gap between theory and practice). In other words, “meaningful learning will only take place if it is embedded in the social and physical context within which it will be used” (Herrington & Oliver, 1999). For teacher education this means leaming in (and from) settings where teaching occurs i.e., schools and classrooms. While field placements are ideal, rich, highly contextualized cases from science classrooms can also provide ‘authentic’ settings where meaningful teacher learning occurs (Doyle, Winter 1990). In this study, teacher learning was situated in three different contexts: (1) The course itself which includes interaction with Project Yuva (2) The field experiences associated with the course and (3) actual teaching, Further, learning and “conceptual growth comes from the sharing of multiple perspectives and the simultaneous changing of our internal representations in response to those perspectives” (Bednar et al., 1992, p. 21). Thus in designing a learning environment, a space needs to be provided where multiple perspectives can be presented and shared. I would particularly like to stress the importance of this social nature of cognition (Kuhn, 1962; Vygotsky, 1978). Leaning occurs when information, meaning, and personal experiences and interpretations are shared, exchanged, discussed, critiqued and consequently, further developed or transformed. Such negotiations are social and tend to occur through dialogue in a community of members with similar interests; “the constraints on constructed knowledge come largely from (that) community of which one is a member” (CTGV, 1992, p. 116). Putnam and Borko (2000) call such a community a “mini discourse community.” In such mini discourse communities, learning occurs “through knowledge-building discourses” that allow teachers to “translate the38 “knowledge-out-of-context’ into ‘knowledge-in-action™ and their roles are “transformed from passive to active participation and their learning from isolated to contextually situated” (Graham & Thornley, 2000, p.239).. Finally, the knowledge presented to teachers in Urban Science Education was quite complex and theoretical, yet it was knowledge that we wished them to incorporate into their pedagogical toolkits and ultimately apply to their own science teaching. Spiro et al, (1992) call such knowledge ‘ill-structured’. They define ill structured domains as ones in which “each case or example of knowledge application typically involves the simultaneous interactive involvement of multiple, wide-application conceptual structures, each of which is individually complex; and the pattern of conceptual incidence and interaction varies substantially across cases nominally of the same type” (p. 60). They claim that content complexity and irregularity in pattems of knowledge lead to learning failures most often characterized by concept oversimplification and an inability to transfer knowledge (I would call this a gap between theory and practice). Further, they state that to remedy this situation, it is necessary to take an orientation to constructivism that stresses on cognitive flexibility ~ “the ability to represent knowledge from different conceptual and case perspectives and then, when knowledge must later be used, the ability to construct from those different conceptual and case representations a knowledge ensemble tailored to the needs of the understanding or problem-solving situation at hand” (p. 58). In other words, in an ill-structured domain like teaching, the same content needs to be approached more than once in different ways, at different times, for different purposes, in different contexts and from different perspectives in order to appreciate the complexity of this knowledge as well as to develop the ability to transfer that knowledge39 to new, unanticipated situations. To inculcate such cognitive flexibility in thinking, itis necessary to create a learning environment that is itself flexible in terms of presenting knowledge in different many different ways and for many different purposes. Digital, multimedia environments (like Project Yuva) can combine the flexible features inherent in computers with authentic cases from real school settings to produce nonlinear instruction that promotes meaningful learning. Case-Based Instruction Case based instruction is not a new teaching model. It was first proposed by Christopher Columbus Langdell (first dean of the Harvard Law School) in 1875 ~ more than a century ago (Greenwood, 1983). It was brought to medicine by Walter Cannon in 1900 to teach pathology at Harvard Medical School. Then in 1938, case methods were formally introduced at Harvard Business School to teach a course on administration. Since then cases have been successfully used to teach law, business and medicine. A simple GOOGLE search will reveal how today, cases are used to teach a myriad of topics ranging from ethics and statistics to organizational communication and developmental courses. For more than a decade, educators have promoted case based pedagogy in teacher education (Doyle, Winter 1990; Merseth, 1996; L. Shulman, 1992; Sykes & Bird, 1992). In recent years, cases have been used increasingly in teacher education with a variety of goals: From investigating pre-service teachers’ theories about science teaching and learning (Abell et al., 1996), helping teachers make better sense of educational standards so that they can link them to daily school and classroom life (J. Shulman, 2000),40 enhancing personal problem solving abilities (V. Williams & Williams, 2000), examining critical issues and tensions that shape science teaching and learning in classrooms (Arellano et al., 2001), to preparing student teachers for an inclusive classroom (Andrews, 2002). For this project, the case method was chosen for the following reasons. Presenting Theory and Possibilities Teaching cases can be selected or constructed that exemplify a desired set of principles (L. Shulman, 1992). As mentioned earlier, one of the goals of Project Yuva ‘was to present teachers with certain theoretical concepts from the urban science education literature in a tangible, contextualized manner. For example, we wanted teachers to understand what funds of knowledge are (Moll et al., 1992). One way to have approached that could have been by reading an article on funds of knowledge and then spend some time discussing it in class; I addition, through Project Yuva we were able to help them construct their own meaning of funds of knowledge by presenting them with real cases of urban youth developed specifically around that concept. Based on a constructivist approach, the latter was more effective because the teachers now had an opportunity to view the case, discuss at length what they observed, spend some time reflecting on what the authors call funds of knowledge, revisit the case or parts of it and reach a consensus on what funds of knowledge are using specific evidence from the case to support their claim. Case-based instruction can be used quite effectively to “present the ideal middle ‘ground between the unfettered fantasies of the dreamers and the unimaginative practices4 of the uninspired” (L. Shulman, 1992, p.8). In the case of urban science education this ‘would translate to a tension between the constraints placed on science teachers in high poverty urban schools and the sometimes intangible goals of teaching for social justice. In an attempt to really push the anti-deficit perspective, besides being well- grounded exemplars of the theoretical principles we want to teach, we purposely selected only those cases that encouraged the user to focus on the positive aspects of urban youth living in high poverty. Using situated cases, we wanted our teachers to envision what is possible in urban classrooms, to recognize resources that are otherwise neglected, to listen to youth whose voices are otherwise silenced, to acknowledge their strengths and their authority and to consider alternative forms of practice that are rooted in both the goals of social justice as well as in reality. A Shared Context as a Conversational Domain Part of the requirement for the course Urban Science Education was to complete thirty hours of fieldwork in any of our partner middle schools. This fieldwork included classroom participant observations, in-depth student interviews based on observations, shadowing one student for an entire school day, tutoring, conducting/assisting on field trips and after school programs. Students in Urban Science Education were free to choose from these and other activities to complete their field hours; and their experiences with these youth served as the material for their research and reflection projects. ‘A constant theme in urban science education literature is the use of field experiences as “sites for challenging and changing prospective teachers’ perspectives” (Gomez, 1993). Several forms of field experiences have been described. Tobin, Roth and42 Zimmermann (2001) describe “coteaching as a viable model for teacher preparation and the professional development of urban teachers” where coteaching is defined as “working at the elbow of someone else.” They claim that by being in an actual teaching situation with another person, pre-service teachers have the opportunity to “experience appropriate and timely action” that provides them with shared experiences that may eventually lead them to change their teaching practices to create learning environments that the students prefer. Lazar's