Recent reform efforts in science education suggest that all students should attain some foundational knowledge of the substance and processes of science. Encapsulated by the phrase "science for all" these are described in the report "Project 2061" (AAAS, 1993) and subsequent documents (Goals 2000, 1994; NRC, 1996). Such an ideal, however, fails to address the implications in defining such a canon or enabling its acquisition by students under either a version of society in which canonical knowledge is important for societal functions to occur or one in which such knowledge is key to enacting societal change. In other words they do not ask the primary curriculum questions, "Who's knowledge?" or "Knowledge for what purpose?" Visions of "science for all" and derivative articulations of science education are inherently conflicted--because they don't ask hard questions about the sources or functioning of such knowledge, they sit on all sides of conflicting beliefs about the function of knowledge in society without acknowledging any.

We argue that an important piece of the current reform efforts in science education about making science accessible to all Americans ought to be how science, power, and privilege intermingle in the context of learning and doing science. This in turn should be viewed in the context of how such knowledge of science relates to the construction of different models of society and societal change. The connections between curriculum, practice, and context must be made explicit and recognized as a problematic with different answers depending upon different articulations of political purposes.

Background

The "science for all" reform effort has been hailed by contemporary science education researchers as critical to the education of women and minorities (Anderson 1991; Roseberry 1994). The proposed reform stresses the importance of making the rules, structures, content, and discursive practices of science explicit and accessible to all students with the direct goal of creating a scientifically literate citizenry. In this framework, to be scientifically literate means that one is able to "grasp the interrelationships between science, mathematics and technology, to make sense of how the natural and designed worlds work, to think critically and independently, to recognize and weigh alternative explanations of events and design trade-offs, and to deal sensibly with problems that involve evidence, numeric patterns, logical arguments, and uncertainties" (AAAS, 1993, p. XI). In one sense this reform effort mirrors the egalitarian tradition in American democracy by claiming that all citizens have the right as well as the responsibility to be aware of scientific concepts and it should enable a progressive vision of democracy, in which all voices count. It differs from traditional versions of science teaching which were based more on finding and educating future scientists. Yet, we argue that although such a vision might be important, it operates on three assumptions which should be addressed if a "science for all" is to become more than a slogan.

• First, Project 2061 assumes that schools function as meritocracies. Schools, however, have played a historical and social role in reproducing race/ethnicity, class and gender inequalities in part through disciplinary studies and pedagogy (Anyon, 1984; Harding, 1991; Oakes, 1990; Reyes and Valencia, 1993). Documents like Project 2061 perpetuate the illusion that if all children learn science, all children will be equal.

• Second, the reform documents maintain a deficit model of minority knowledge: minorities are lacking in important knowledge. By favoring only White, male, middle-class cultural values, it implies that minorities and women are inferior (Apple, 1992).

• Third it assumes that students will choose to adopt these values when their own are shown inconsistent and (implicitly) inferior. When students do not it is assumed they are at fault not the instruction or the content of instruction (Foley, 1991; Apple, 1979).

These three assumptions neglect to acknowledge that science and its practices reflect power differentials in our society and that science education is nestled in the politics of assimilation and meritocracy (Barton & Osborne, 1998). The politics behind the construct of difference is a legitimization of the dominant society under such assumptions. Acknowledging these assumptions allows a potential for revisioning both science and school practices. Without acknowledging these assumptions the reforms require minority students to silence their cultural and linguistic heritage and to embrace a way of knowing which has effectively defined minorities and women as socially and intellectually inferior (Davidson, 1994). The national science education reform initiative, Project 2061, states that "teachers should . . . make it clear to female and minority students that they are expected to study the same subjects at the same level as everyone else and to perform as well" (AAAS, 1989, p. 151). This message implies that minority students and females need to work and act like their White male counterparts not that either science or instruction will be modified to accommodate them. Although it can be argued that this is a call for teachers to engage all students, not just the White middle-class males, in the academic rigors of science, it can also be read as a call for teachers to encourage, if not require acculturation. In the very effort to create inclusive science education communities, policy, practice, and curriculum become connected in the politics of assimilation with schools and teachers as agents (Calabrese & Barton, 1995).

