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Sowell, S. P. (2004). Doing Gender/Teaching Science: A Feminist Poststructural Analysis of Middle School Science Teachers' Identity Negotiations. Retrieved from http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_migr_etd-1617
This research joins the gender equity conversation within science education by providing a feminist poststructural analysis of teachers' doing gender and teaching science. Feminist poststructuralism is used in recognition of the oppressive nature of dualistic modes of thought, which often reduce reality into a limiting either/or fallacy and can be theoretically constraining as research within any particular field becomes more sophisticated. By uprooting the concept of gendered identity from the unproductive grip of essentialism, and conceptualizing it instead as a shifting 'work in progress,' feminist poststructuralism provides an invigorating theoretical framework from which to conduct inquiries. From a this perspective, the identity of a teacher, as any identity, is not a fixed entity, but rather an unfinished project, swarmed upon by a variety of competing discourses. Situated in a rural middle school in the Florida panhandle, this research explores how numerous discourses compete to define what it means to be a female science teacher. More specifically, the aims of this research are to explore: a) how the participants negotiated successful gendered identities within science and b) how this taking up of subject positions crystallized into classroom practices which worked to reproduce and/or challenge commonsense notions of the heteropatriarchal gender dualism as well as the enmeshment of masculinity and science. Findings illustrate a wide array of classroom pedagogical practices, ranging from anti-oppressive emancipatory constructions of both gender and science to more traditional objectivist constructions that validated the patriarchal status quo. Explicating teacher identity as effects of these pedagogical approaches proved insightful in unveiling notions of resistance, frustration, enthusiasm, and agency as the teachers reflected on their practice.
A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Middle and Secondary Education in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references.
Publisher
Florida State University
Identifier
FSU_migr_etd-1617
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Sowell, S. P. (2004). Doing Gender/Teaching Science: A Feminist Poststructural Analysis of Middle School Science Teachers' Identity Negotiations. Retrieved from http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_migr_etd-1617