study (1998) at a Philadelphia elementary school highlights the positive effect that interaction with caregivers had on the attitudes of pre-service teachers about caregivers in the inner-city. Before the field experience, the pre-service teachers in this study “were not sure or doubted that poor, inner-city parents supplied books for their children, read to children, taught their children to read, brought their children to the library, or made reading a priority in the home.” However, after spending ten weeks in urban classrooms, many of them changed their minds, felt more positively about parental involvement in the inner city and believed that inner-city caregivers do invest time and ‘money in their children’s education. Cooper, Beare and Thorman (1990) compared student teacher responses of eighteen pre-service teachers from Minnesota who student taught in a south Texas community (that differed demographically from their own) to eighty five others who student taught in Minnesota itself; he found a difference in the attitudes of those pre-service teachers who had a chance to immerse “in a culture in which they became the Other” (p. 467). ‘The purpose of this particular field experience in USE was three-fold: 1, To get to know one particular student in an urban school really well. To lean something about this student in terms of background, community, culture, likes43 and dislikes and so forth. And to develop a portrait of the student that includes a teaching reflection on how the process of getting to know this student could (or will) influence their science teaching. 2. To further interview and observe the student to better understand the kinds of human, material and social capital that the student has access to as well as the strategies used by the student to activate this capital. 3. To continue to interact with the same student as well as observe his/her science class in order to better understand the composite culture of the science classroom, especially from the point of view of the particular student. ‘The goal was to have our teachers use these field experiences to construct their own understanding around certain key concepts that form part of their pedagogical toolkit. While these field experiences remained an important part of the course, logistics were a problem. This is due to the fact that the teachers had different field placements and interacted with different youth. Thus it became difficult for them to share their experiences with each other in a reflective manner because no one was familiar with each other’s students or school contexts i.e, diverse field placements were a big hindrance to shared field experiences, ‘A case can act as a much-required anchor. Anchors provide “a shared experience for all participants in a class... Also, because the anchor is experienced both by the teacher and the students in a class, shared knowledge develops as part of the classroom community” (Kinzer & Risko, 1998). Using the case method allows us to develop cases around specific claims related to the key concepts we want teachers to think about. The teachers can then explore each claim in two different contexts- one is the shared contextcreated by the case anchor in class and second is their own experience within their particular field placement. For example, one of the claims around ownership in Project Yuva was that claiming ownership in science allows students to affect positive changes in their lives at both the personal and social level. Teachers could now discuss this claim in the context of the case presented as well as search their own experience bank to further support/refine the definition and importance of ownership. This doubling effect is advantageous not only because the leamers can learn more from discussions around the common experience (Cognition and Technology Group at ‘Vanderbilt, 1990) but also, they can further enrich the conversation with reflections, questions and contradictions that emerge from their personal field experiences. The importance of engaging students in conversation has been stressed earlier in the theoretical framework. “By drawing on each individual’s private understandings, which represent... different degrees of pedagogical and disciplinary expertise, the collective understanding of the group is thus advanced” (Thomas, Wineburg, Grossman, Myhre, & Woolworth, 1998, p.23). Cognitive Flexibility of Multimedia Because I have define teaching as an ill-structured task (Spiro et al., 1992), the cognitive flexibility (see theoretical framework) afforded by computers can enhance teacher learning by allowing cases to be presented in multimedia format. The cases in Project Yuva were presented using more than one medium i.e., audio, video, text, images. Case-based instruction using multimedia offer the following advantages (Kinzer & Risko, 1998):45 1. A video case has the capacity to capture the complexity inherent in real life situations. Multimedia cases can present stories/exemplars/classroom situations in ways that closely approximate a “real-time” basis ic., situations can be reconstructed as they were captured on video at the time, stories can be presented in the first person as narrated by the participants themselves. Using multimedia allows users to become observers of the case rather than third-part listeners or readers, The advantage of presenting such “raw data” is that the user can carry out a more personal and more meaningful analysis of embedded data without being subjected to prior interpretations or ways of viewing of the authors of printed cases. 2. Video allows the user to revisit the same aspect or refocus on different aspects of the case at different times. This provides the flexibility to interpret a particular video segment in new ways and for new purposes- an essential component of the cognitive flexibility theory. In this way, teaching and learning become multifaceted problem- solving processes rather than mere transmission. Multiple Perspectives The constructivist view emphasizes that students should lear to construct multiple perspectives on an issue. They must attempt to see an issue from different vantage points. (Bednar et al., 1992). Providing multiple perspectives or approaches to the problems or issues that will be examined by the learners, is directly related to an important model of designing leaning environments and the cognitive flexibility theory (Spiro et al., 1992), As the cases presented in Project Yuva were real stories, it became important to present all sides of the story so as to not bias the case reader into a particular line of46 thought. For example, if the case was about a student who did not perform well in science class but shone in an after-school activity, it proved useful to provide the reader with the perspectives of that student, her teacher, her after-school program coordinator as well as the researcher. These multiple perspectives would help the reader gain a fuller understanding of the reasons behind the actions of that student as he/she gathers more information from the people connected to each setting. Going back to the example, an initial reaction to the case may be that the student finds science difficult. But conversations with the after-school program coordinator may reveal that the after-school activity has many more students who speak Spanish which allows this particular student to feel more comfortable (a conclusion that could be verified by having access to interviews with the student herself). Further, the science teacher may reveal that it isn’t that this student finds science difficult but rather that she is new to the school and is having difficulty adjusting to the new school environment. In this manner, multiple perspectives avoid oversimplification of instruction by representing the natural complexity of the world,47 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN In this section, I present embedded case study as the appropriate methodology for my study. I chose the embedded case study design because it allowed me to not only describe the whole class experience as one single context, but within this context, I could focus on individual teachers as they engaged in dialogue and debate over specific concepts presented in the learning environment. Further, case studies gave me the freedom to sample purposefully (Creswell, 1989), so that I could choose my embedded units. By choosing five beginner teachers from this class as my subunits of analysis, I had the flexibility to now describe their individual experiences within the context of the class as well as later on in spring when they begin student teaching. | was personally interested in the interaction that these teachers had within USE and with Project Yuva and how this interaction affected their thinking around urban science education, social justice and diversity issues. I was also interested in the dialogue that Project Yuva generated among teachers around science education in high poverty areas. To this end, using whole-class data collected via participant observations and short assessment activities, I was able to generate a general idea of how social justice was taken up as a group construct in USE. Yet, the individual teacher analyses are also extremely important as they tell us the story of how teachers’ understanding about teaching science in high poverty urban schools as well as their understanding of what it means to teach for social justice developed over time. These stories also recount