It seems to both of us that we need to ask a terribly important question, who are we thinking about when we dream of a "science for all"?" What is a "science for all" like? Wouldn't a "science for all" look different from the education we are now trying to enact? We are suspicious that many people see a "science for all" involving an all that becomes increasing homogeneous. "All" is not a word that suggests heterogeneity. It suggests, instead, likeness and similarity, the children who are "different" slowly becoming more like all of us (whoever we are). We would like to pose an argument that answers to such questions do not involve thinking of ways to enable marginalized students--or any students--to engage in present educational forms. Rather, an education for marginalized children involves rethinking foundational assumptions about the nature of the disciplines, the purposes of education and our roles as teachers. It does not mean remaking those children into our own images. It involves remaking schooling and science in their often multiple images.

In our society the question of what to do with difference in our classrooms has been a perennial one. As teachers we know that every child is different, behaviorally and in background, interests and ability. Sometimes we celebrate that difference but other times that difference is an impediment--it gets in the way of our teaching (Ball, 1993; Lensmire 1993; Osborne, 1997; in press 1998). A central question in teaching which extends from our worrying generically about how to get through another day to our pondering how are we going to teach particular science concepts is "What do we do about difference?" Such a question should be similarly important when envisioning the construction of a "science for all." In the following, through stories of our own teaching we will explore what it means to think about the question of difference when constructing a pedagogy and curriculum within the ideal of a "science for all."

Responsive science teaching in a political context

Other writers have suggested such re-thinking about education in general and in fields other than science (for example: Delpit, 1988; 1992; Gates, 1992; hooks, 1994; McIntosh, 1983; West, 1993; Weiler, 1988). We would provide an image of what it might mean to do this remaking in science. Science can be shaped and responsive to our experiences of the phenomena of our surrounding world as well as the realities of children's lives. Such investigations are not foolish or trivial. They use science and they connect with the real lives and concerns of children. And they also make and remake science. Such science is true to the vision of the disciplines and teaching described by John Dewey (1902/56) as well as Paulo Freire (1970) for it connects to children's experiences in the most authentic way imaginable.

In the following we will tell four stories to juxtapose images of a "science for all" in ways which give our critique substance. These involve students which one of us (ACB) worked with closely for several years at homeless shelters in a northeast urban area and the other of us (MDO) taught in first, second and third grade at a public school in Michigan and, later, at a summer science camp in Illinois. One of us (ACB) conducted research to understand how the marginality of homeless children influences their engagement in science, including their understandings of science and of themselves as active participants in science, and the role that informal science education settings can play in the lives of homeless children. Such children experience achievement difficulties resulting from irregular school attendance, and the lack of resources for educational daycare, tutoring, and instruction in sports, fine arts, and school subjects. These inequalities have led homeless children to feel that their own life experiences are somehow inferior to those of "normal children" (Polakow, 1993; Quint, 1994). The other (MDO) researched how teachers practice is shaped by the demands of context, subject matter and ideological commitments.

The methodologies employed in this study consist of interactive ethnography (Hollingsworth, 1994; Maher & Tetreault, 1993) and teacher-research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993). These methodologies, as we use them, fall into the categories of "action research" and "interpretive design". Our research seeks to politicize and deconstruct knowledge, power and relationships among students, teachers, researchers, and science (Noffke & Stevenson, 1995; Fine, 1994; Gitlin, 1994). Hence, we have chosen to share our research findings as stories. Presenting our research as narrative allows us to convey the context of our study (Tobin & McRobbie, 1996), express its temporal dimensions (Stanley & Wise, 1993), and acknowledge our influence on our study as "narrators" (Packwood & Sikes, 1996). This last point is most significant in our research presentation because in the settings we study, we are both teacher and researcher.

