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Woman Being Disruptive: Challenging (E)quality in Science Education

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Part of the book series: Cultural Studies of Science Education ((CSSE,volume 17))

Abstract

Secondary students’ resistance to learning science is nothing new but it has been of interest to me since I started my teaching career in the 1970s and academic career in 1990. Although, that such resistance exists is now widely accepted, in 1990 many were in denial – except for some feminist writers, and it was in feminist theory that I found my initial inspiration for researching this resistance. But feminist critique was not enough to explain the resistance and so, inspired by Sandra Harding, I argued that gender, equality, quality and globalization are political issues that are interwoven into the discourses and practices of science education in my writings and teaching. Integral to these arguments is the need to challenge the gendered, classed and racist nature of the knowledge that constitutes school science curricula. This chapter takes the form of an autoethnography that traces the theoretical frameworks I have used, the arguments that I have made, and continue to make, about the oppressions and injustices that science education in schools continues to reproduce, and explains why I am a woman being disruptive.

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Gough, A. (2019). Woman Being Disruptive: Challenging (E)quality in Science Education. In: Bazzul, J., Siry, C. (eds) Critical Voices in Science Education Research. Cultural Studies of Science Education, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99990-6_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99990-6_24

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