how teachers incorporated developing beliefs (and the strategies they devise for enacting their beliefs) into their pedagogical toolkit for teaching science in urban settings.48 The methods used for addressing the research questions are described next. This is an overview of the methods used. The methods mainly entailed gathering student work, ‘making classroom observations and conducting interviews. Classroom observations were made on several other days when Project Yuva was employed. Teachers who agreed to participate in the embedded case studies were interviewed at least three times to determine how their thinking was developing around diversity and social justice, to revisit points raised in earlier interviews and to discuss emerging ideas and thoughts about teaching and learning in high poverty urban settings, as well as about their own pedagogy. Several forms of student work were collected from participants throughout the course. Participants were followed beyond the course, in their teaching, to determine how they incorporated their new beliefs in their own teaching. Research Questions My research questions include: 1) What views do beginner teachers hold about teaching science for social justice in urban schools? a) What are their perceptions about urban youth studying in such schools? b) What do they believe should be the goals of science teaching for urban youth? ©) Do their views include a social justice perspective? If so, in what ways do pre-service teachers believe they can create empowering and equitable science practices in their own classrooms?49 2) How do beginner teachers’ views about teaching science for social justice develop as part of their learning? a) In what ways are issues of teaching and learning for social justice taken up in USE? ) In what ways do teachers negotiate these tensions in their own practice? i) What resources do they identify and draw upon? ii) How does their definition of teaching science for social justice develop? Participants and Settings Data were collected from the course Urban Science Education, a required course for all students in the science education program, including pre-service teachers and doctoral students. The enrollment rate for this course was between fifteen to twenty students in each class. This course focused on urban science education. It offered teachers the opportunity to ask fundamental questions about urban science education in multiple ways. Every person in the class had extensive experience in education, as students and some as teachers, thus bringing great diversity of experience and perspectives. In this course, we hoped to build on this diversity, drawing on individual and collective experiences and challenging those through dialogue amongst ourselves and, through our readings, with others from different times and places. Throughout the term we asked basic questions about what issues define urban science education, who should make decisions about urban science education policies and practices, what should be taught in50 urban school science, how and by whom, and what teachers, researchers, and policy makers should know and do. ‘The course was intended to provide a foundation for an array of questions, ways of framing and pursuing issues, and tools that teachers would draw on in their work in urban science education. Focusing on several key dimensions of urban science education, the aim was to help science teachers develop new understandings of the role and nature of urban schools and teaching, as well as to construct alternative perspectives on and approaches to examining curricular and pedagogical issues in urban science classrooms, As one delves deeply into these issues, one may begin to realize that our urban schools are a reflection of our deeply inequitable society. It is easy to become overwhelmed by the hugeness and apparent impersonality of the educational bureaucracies in urban districts, but many of us chose education because we wished to help it fulfill its egalitarian promise. This course was meant to support teachers in enacting this ideal. As part of the coursework, we looked into what was going on in terms of "science for all" in New York City, as well as thought about and acted upon ideas concerning what urban science educators can do to make science education settings places rich with opportunity for city kids. ‘There was a significant field component to this course that served as the material for students’ research and reflection projects. In-class work included outside speakers, but focused on scholarship in the field, as well as the presentation and in-depth discussion of the students’ field experiences and the cases provided in Project Yuva. To summarize, the focus was on: the roles of culture, language, and community in science education,SL specifically in local New York City settings; the practices that represent the best of what we know about science teaching and learning in urban settings, in school classrooms as well as community science learning situations; and the lives (in school and out) of teachers and students in particular New York City settings, and how these affect our perspectives on scientific practices and knowledge. ‘The major ideas covered in this class, a detailed syllabus and description of assignments are included in Appendices A and B. Other data collection settings were the teachers’ own science classrooms. Selection of Case Study Participants Five teachers agreed to participate in the embedded case studies. Two were pre- service teachers, Jane and Sophie. Two were Peace Corps fellows in the first year of teaching, Danny and Alan, One was a second year science teacher already teaching in NYC, Anna. While at the beginning, I had intended this study to be about pre-service teacher learning, circumstances prevailed and I had to negotiate between having only two pre-service teachers or include more teachers who were not pre-service but were novice teachers nevertheless. I decided to go with the latter and the criteria of my study changed - all participants are beginner teachers who had not taught for more than two years at the time of this study. The second important criterion was that they all be urban teachers, teaching or planning to teach in NYC. I followed these teachers as they student taught at one of our partner middle schools, most of which are located in high poverty urban settings or in their own science classrooms. Also, my research questions required me to follow the teachers through their teaching experience, in and outside the classroom.52 Personally, this aspect of the study was most interesting to me because it addressed the value of courses like USE in narrowing the gap between theory and practice. Ethical Considerations Prior to beginning this research, permission was secured from the Institutional Review Board of Teachers College, Columbia University, the course instructor for USE and faculty course advisor. All participants in the study (students taking the course) were assured the following considerations: ‘An informed consent form for every participant, along with a letter explaining the nature of the study, were distributed and explained to all potential participants. The participants were given a week to read and retum the forms giving or withholding permission. During this week, I was always available by phone or email to clarify doubts and answer questions. Emphasis was placed on clear explanation of participants’ rights. Participants were assured that no known risks were associated with participation in the study. (See appendix C). Participation in the study is entirely voluntary and participants have the right to withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. The students of MSTC 4007 were also informed of their right to refuse to answer particular questions during interviews. All data collected during this research will be kept confidential, with the exception of the researcher, her advisor and colleagues in the Urban Science53 Education Center at TC. Participants have the option of refusing to allow their data to be shared outside this research setting. 