Learning About Digestion: Reading K'neesha's Experiences with School Science (written by ACB)

Following K'neesha into school science is not an easy thing to do. She had been to three different schools in the first four months of the school year. Three weeks into her stay at her new school in the city she changed schools again when she was labeled "learning disabled." Her new school was an alternative school within the district. The alternative status meant that it was especially designed for children who required special attention for emotional or cognitive difficulties. In K'neesha's case, she attended the school because her teachers thought she would benefit from more individual attention. As far as K'neesha was concerned, she was attending this school because she was "stupid."

The alternative school placed a strong emphasis on reading, writing and math along with social and emotional counseling. Although science was taught daily, K'neesha's science experience was often replaced by "pull-out" activities and counseling. For example, when K'neesha's class was studying human digestion, K'neesha missed parts of two classes over the six-day unit for remedial reading and writing. When she was in class, she often doodled in her notebook while her teacher, Mr. Kradlen, talked about human digestion. A glance through K'neesha's science notebook reveals a few science words such as "digestion" and "stomach" or pictures such as the mouth leading to the esophagus, interspersed with her own pictures of people or her signature practiced hundreds of times.

During the unit, Mr. Kradlen often stood at the board and drew pictures of the digestive system while lecturing. He would always pause during his lecture to answer any questions. In fact, I never observed him ignore a raised hand. If there were points in his lecture he felt were particularly difficult or confusing, and students did not have questions, he would ask them questions, in attempts to get them critically thinking about the material. K'neesha never had questions, nor was she ever directly questioned by her teacher. As he informed me, he understood she had learning difficulties, and he did not want to embarrass her since she already seemed to be a quiet student.

During this six-day unit, his seventh-graders were introduced to concepts like mechanical and chemical breakdown of food as well as the various organs. They also learned about how the body makes and stores energy. Mr. Kradlen made several efforts to connect the unit on digestion to the students' lives and bodies. The very day he started the unit with his students, he had his students eat crackers and predict the process of digestion in small groups. He also had his students eat M&Ms and compare the rate of chemical breakdown to mechanical breakdown in their mouths. K'neesha, although missing part of this class due to remedial reading and writing, actively involved herself in eating the crackers and candies upon her return. K'neesha wrote nothing down on her observation sheet, but she did tell me later that she thought it was "gross" to put the crackers and candies in her mouth and "let them dissolve without chewing them." She also said that she thought that it made spit drip out of her mouth, and that not chewing the cracker made it taste bad.

The crackers and candy activity was not the only way Mr. Kradlen tried to involve his students in active and personally relevant learning. When he talked about food and energy, he asked his students questions about how they felt around 11 a.m. on days they had not had breakfast. He also asked if it made a difference what they ate for breakfast. He used these questions to get the students to link food consumption and energy levels with their personal lives.

The end of the unit was clearly demarcated with a paper and pencil test where the students were required to answer a combination of multiple choice and short answer questions. These questions focused squarely on the material covered in class, and required the students to have mastery of the organization of the digestive track, the role of the various parts of the system, and the relationship between food and energy. Mr. Kradlen was careful to stress that he wrote questions his students with reading and writing "problems" could handle, but that still tested and challenged their understanding of the science. He also pointed out that he asked "thought" questions rather than "regurgitation" questions to further refine his student's scientific literacies.

Both Mr. Kradlen and the school science program as a whole portray a concerted educational effort to ensure that K'neesha would succeed in science. Her school had materials--in fact, many materials--for the children to do science. And, her teacher was endeared to hands-on activities, like the crackers and M&Ms, that he thought children would enjoy. K'neesha's teacher cared about her: He recognized her quietness and her reading and writing needs, and made decisions he thought were best for her because of those needs. Finally, he believed that if he provided his students, including K'neesha, with enough opportunities to experience science, and if he held high enough standards for success, that he would help his "alternative" students "make it in the science world." In short, K'neesha was in a school that worked hard to provide her with the resources and opportunities to excel academically. Yet even with all of these efforts, K'neesha officially failed the unit on digestion. According to school policy, failing the unit meant that she did not complete her assignments or the exam in a manner which indicated that she had mastered the science content.

