Publication 5937

Excerpt: The remainder of this chapter consists of four sections in which sociocultural perspectives are used to illuminate issues associated with the teaching and learning of science. Examples from my professional history are used to illustrate the role of theory in making sense of experience, learning from concrete experiences, the significance of coparticipation in learning science, and science as a form of symbolic violence for students. Implications for the practice of science education are presented in a conclusion that acknowledges that the perspectives I have employed in this chapter are useful in bringing certain issues into the foreground but, in so doing, push other issues into a background of obscurity.