4, The use of pseudonyms in place of participants’ real names and any other distinguishing aspects of their lives will further protect their identities. Beyond these issues I understand the additional ethical concerns surrounding work with this population. As their TA, Ihad to make clear to the teachers that their participation in this study or the ideas that they discussed with me during interviews would not, in any way, affect their grade for the course. Methodology - The Embedded Case Study ‘A case study is an exploration of a “bounded system” where a bounded system is, bounded by time and place and is also the event actually being studied e.g,, a program, an event, an activity or individuals (Creswell, 1998). Case studies can also be developed around “some event or entity that is less well defined” (than a bounded system). “Decisions, programs, the implementation process, and organizational change” are all examples of such entities (Yin, 2003). This study explores teacher development within the particular context of a graduate level course and in relation to a particular theme (urban science education and social justice). The bounded system I studied was the Urban Science Education course at Teachers College that runs for one semester. Beginning the fall of 2004, the syllabus of USE was revised to include and implement the prototype of Project Yuva, a multimedia case-based tool developed within the Urban Science Education Center in collaboration with CCNMTL (Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Leaming). Project Yuva54 covered three main concept areas that were central to the content of this course: (1) students’ funds of knowledge and how funds of knowledge relate to science (Bouillion & Gomez, 2001; N. Gonzalez & Moll, 2002), (2) strategies (teacher and student) for leveraging funds of knowledge in science learning (Swidler, 1986) in ways that promote ownership and agency in the classroom and (3) how students’ funds of knowledge contribute to the composite culture of the classroom (Hogan & Corey, 2001). In our class wwe referred to the combination of “students’ funds of knowledge and the strategies they employ to activate those funds” as their “science toolkits” (see Swidler, 1986; Seiler, 2001). Prior to the implementation of Project Yuva, these concepts were covered through readings and through a set of experiences that required teachers to conduct field investigations and synthesize their ideas in a written paper and lesson sequence. ‘The purpose of Project Yuva was to provide teachers the opportunity to: (1) explore urban students’ “science toolkits” in authentic settings and from multiple perspectives; (2) generate a set of defensible claims (and to provide concrete evidence for those claims) about teaching science for diversity and social justice in high poverty urban settings. We envisioned teachers developing beliefs (and the strategies they devise for ‘enacting their beliefs) to become part of their own pedagogical toolkit for teaching science in urban settings. The purpose of this investigation was nor to determine if teacher thinking changes because of interaction with Project Yuva and/or participation in the course. Rather, the hope was that the case studies would allow me to build a complex understanding of how teacher thinking develops around urban science education and what resources they draw35 upon in describing, explaining and implementing their developing beliefs (Donmoyer, 1990). This is essentially what the research questions get at. ‘Type and Form of Case Study Used To get to this complexity of teacher thinking, five in-depth analyses were conducted with teachers. The design of this study was an embedded design (Yin, 2003) where the subunits of analysis were individual teachers in USE. Within the context of USE, I wished to examine how teacher development occurred with respect to the themes of urban science education and social justice. Choosing the embedded design allowed me to explore the complexity of this development as different teachers interacted differently with the curriculum and with each other. As their own ideas emerged and extended, unique prior and current experiences shaped their ideas differently for different teachers. ‘The advantage of using an embedded design was that I was able to uncover a range of changing belief systems within the same bounded system as well as understand the variety of strategies used by these teachers to make their developing beliefs part of their pedagogical tool kits. Also, the in-depth qualitative analyses provided space to delve into the nuances and intricacies that, I believe, must accompany the process of self- examination and change that we wanted the teachers to experience. This was also an instrumental case study (Stake, 2003) because the individual analyses provided insight into the particular issue of teacher development. The individual teacher stories helped advance my understanding of how teachers interact with and lean from courses like USE to expand their own pedagogy and beliefs of schooling and science in urban areas. Thus, the individual subunits (teacher participants) were “looked56 at in depth, (their) contexts scrutinized, (theit) ordinary activities detailed,” but only because this helped me pursue the larger interest of teacher learning (Stake, 2003). Identifying this case study as “instrumental” i.e., having a supportive role, is important because it refocuses our attention on the larger context of teacher development. This is useful because a major pitfall of the embedded design is “when the case study focuses only on the subunit level and fails to return to the larger unit of analysis” (Yin, 2003). The instrumental function of a case study reminds us that the individual teacher stories, though important in themselves, serve as indicators to understand a larger, more complex phenomenon of teacher learning. Thus, this case study has both descriptive (Merriam, 1990) as well as interpretative (Patton, 1990) functions. The descriptive function serves to tell individual teacher stories of their interaction with the syllabus of USE and with Project Yuva; and the lessons they learnt from this interaction- lessons that may change their understanding about urban youth as well as transform their pedagogy. The interpretative function was used to “analyze, interpret, or theorize about the phenomenon” (Patton, 1990) of teacher development, using the descriptive stories.Methods of Data Collection See Tables 1 and 2 for a more succinct look at the specific methods and their purposes. Table 1: Research Design Matrix Research questions Data collection procedures ~Participant Observations in USE ‘What views do beginner -Fast Writes teachers hold about teaching. science for social justice in + Interview 1 urban schools? 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"sP{oO. TeATH|ND pus apynoUy JO spuny stuApRIS wodN masp Aoxp KEIN UL - | sem ax wo paseg nok ueqan pu yuauiuou}AuD Uequn ap pantsaind ,si2y>e=) Moy 4} pozAteue asm stofon A a4 tH 2010g OU ‘mop nog 2 Sump patnydeo usog a4sy 10U Kew ou ss2o0ud Sum} so4p Jo sod uRDIER uy, ain poamideo foxn asnesoq Sujueo| 22yoem: punoue sweo ZupyoU apy souapIas Jo sooud Sunoddns se geen ponoxd soy 88 “pany sofa w paptaond souaptao aif uodn smup pu yn opuaut Katy se anit e}20s puess3200/Aunbo Jo sonss} punase podoyanop BuDyUI 42D) ‘mou 20j pskjpue pur pantypue ana suoH22|a1 Os4 suOHIOYaH~2 daoy ov Pays alam GSN TUEpMS [fe DAN 120f04g Jo ed SY ‘uy saxo padojaxap peu sjooKps uaqin ut Suyoea1 Jo suOSTAJE4p sOHPayM PE suowsoyot Buyyoear wapms roofed AD, 2p wr 22ua19§ sonuin se 2 ,swpng suoUDIES61 suedionsed tuoip Buidoanop ut (mung 12afadgruonoonpa owas uogun wos vods map Kou Wey SONOS sug Wosso62 Observations As in most qualitative research designs, a portion of the data was collected through classroom observations. Observations were made on several days when Project ‘Yuva was employed in the class as well as on the days when assignments were presented. My role during this phase of data collection extended beyond that of researcher, as T became part of the learning process that the teachers were experiencing. During all five semesters of offering USE, I acted as the teaching assistant (TA). This participatory role allowed me unique opportunities to interact with the teachers in a way that otherwise would not have been possible. As their TA, they got a chance to get to know me more intimately than they would an outside researcher who was simply observing their sessions. My hope was that this caused my presence in the classroom to be less disruptive, causing the teachers to be less nervous or inhibited. Also, my status as TA allowed me to gain access and be a part of group conversations that may occur more quietly than whole class discussions and thus cannot be adequately captured via observations. Consequently, data collected through these observations were richer and more authentic. Also, as a person who now had a stake in their leaming, I personally felt Jess intimidated in discussing their beliefs and ideas with them during the interview process. The nature of most of these participant observations was informal. Reflective fieldnotes were maintained after the class was over. Reflective fieldnotes are crucial in ‘qualitative research because the researcher is, “so central to the collection of data and its. analysis, and because neither instruments nor machines nor carefully codified procedures63 exist, (the researcher) must be extremely self-conscious about (his/her) relationship to the setting and about the evolution of the design and analysis” (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992). While observing teachers in their classrooms, I continued to build upon the relationship I had already established with them in the course. These observations were of a more formal nature and occurred four to five times during the one semester. Although I did not videotape these sessions, I maintain highly descriptive field notes to assist me while writing up my case studies as well as while interviewing the teachers on their teaching experience. Interviews Teacher participants were interviewed one-on-one at least three times. Interviews conducted were semi-structured so that I could get to the points I wished to discuss with the teachers, yet have the flexibility to explore other ideas and concepts that came up uring the conversation that seem important to the interviewees. Since I planned to employ interviews in conjunction with participant-observation and document analysis, T expected the interviews themselves to be more like conversations, where I could get insight into the more private and cognitive worlds of the subject. These conversations provided the space for participants: ‘To discuss their emerging ideas about urban youth, science teaching in high poverty urban areas and social justice issues. ‘© To reflect on these ideas as represented in the course assignments collected from them during the semester.