Here is a clear case where a minority girl in urban poverty was given equal access to resources, and where she was given extra opportunities to develop her skills and knowledge so that she might enter into the circle of science in personally relevant ways. Yet, K'neesha officially failed to move appropriately towards the content and processes by which she was measured. She also continued to feel alienated from a powerful influence in society. From many perspectives, K'neesha did not become part of the "all" in "science for all."

This story suggests to us that to create a more inclusive science the particular qualities-- cultural, gendered and classed--of children need to be examined in order to create a space where children like K'neesha can participate. It would appear that the institutional and disciplinary settings (i.e. formal school science settings) with their inherent hierarchies are co-opted by children during the social and contextualized construction of personal identities and roles (Foucault, 1980; McCarthy & Crichlow, 1993; Thorne, 1993). This does not always act to the child's particular advantage. In our teaching of girls and minorities we attempt to recognize this and to teach science in a way that values the lived experiences, ways of knowing the world and social identities held by all students, especially women and minorities. We recognize that students' concepts of "science" also help to constrain roles and expectations. Thus, our efforts are focused on moving ourselves and our students beyond these assumed roles and perceptions to help girls and minorities become empowered and liberated through developing multiple understandings and critiques of science.

In our teaching we are purposely attempting to construct a practice which is "inquiry based:" in which teaching and learning are guided by questions and interests of children (Dewey, 1902/56). We have defined science as a process rather than as particular content and have started with the belief that science can be constructed out of any pursuit--if questions are asked, science can be done. Therefore our task has been to help children to ask questions, hear questions in the things they do and say and finally figure out ways that we can address those questions. We have been teaching science from a social constructivist philosophy in which the children explore the science together and through conversation come to construct meaning (Vygotsky, 1978). In this teaching we rely on the children to speak about both what they are doing and thinking and about the sources and motivations for their theory making. Our teaching is dependent upon the outside experiences the children bring to class as much as upon the experiences they have in class. We try to hear, validate and work from and with these experiences.

We believe that hearing, validating and working from and with children's lived experiences is central to answering, from a pedagogical standpoint, the question of difference which drives this chapter. In the following we present our own attempts to construct inclusive spaces in school science. Our attempts are formed through our understandings of how science class is positioned within knowledge and power hierarchies and the subsequent role that science class plays in how girls and minorities negotiate social identities. We use these insights to create a forum where feminist conceptions of science and science teaching and learning are explored as a viable and liberatory alternative to contemporary science teaching methods for children. Investigating the ways in which the urban, minority children we work with perceive science and themselves in relationship to science, we discover how these images and relationships change as students are encouraged to explore the meaning of science in the context of their lived experiences. In particular, we attempt to show how responsive science settings allow the possibility of constructing spaces in which a multiplicity of roles can be tried on and a "destabilized" vision of science "played" with. When we enable children to participate in science in a responsive manner we open the door to a potential for creating a new space in which the children can re-create the science in ways that address their perceptions of science and their everyday experiences as well as their own needs and beliefs about themselves.

Exploring Gravity in Third Grade (written by MDO)

"Kristin are you ready? [Kristin has been drawing a picture on the board that she wants to use to present an idea to the class.] Can you show us what you drew?

Kristin: Well see on the Moon here, a man can walk and he can jump up and down but on the Moon there's no gravity so if he went to the bottom of the Moon and just stood there he wouldn't fall because there he could just . . . he would not fall because there is no gravity and gravity makes you fall.

Timmy: No, gravity makes you stand!

Teacher: Hand up Timothy . . .

Kristin has been a delicate problem in this third grade science class since we started our first unit on machines. At the beginning of those discussions Kristin turned out to be very knowledgeable--more so than Timmy or Yong Sun or Jin, three little boys who seemed to know everything in science. This was I think due to her spending weekends working with her father rebuilding cars. I spent a lot of time in those classes reaffirming her knowledge and encouraging her to share it with us in class. I made sure that she had enough room to speak whole thoughts without interruption and then often I would organize ensuing discussion so that people were talking in response to what Kristin had just explained to us. I made sure that the (apparent) antagonisms between Kristin and some of the little boys like Jin and Timmy were suppressed. I wanted Kristin to have a chance to exercise a knowledgeable voice in my science class. Often this was difficult because Timmy, Jin or Yong Sun would just assume that they knew more.

