ABSTRACT
This chapter explores dissection as a material-discursive phenomenon in three different settings: the author’s own high school dissection experiences, her experiences with dissection as a teacher of science, and a dissection experience that took place in a local high school where the research was conducted. Given its prominence in the secondary school science experience, dissection can serve as a microcosm for analysing the complex and intersecting roles of identity, such as gender with race, cultural practices, and science (as it plays out in schools). The chapter draws on Sara Ahmed’s scholarship on orientations to diffract the various participants’ orientations to the dissection, with a particular focus on gender at the intersections of race, class, and cultural practices. The experiences of two girls, in particular, reveal multiple points of difference that constitute considerable (yet overlooked) tensions in secondary science education.