* To revisit and reflect upon points that may have emerged during class discussions, previous interviews or class work. The interviews occurred at the beginning and end of the semester to chart teacher thinking and development. In addition, I continued to have short ongoing informal conversations with the participants, especially after a particularly intense class session. A third and sometimes fourth interview was conducted in conjunction with classroom observations of classroom teaching. The actual content of this interview asked teachers to reflect on their current teaching and planning activities from the perspective of ideas appropriated from Urban Science Education/Project Yuva, Unstructured interviews were appropriate here because it was impossible for me to predetermine the actions of the teachers during their teaching. I planned to, “develop, adapt, and generate questions and follow-up probes appropriate to the given situation” (Berg, 2001). All interviews will be video-taped and transcribed. Collection of Generated Artifacts Several personal documents were collected from the case study participants during the course of the fall and spring semesters. These are listed below. 1. Teaching philosophy statements. As part of their pre-service experience, all students complete a teaching philosophy statement at least three times; at the beginning and end of the fall semester and again at the end of the spring semester. collected as many copies of these statements as I could. These statements allowed me a glimpse into how their own professional identities were developing.65 Particularly, I was interested in knowing how much, if at all, had a commitment to teaching for social justice become a part of teacher identity. . Students’ e-reflections. As part of Project Yuva, all students in USE were asked to ‘write reflections on activities associated with Project Yuva. We called them e- reflections. These e- reflections were archived and analyzed. Sometimes the reflections revolved specifically around how a part of or an entire case was useful in helping teachers understand the theoretical concept involved. . Fast writes. As part of our newly developed lesson plans, students of USE had the ‘opportunity to respond to several fast-writes in class every other week or so. ‘These fast writes took approximately 5-10 minutes and asked questions that were very specific to the understanding of a particular concept e.g., a particular pedagogical practice we may be discussing in class or an article we may have read that was particularly confusing. My hope was that these fast writes would prove useful as supporting pieces of evidence while making claims around teacher leaming because they may have capture the “in between points” of their learning process that may not be captured during the four interviews. Science in the City Project. The first and last projects associated with Urban Science Education were parallel and called - Science in the City. This project asked teachers specifically to design a lesson sequence that drew upon aspects of the city, but also required that they draw upon their students’ funds of knowledge (Grom their current field placements). These final versions of the projects were collected for teacher participants. They were analyzed for how teachers’ perceived the urban environment and urban youth based on the ways in whichthey drew upon students’ funds of knowledge and cultural toolkits. This assignment was also useful in shedding some light on how teachers’ ideas have developed around what it means to be a science teacher in a high poverty urban school as well as how they addressed issues of equity/access and social justice and the resources they drew upon from Urban Science Education/Project Yuva to do so. .. Student teaching reflections. | asked the teacher participants to share with me a select set of student teaching reflections that they believed addressed issues of teaching science for diversity and social justice. Pre-service teachers are required as part of their teacher education experience to keep these reflections daily during their spring semester and in-service teachers are asked to keep reflections for the in-service practicum. . Lesson plans. 1 also collected lesson plans developed by the teachers during their teaching. These lesson plans were used during interviews to focus conversations around their thinking while developing lessons for urban youth and the resources that the lessons themselves draw upon (i.e, students’ funds of knowledge, cultural toolkits, aspects of the city, and other concepts discussed in Urban Science Education / Project Yuva). Also, keeping in mind that during the student teaching experience, the pre-service teachers may not have the freedom to teach or create lessons as they would ideally want to, an useful data collection activity was ask to pre-service teachers to modify their current lesson plans for a scenario where they are teaching their own independent science classes with complete freedom in structure, design and content. This allowed me to understand their learning in67 greater depth than afforded by their constrained practice in the student teaching classroom. Trustworthiness The issue of trustworthiness can be asked in different contexts. 1, How thy are the data for the phenomenon being investigated? Another way of framing this first question is: How do we know that the methods used to collect data reliably capture the information needed to address the research questions? This question is really a question of construct validity. Yin (2003) defines construct validity as, “establishing correct operational measures for the concepts being studied.” He proposes using three specific tactics to ensure the trustworthiness of the data collected. The first tactic is that of triangulation. Denzin (1978) describes four types of triangulation- data triangulation, investigator triangulation, theory triangulation and methodological triangulation. In this study, I employed methodological triangulation, which is the use of multiple methods for collection of data, According to Webb et al. (1966), triangulation by methods makes data more trustworthy and that “once a proposition has been confirmed by two or more measurement processes, the uncertainty of interpretation is greatly reduced. The most persuasive evidence comes through the triangulation of measurement processes. If a proposition can survive the onslaught of a series of imperfect measures, with all their irrelevant error, confidence should be placed init”68 To understand how teachers interacted with and in USE, I conducted a series of interviews with them to discuss their thoughts and beliefs on teaching science for social justice. These interviews also provided the space for teachers to reflect on and talk about their assignments that were collected during the course. Further, teachers were observed during all those classes when Project Yuva was employed to gain insight into how the case study participants engaged in small and large group conversation around the key ideas covered in Project Yuva. I believe that a combination of these three methods- participant observation, collection of personal documents and interviews- provided me a much bigger, and more consistent data set (than using any one method by itself) to address the research questions. A second tactic to maintain the trustworthiness of data is to establish a record so that “other investigators can review the evidence directly and not be limited to the written case study reports” (Yin, 2003, p. 102). For this study, I collected several documents/artifacts from the teachers during the course of the semester. These documents included teaching philosophy statements, project work completed during the course, e- reflections and teaching reflections. These were organized according to author. I also maintained any notes taken during meetings with the course instructor, the PI, CCNMTL staff and during the interviews. All interviews are maintained on mini DV as well as in transcript format. Establishing and maintaining such a database is useful “to allow an extemal observer...to follow the derivation of any evidence, ranging from initial research questions to ultimate case study derivation” (p.105), the third tactic suggested by Yin. While these data are kept ordered and categorized in a formal database, the database itself69 is not available to external investigators. This is because the consent form specifically mentioned that only the PI and researchers working on the project would have full access to data collected during this study. However, these data were shared in bits and pieces (using pseudonyms for all teachers) with the research group at the Urban Science Education Center as part of ongoing data analysis to increase the soundness of the investigation. This was a useful exercise because, “ .. readers close to the setting provide yeoman service by checking for correctness and completeness. Further, their reactions sometimes helped me recognize where the reporting or the interpretation (or both) seems overblown or underdeveloped. Readers not so closely involved can also be helpful in assessing the suitability of my analytical concepts, my sensitivity to the people involved, or the adequacy and appropriateness of interpretations made and lessons drawn” (Wolcott, 1990). I truly believe that getting critical feedback from the research group increased the trustworthiness of the data set by making the analysis more coherent. 