Things are different in these classes on gravity and the planets. Here while Kristin still wants the floor and wishes to keep her ideas focal, they are wrong. They are based on partial knowledge and misunderstandings cobbled together by Kristin as she tries to present and defend her ideas. This day's conversations had started out with the children wondering about where the gravity on Earth comes from. I wished them to connect the idea of gravity with that of mass so I asked whether or not there was gravity in space, guessing (correctly) that children would say there was none. Then I asked about gravity on the moon. Kristin's statements derive from her understanding that the moon is in space and since space has no gravity, neither will the moon. But she also has seen pictures of people walking on the moon. She wishes to explain that and still retain the idea that the moon is without gravity. The children argue until I stop the class and have them write in their notebooks what they think gravity is.

In this class when I invite the children to share their ideas I hope that through the gathering of multiple ideas wrong ones will be identified. This process of critique is potentially hegemonic from a perspective of the discipline--what constitutes "right" science and why?--and from the perspective of the personal relations between the children. Should Timmy or Jin argue Kristin down? What are the repercussions of this? I feel though, a disquieting sense of hegemony to one side and anarchy to the other.

I call the class together to listen to Jin read the definition of gravity given in the science textbook: "The force of one object pulling on another object, gravity pulls things toward the Earth." I start asking different children what they thought that definition meant. I start with Amina.

Amina: Um, that means that, well I don't understand the first part, the force of one object pulling on another object . . . um, um, oh! one object is pulling on another object, this is an object [pen], so if I jump off with the pen gravity pulls both things down at one time.

I move back a step: "Where is gravity coming from?" Timmy answers: "Gravity is coming from down in the Earth." I repeat his answer and he adds in that then gravity can also be on all the different sides of the Earth. So I ask him if the Earth is also pulling on him.

Timmy: No, gravity from the middle of the Earth.

Teacher: Gravity's pulling on you?

Timmy: Yeah.

Jin: I think gravity pulls birds down 'cause, well 'cause when they're flying and they're trying to pull it down and then they're still flying and it makes them more tired and it makes them have to go down.

Kristin and the boys start to seriously argue in a way un which no progress on ideas is being made so I interfere: "I don't understand, what's the point of what you're arguing about?" Kristen responds (with Jin breaking in repeatedly): "Well I think that anything could fly up in the air if there was no gravity . . . [Jin interrupts] . . . but Jin said "but not a truck" because it's too heavy because the gravity . . . [Jin interrupts again. ] . . . and the people on the Moon, they don't quite fly but they jump up really high but they do come down." Jin corrects her: "No they wear really heavy boots that make them stay on the ground if they don't wear those boots like, I think if you're on the Moon, then I think things weigh six times less, I'm not sure but it was much less so, so if like, if you have, if we were running right now and we were on the Moon then we would be floating because our shoes are not heavy enough!"

Teacher: Is there gravity on the Moon?

Jin: No.

Teacher: There's no gravity on the Moon? But you do have a weight on the Moon?

Jin: Yeah cause if you have boots or like heavy boots like six pounds or something really heavy, well not six pounds but like really heavy, then, then you'll stay on the ground and but you can still hop really high you can still jump really far and high the boots just make you stay on the ground.

Kristen: How?

Teacher: How do they make you stay on the ground if there's no gravity?

Jin: 'Cause they're heavy.

Teacher: But if there's no gravity what difference does it make how heavy they are? If there's no gravity doesn't everything just float?

Jin: Some boots make you stay on the ground.

Teacher: But you said there's no gravity.

Jin: I know that's why they made gravity boots!

Teacher: You mean the boots have their own gravity?

Timmy: Yeah they give it out, that's what I just told him, they're gravity boots.

Jin: That's what I'm trying to say!

