ABSTRACT
Virtually every component of the school curriculum is an object of political and professional struggle. In the case of school science, an enduring competition at the level of policy has been evident for many years. I shall argue that a fundamental difference between two science curriculum policy images2 is at the heart of the competition. Layton (1972) captured the difference succinctly as emphasizing, on one hand, an understanding of science “in its internal disciplinary aspects,” as opposed, on the other hand, to “its external relations, [an understanding] of the nature of the science-society interface” (p. 12). These two images would spawn development and implementation of very different school science programs. Policy studies do not have a very high profile in science education research, as Fensham (2009) has pointed out emphatically. He argues for the importance of policy studies by demonstrating, with examples, how policy permeates many facets of the working life of practitioners. Yet, “policy” is a thing that lurks in the murky, distant background-far away from a science teacher’s classroom practice. For a teacher, policy is a given, a taken-for-granted. Once policy is established, its implementation sets off a chain reaction that doesn’t stop until students have felt its impact. Fensham presents two examples (external testing and funding for lab assistants) that illustrate the influence of educational policy on broad aspects of school science programs. In this chapter I concentrate more narrowly on the substance of curriculum policy. In the working life of a science teacher, the substance of policy speaks through a required set of learning outcomes, a syllabus, a program of studies, or an approved textbook. The struggle and reasoning that went into determining the policy are often distant in time, and not necessarily a part of the teacher’s experience. The policy image choices that were debated and discarded are not directly relevant to the teacher’s daily work. Curriculum policy expresses the purposes for learning. Elsewhere (Roberts, 2007) I have shown that the science education landscape is currently characterized by competition between two broad “visions” of the purposes for learning school science. As suggested by Layton’s description, the roots of these are in two
perennially conflicting curriculum sources. On one hand, there is the discipline of science itself-the products, processes, and characteristics of the scientific enterprise. On the other, there are situations in which science demonstrably plays a role in human affairs-including, but not limited to, scientific thinking and activity. These I have dubbed, respectively, Vision I and Vision II. These two visions have been in competition for a very long time. At present, though, the competition is at the heart of understanding many of the factors contributing to the Statement of Concern at the beginning of this volume. A single term-scientific literacy-is being used by science educators to characterize the very different long-term outcomes of school science programs associated with both visions. This major source of confusion in our professional discourse masks the depth and significance of the competition. A vision provides professional educators, researchers, policy makers, and the public with an answer to the big-picture question “What should a scientifically literate person know and be able to do?” (Thus we “envision” the scientifically literate person.) Visions orient us, in broad and general terms-more like this than like that. In that broad sense, only two visions of scientific literacy can be recognized in the literature, although dozens of definitions dot the landscape. Some definitions are more like Vision I, others are more like Vision II. In other words, the vision concept is a “pointer” rather than a pigeon-hole system for classifying definitions. The major distinguishing factor and, indeed, the most powerful source of competition between Vision I and Vision II lies in the different companion meanings (Roberts, 1998) inherent in each. Vision II has a much wider scope for accommodating innovations in school science, such as those explored in this volume, because the range of purposes expressed by allowable companion meanings is much more diverse. Despite the relative narrowness of its companion meanings, Vision I historically has had much greater prestige. That prestige itself often trumps any other considerations in the competition. A policy image is not the same as a vision. A policy image is a functioning communication device that serves as the starting point and conceptual “glue” that holds together the long process of systemic reform in education. The research and analysis presented in subsequent parts of this volume focus on a variety of aspects of reform, including program development and implementation, the role of language in creating meaning in science classrooms, impact on students, and professional development for teachers. The present chapter develops a conceptual framework for exploring the pervasive influence of a policy image on those familiar components of the science education enterprise. The chapter unfolds in three sections following this introduction. In the first, I exemplify the visions, review their characteristics, and present features of the vision concept as an analytical tool. The second section elaborates the concept of a science curriculum policy image, also as an analytical tool. The conceptual framework that binds this entire volume is presented there, although reference to individual chapters occurs throughout. The overriding power of companion meanings within the two visions is demonstrated in the third section, and brief concluding remarks bring the chapter to a close.