2. How trustworthy are the inferences drawn from the data? ‘This question essentially asks: If data collected in this study are shared with other researchers, will they draw the same inferences as I did? It is a question about credibility (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This research required me to draw inferences about teacher development from data collected from individual teachers. In order to ensure that these inferences were trustworthy and reflected the data accurately, I employed data triangulation. Yin (2003) defines data triangulation as the use of “multiple sources of evidence, in a manner encouraging convergent lines of inquiry” (p.36). The embedded design of this study70 automatically ensured that more than one source (j.e., teachers) contributed to the overall understanding of how teachers’ understandings of diversity and social justice develop over time, Multiple types of data also extended to the different types of written work collected from teachers, as well as interviews conducted with them. Thus, claims about teacher learning relied on more than one source of data (i.., teachers), but also on more than one form/type of data for each source. Trustworthiness of inferences can be further ensured via the process mentioned above- sharing with and receiving critical feedback from my advisor and from other graduate students conducting similar research at the Urban Science Education Center. Peer debriefing in our research group was done at several points during analysis in weekly group meetings: © Raw data were shared with the research group for initial brainstorming about 1) possible themes and categories and 2) missing data that may need to be collected «Preliminary hypotheses/categories along with supporting evidence from several data sources were reviewed together for 1) mis-categorization 2) to delineate ideas for possible new categories 3) for critical feedback on current hypotheses and related pieces of evidence * Sometimes, entire chapters or parts of the “findings” chapters were distributed in advance and discussed for reinforcement of developed theory or to find contradictions. I feel it important to mention that my purpose in presenting the findings of this study is not to establish in them, a detached objectivity. I do not assume that by taking then necessary steps, the inferences and conclusions drawn from this research will be completely generalizable. I understand that given the same set of teachers in the same bounded setting, using the same syllabus, another researcher may ‘find’ something completely different. My purpose in conducting this study is not to make broad sweeping claims about teacher learning but rather to understand how teachers interact with a digital case-based environment like Project Yuva and recontextualize the theoretical concepts presented in the environment into their own practice; keeping in mind that, “ (T)o attempt to understand a social system is not to claim to understand or be able to predict the actions of particular individuals in it, oneself included” (Wolcott, 1990). Finally, I was determined to follow, during the entire investigation, the nine essential points described by Wolcott (1990) as his attempts to “satisfy the implicit challenge of validity.” 1. Talk little, listen a lot 2. Record accurately 3. Begin writing early 4, Let readers “see” for themselves 5, Report fully 6. Be candid 7. Seek feedback 8. Tryto achieve balance 9. Write accurately2 Data Analysis In analyzing my data, I drew upon the situative perspective- a conceptual framework described by Peressini and colleagues (2004) that argues that because teacher learning occurs in many places and in multiple contexts, “to understand teacher learning, ‘we must study it within these multiple contexts, taking into account both the individual teacher-leamers and the physical and social systems in which they are participants” (p.69). In my own study, I was interested in teacher learning that occurred in the course USE (in class, outside of class in their field experiences and as they interact with Project Yuva) as well as during teaching, Particularly, I was interested in the process of reconceptualization, which is defined as the “transformation of resources and discourses as they are disembedded from one social context and embedded into another” (Peressini et al., 2004, p. 70). In this study, I was interested in finding out whether the ideas and constructs presented to the teachers in one social context (USE) were recontextualizedd in a different social context (while teaching). For example, the first case presented in Project Yuva was around students taking ownership in science. I was interested in knowing whether the teacher participants were able to recontextualize this idea of ‘ownership for their own projects, as they created and/or taught science curriculum in middle school classrooms. Further, from a situative perspective learning is defined as increased participation in a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The question that arises for this study is how do we measure that learning? Or in other words, how do we measure or observe increased participation? Peresinni and colleagues (2004) offer three constructs to2B understand teacher learning, which they call the domains of professional practice content, pedagogy and professional identity. While science content knowledge is definitely important, my own interest lies in exploring teachers’ notions around nature of science and how these notions develop as part of their learning, Particularly, in the course USE and in Project Yuva, we had taken a critical stance on the objective nature of science. I was interested in knowing whether the teachers picked up on this idea about what constitutes science as well the importance of understanding that “science” is socially constructed, as an important step towards teaching science for social justice. In addition I also looked at the two domains of pedagogy and professional identity as indicators of leaming how to teach for social justice. In analyzing socially just pedagogy via tasks, I looked at the particular lesson plans created and taught by the teachers during their teaching experiences. I was interested in analyzing these data to find ways in which teachers were able to recontextualize the notion of culturally responsive teaching in their own classrooms. In analyzing identity, I looked at how teachers were able to identify their own roles as agents of change. My assumption was that teachers would be better able to teach science for social justice in their classrooms if they could see themselves as agents of change. I was curious to investigate this assumption. Data analysis involved a constant comparison of all these forms of data in order to censure that the larger claims that I make around teacher learning accurately reflected the ‘evidence leading to those claims. The constant comparative analysis among all types of data lends validity to the process of generating theory. Further, the analysis of my data dovetailed with the data collection itself. Since a large portion of my data were interviews conducted with the teachers with the aim of understanding the learning process that they4 were going through, it became important to constantly review and analyze previous interviews and materials before conducting further interviews. This ongoing process of going back and forth between old and new data helped me to better develop my themes around teacher learning; as well as allowed me to focus on issues that may be more important, more confusing, more helpful, more pressing or more interesting to the participants themselves. This involved continually shuffling between different forms of data, inspecting interview transcripts, classroom observations, student work and field notes for new properties and idea of theoretical categories, writing memos and generating questions for further investigation. Thus, data analysis became an integral part of the study and not something that was done explicitly only at the end of the study after all data had been collected, although a sizable portion of the data were analyzed at the end. Taking a constant comparative approach to data analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) greatly aided me in generating a developmental theory of the process of how teachers leam to teach for social justice. One of the reasons that CCA appealed to me was that I am not one to rigidly confine myself to a linear procedure of data analysis, rather I like to g0 from a general reading of my data, to a more focused one, to coding and memoing and shifting back and forth between these as issues and possibilities strike my interest. ‘My use of CCA suggests a foundation in a grounded theory approach to data analysis, While some of the principles of grounded theory did guide my analysis, I personally prefer the term “modified grounded theory.” Grounded theory sets up a false dichotomy between data and theory and, as Emerson et al. argue, “avoids seeing theory as inherent in the notion of data in the first place” (1995). I believe that we come to our data with guiding questions and theoretical commitments that shape our analysis in5 important ways. Thus the categories that I generated did not “emerge” from