What counts as science writing and who gets to be "good" at it? : pedagogy, ideology, and inequality in high school biology
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Writing matters in science education. It can provide opportunities not only for assessment or developing writing skills, but also for learning content and developing students' identities as producers of scientific knowledge. New research and educational standards suggest these goals can be achieved through a variety of activities, including writing activities with real-world audiences and few linguistic constraints. However, history also suggests that pedagogical reforms can have unintended consequences, and that systemic racism and sexism can shape the outcomes of reforms in unanticipated and inequitable ways. To provide all students with equitable opportunities to learn science through writing, researchers must proactively investigate problems that may arise during the implementation of new writing activities. This dissertation uses survey and experimental methods to examine how teachers of biology (the most common science course in U.S. secondary schools) implement, evaluate, provide feedback on, and formulate expectations for student writing. Findings suggest: (1) participants' stated purposes for student writing do not always align with enacted writing pedagogy; (2) participants provided longer feedback on student writing attributed to a non-Hispanic White male compared with the same writing attributed to Hispanic or Latina female; and (3) participants who worked in schools that served primarily White and Asian American students expressed higher expectations for student science writing than colleagues in schools serving primarily Latinx or African American students. Practical and theoretical implications for science educators, researchers, and policymakers are discussed.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2019; ©2019 |
| Publication date | 2019; 2019 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Sedlacek, Quentin Charles |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Ball, Arnetha F, 1950- |
| Thesis advisor | Ball, Arnetha F, 1950- |
| Thesis advisor | Brown, Bryan Anthony |
| Thesis advisor | Martínez, Ramón |
| Thesis advisor | Rickford, John R, 1949- |
| Degree committee member | Brown, Bryan Anthony |
| Degree committee member | Martínez, Ramón |
| Degree committee member | Rickford, John R, 1949- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Graduate School of Education. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Quentin Charles Sedlacek. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Graduate School of Education. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2019 by Quentin Charles Sedlacek
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...