the data separate from my theoretical beliefs. I may have begun my analysis expecting to “discover” original themes in my data but I realize now that field notes, transcripts and artifacts cannot be analyzed independently of my own epistemological and theoretical beliefs. Theory only seems to emerge from the data because our prior analytic commitments are inherently built into our data, because we inevitably bring our theoretical beliefs to readings and analyses. There is a “reflective or dialectical interplay between theory and data” whereby theory enters at every point, shaping not only analysis but how events came to be perceived and written up as data in the first place (Emerson et al, 1995). It is more accurate to say that we as researchers create theory, rather than it emerging and us discovering it. Analysis is “a process of creating what is there by constantly thinking about the import of previously recorded events and meanings” (Emerson et al., 1995). Limitations It is considered that a general limitation of case studies is that they are highly contextualized, and thus, not generalizable, Generalizability in the traditional sense is, often used to make “general statements about causes and effects and know what to do to produce desired outcomes” (Donmoyer, 1990, p. 177) but Donmoyer, citing Cronbach, ‘states that “human action is constructed, not caused” (p. 178). Further, because human action towards things is constructed based on certain meanings that those things have for us, and because meanings are not static, studies that attempt to understand such complex behavior cannot be generalized in a traditional manner. Indeed, they should not be.16 Education research and especially case studies “can only function as a heuristic; (they) can suggest possibilities but never dictate action” (p. 182). In presenting these in-depth case studies, my goal is to add a layer of understanding, both personal and shared, to the process of teacher leaning from a social justice perspective; the findings are not meant to be generalized. They are meant to provide more information and consequently raise more questions about teacher learning and about what is needed for teachers to become more agentic and to recognize how to teach in culturally responsive ways. One potential limitation of this study is the possible conflict that may have arisen from my dual roles as researcher and teaching assistant for the course USE. Elsewhere, I have described the utility of being a participant observer. However, it is important to also keep in mind any adverse effects this role may have on data collection. I am aware of the fact that my position as the course TA may have affected the things that the teachers chose to reveal to me (as a researcher) or that they may have only said things that they thought I, as their TA would like to hear. In order to address this issue I constantly reminded the teachers that I was interested in their honest opinions, ideas and beliefs and assured them that I would not judge them in any way based on what they told me, nor did Thave any preconceived notions of what they should be telling me (since I have never done such a study before). Beyond this, I could only hope that what they revealed to me during our conversations was the truth. I would like to add that most of these participants became my friends over time and as our relationship changed, so did the dynamic between us so that I personally never felt that we were in an uncomfortable space or that they could not be honest with me.1 My active participation (as TA) in the process of teacher learning, as well as my developing friendships with my participants did make it difficult at times for me to remain objective of the data since I also had a vested interest in seeing teacher learning occur at the end of the process. In other words, I was rooting for them to become more agentic, and to take on a critical perspective. Yet, I believe that my choice to participate in the classroom provided me with a lens through which I could view the teacher learning process first hand. Also, as mentioned in the trustworthiness section, the trustworthiness of my inferences have been kept in check by sharing data with the research group at the ‘Urban Science Education Center and receiving their critical feedback.8 CHAPTER 4: TEACHERS’ PORTRAITS In this chapter, I address my first research question: 1. What views do beginner teachers hold about teaching science for social justice in urban settings? 8) What are their perceptions about urban youth studying in such schools? b) What do they believe should be the goals of science instruction for a teacher in a high poverty urban school? ©) Do their views include a social justice perspective? If so, in what ways do teachers believe they can create empowering and equitable science practices in their own classrooms? Teachers’ initial views around urban education, science teaching and social justice are presented as part of their portraits. This is followed by an analysis section of three crosscutting themes that “emerged” from the data. In analyzing these teachers’ stories, I used a broader ler of social justice, which allowed me to draw out more explicitly their views on the potential for youth empowerment through science education, the ways in which one can create equitable learning opportunities in science, the barriers to student agency, the teachers’ own visions about their practice as well as their critical reflections of self vs. other which may have influenced their identities as urban science teachers.19 Jane Background Jane was a pre-service teacher in the science education program at Teachers College. She eamed a B.S. in Biology with a concentration in evolutionary studies from a public university in the Northeast United States before starting at Teachers College, “the only institution in New York City that offers science education instead of just secondary education.” Jane was born and raised in a large metropolitan urban city in the Northeast and attended a public school there. While Jane was still in high school, her family moved to anearby suburb, Newton, and she eventually graduated from a public high school in ‘Newton. As a result Jane had had the opportunity to study in both suburban and urban schools; she had very different experiences in both these settings and sometimes drew on these varied experiences in forming her own opinions about urban schools. For example, according to Jane, one major difference between urban and suburban schools is the lack of “socially organized groups in urban schools that you could participate drug-free, alcohol-free, you know, and supervised.” She felt that, “there is no focus on extra- curricular activities” and that sports are not encouraged in urban schools. This opinion may be a result of her own experience at her urban high school where she said that she ‘was not encouraged to participate in such activities and that she never felt pushed to “do something other than an academic subject.” These experiences as a young student remained with Jane as she was preparing to become a teacher and may have influenced her beliefs around urban education in general, as we shall see in the following sections. Jane had some interesting prior teaching experiences. In her junior and senior years in college, she joined a program called “The Cross-Cultural Solutions.” Through80 this program, she went to a Southeast Asian country for four and a half weeks (through two winter breaks) where she taught monks English and biology. At first, Jane took some time to adjust to a new culture: A totally different dynamic you know like what they think a teacher is, how I treated them, how I spoke to them and how they spoke to me. And since they are monks, like I had to respect them. There was a dress code, a very strict dress code. Thad to wear a skirt but the skirt had to be below my knees. My shirts always had to cover my shoulders. No spaghetti straps, nothing u know, indecent. And every time a monk would stand up... every time they tried to answer to me, they would stand up but the thing is my head always had to below theirs. Whenever they stood up Thad to bow. So it was very confusing for the first day... But given Jane’s vivacious nature, it was no surprise that the monks soon became quite comfortable in her presence and she “was just like ‘oh sit! Don’t worry about it.” And then the questions in our conversational English class which was like for the younger kids, it went from ‘how are you?” to like ‘do you live next to Britney Spears?” You know...they were so open about...1 was so happy that I was there because I think it changed them and it changed me.” Jane claimed this to be her number one experience. In college, Jane also worked as a mentor with a university mentor program for two semesters, mentoring students at two different high schools, who “are at risk of not graduating, of not pursue...even pursuing higher education.” She didn’t really know how effective this program was because “it was kinda like you were with a child for just four months. And you knew it was short term and they knew it was short time.” This, she professed was her only experience teaching urban youth prior to coming to Teachers College. Jane wanted to be a science teacher because when she moved to her new high school in Newton, she “really didn’t have a very fabulous science teacher.” According to81 Jane, biology was her favorite subject in school and, “then when you don’t end up having a great bio teacher, it’s just like ‘Oh! That's Great!!” You know, its very disappointing. So I think that’s what really got me motivated. I’m like No! I’m gonna do ten times better.” Jane was certain that she wanted to teach in the city where she grew up after she graduated, preferably in her own high school. However, she also mentioned that she was “going to teach for maybe three or four years, see if I like it or not” because she was also interested in doing research in biology.” Views about urban education Urban I guess in the educational sense would be an educational system that focuses mainly on a population of students who are faced with overcrowding, who are faced with technical issues, who're faced with maybe the deprivation of resources... Certain things that we are not going to think of when we think of urban as a sociological sense you know. Right So I guess if we are talking of urban education, that would be the definition. Jane drew a clear distinction between urban and suburban schools in terms of availability of space and extracurricular activities. Further, Jane’s characterization of urban schools was marked with what isn’t available rather than the resources that are accessible in urban neighborhoods and communities. Jane held some negative stereotypes of urban youth but her beliefs did not stem entirely from a deficit perspective. These three points are discussed in depth below. As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest differences that Jane articulated between suburban and urban schools was an overall lack of socially organized activity in urban schools that students can participate in- like science clubs fairs and competitions, sports clubs, ete:82 In suburban schools there is a giant push to do something different, to be like innovative and say, “Why don’t you make up your own club?” You know? Or you know, "why don’t you participate in this type of competition that’s national?” And I'm not talking about the Intel Science stuff. I am talking about like very weird like, “build your own solar car” Did you know about that? I didn’t even know about that ‘when I was in high school...until I moved! Where in my suburban high school they ‘made solar cars to participate in Arizona and they flew us out, they like gave us money... According to Jane, this occurs because teachers and school staff “don’t provide students with other options to do after schoo! other than the ‘after-school program’ which would be sit down, do your homework in front of, in front of a supervisor.” However, Jane did not entirely blame the teachers because she felt that there was never enough green space for urban children to play in anyway. She felt that all that urban youth have are basketball courts and hand courts, and parks with signs that say “Do Not Step on The Grass” all over them, so that, “even if you are an educator, where do you take your children to do a physical activity?” At the time of this interview, in Jane’s mind several structural issues characterized urban schools — overcrowding, lack of resources, under-resourced teachers, under-trained teachers, etc., as well as by “lack of motivated children.” She especially talked a great deal about qualified teachers in urban schools i.e, the lack of. She felt that urban schools, in their desperate need for science teachers take “any type of person who is interested in teaching.” This she felt led to the quality of urban teachers being “a little less than the quality of suburban teachers.” In addition to their content knowledge, Jane also thought that suburban and rural teachers were more efficient with procedural and administrative work, something that “might not come as easily to urban educators because of training, and stuff.”83 However, Jane recognized that some of these issues were institutional and prevalent in most large urban centers. She “blamed” this dearth of good quality science teachers in urban schools on leniency in certification processes and lack of professional development: Think about Baltimore. Have we thought about that? Have we thought about...you know a place like Boston. In Boston they don’t even need like you just the strict requirements like NYC. You can start teaching RIGHT AWAY and then you can start applying for exams. And that’s it. That's all you need. You don’t need like a six-month certification you know...bam, bam, you're in type of thing. So that’s what I mean. Like we have teachers who are under-resourced themselves, who don’t have their own personal develop... mean professional development you know. In terms of urban youth, Jane “expected” her students to not “have a lot of interest in science....(they) probably don’t have any interest in learning science.” While Jane did hold the stereotype of children living in poverty to be disinterested in science, she attributed this disinterest to factors other than the youth themselves. She acknowledged the disadvantage that living in a high poverty environment imposes on urban youth, for example in terms of the resources available to them: They probably don’t have the leisure to do that. They probably don’t have, I guess the advantage to do that, In an high poverty area, you really want to think about is what you're good at and how you can use that to get out of that high poverty area. So maybe that...that’s probably what I don’t expect, well what I expect from them. Umm...again like probably the lack of resources that they don’t...you know, they're not capable of doing a lot of things I want them to do, Sometimes, Jane hinted at a cultural mismatch between the students’ own ways of knowing in their everyday lives and those promoted in the science class. As a scienceteacher, Jane really wanted her students to develop the skills to “explore the world” and have a scientific worldview. She felt strongly that this kind of "thought process of like why, and discovery and inquiry” was missing among students living in poverty because of the way in which they were forced to think about the world in their everyday lives: “Probably think about the world in a very different way like how can I attain resources and how can I you know like kind of use the world to my benefit instead of like let me explore the world...” While she hoped that she could make it that way, Jane did not expect urban youth living in high poverty to recognize their science class as a valuable life-changing experience that they can use to empower themselves. She partly blamed the teachers for this because she felt that science teachers encourage memorization and regurgitation instead of helping students develop critical thinking ski : “Its more of like how can you use this book as a resource to pass the test and move on, Instead of how can you use this book and discover for yourself the significance. ..or the significant points in this book or why this book was ever written or like why did this person ever question what was being questioned in the book.” Thus, Jane attributed students’ disinterest in science to the lack of encouragement from parents and teachers to “think about the world scientifically.” Thus, while Jane did carry some deficit views about urban youth living in high poverty (“they're not capable of doing a lot of things I want them to do”), she seemed to also believe that these youth dispositions were not simply innate or “natural” but rather, ‘were a result of various interactions involving parents and teachers as well as because of a lack of opportunity (“they probably don’t have the leisure to do that”85 ‘Views about Science Teaching I think science is rationality... it's a way of thought. It’s a way of providing answers for the unknown, And it’s to go about doing it in a very rational and particular way. Which is through inquiry, which is through scientific method. Jane was a strong advocate of the scientific method. In fact, her definition of science was the scientific method. Jane wanted to teach science because she believed that it was important for children to develop the skills necessary to conduct inquiry at an early age, and she wanted to play a part in that process. Jane’s understanding of science as a communal effort to conduct inquiry played a big role in developing her belief’ around science teaching. However, sometimes it appeared that Jane’s definition of “science as inquiry” limited her to other perspectives, and she struggled between her desire to have her students think independently as researchers versus setting up some structures for them to work within, These points are discussed in greater detail below. Jane was incredibly passionate about science and had a clear idea of what science ‘meant to her. For Jane, science was a process of doing inquiry, and inquiry was all about doubting and asking questions and never taking anything at face value. However, there ‘was a particular approach to doing inquiry i.e, the scientific method. Perhaps because of her own background and training in science, Jane was a strong advocate and believer of the scientific method, which she defined as using rational thought, “to change your preconceived notions to match the evidence. ” Jane believed in the importance of teaching science because she wanted students to question everything around them, i.e., be curious and leam to do inquiry: “It (science) starts that process of questioning. You question the world around you and you doubt everything and that’s the only way that you can actually learn what you want to learn.”