Timmy continues, his enthusiasm mounting: "The gravity boots can make you stick on the ground where there's no gravity. That's why they have them but they have to jump or else it's too hard just to walk in the gravity boots but if they jump they can't float away, the gravity will bring them back down but they'll jump!" The children in the room are very interested. The room is full of huge round eyes. The children are very excited by this statement. Personally I am pleased and amused by such an imaginative solution to the logical trap I have ensnared them in. I do have rather a sinking feeling in my stomach, however, I still think I have all the cards.

I ask another question which I hope will turn the conversation from examining the effects of Timmy and Jin's idea to deeper assumptions. "Can I ask a question? Why does the Earth have gravity?" Daniel answers: "Maybe it was made that way." Meanwhile Amina draws a picture. I ask her to explain it. "Now this part . . . just pretend it's flat . . . the Moon has no gravity, some people think it does but it doesn't. These lines are the people [on Earth] and the Moon, it has nothing but bumps on it and that's why the Moon has no gravity."

Teacher: So in order to have gravity you have to have living things is that what you are saying?

Amina: Yeah, I don't think I should say this, but whatever one you believe in, god, well god, he thought that there should be, well, I don't know but maybe this, but maybe it's just because the Moon doesn't have to have gravity because there's nothing, why should it have gravity because there's nothing on it that should have gravity.

Teacher: Oh so the Earth needs to have gravity because there are living things?

This is very true, would the concept of gravity exist without us needing it? Mightn't there be another way to visualize the whole relationship that doesn't require a concept like gravity? Amina's linking this to her concept of god and god's plans is a part of common teleological argument; arguments which hinge on a higher authority or a greater purpose--stated or unstated. In traditional science the higher authority is one of Eurocentric rationality. It doesn't have to be that way either and our rationality is at best multiple and conflicted. Concepts such as gravity or god arise because our articulations of reality are partial and incomplete. God and gravity are different because our abstractions are different. When Amina talks about god as an explanation no one challenges her right to talk about this just as no one challenged Timmy's and Jin's gravity boots explanation. Rather they listen to how she is using it then present their ideas.

I ask children to take the floor with their theories, knowing that sometimes they are wrong. I try to validate their voice by making them central, by enabling their voices and their ideas to become focal to our discussion. I avoid allowing the new ideas which arise through these discussions to become associated with particular "owners." I keep all ideas (even scientifically acceptable ones) problematic. I try also to remain mindful of how all this makes children like Kristin or Amina feel and how it might effect their sense of self and developing voice (Gilligan, 1982). I try to validate a child like Kristin as a person and learner yet help her, and the class, understand that her notions about gravity on the moon, and in general, are wrong.

In such responsive science teaching the possibility of constructing spaces in which a multiplicity of roles can be tried on and a "destabilized" vision of science "played" with occurs. While respecting the religious sentiments of Amina, the imagination of Timmy or Jin and the developing voice of Kristin, these children enact different roles in the classroom and simultaneously challenge the nature and definitions of acceptable science. Enabling children to participate in science in a responsive manner opens the door to a new environment in which the children can re-create the science in ways that address their perceptions of science and their everyday experiences as well as their own needs and beliefs about themselves.

Braids in Summer Science Camp (written by MDO)

Two summers ago the group of second grade girls I taught in summer science camp represented a large number of different backgrounds--Korean daughters of graduate students; White middle class children with parents who were musicians and who went river rafting in Colorado on vacations; White working class girls of fundamentalist religious background; some from blended marriages; two low socioeconomic status African American children on scholarships. Jennifer, a child of intense religious views, chose not to participate in the questioning I was leading the girls through as they compared their experiences with kite flying. She did not participate in the "science" side of anything we did. She led the class in turning our "science" into arts and crafts; turning the empirical testing of kite tail design into a workshop on braiding. She polarized the group; her friends were torn between friendship for her and their interest in the group's inquiry.

I responded by changing the curriculum to accommodate--I provided many different materials for braiding and then crafts; I asked questions about the qualities of materials in light of what the children wanted to do with them. I asked the children repeatedly to think and articulate ways they thought what we were doing was science. The science became hidden beneath the "crafts" but it was still there as we examined the properties of materials, testing and assessing them. We designed things and tried to realize them. Such an evolution in the science we were doing happened by responding to the children's wishes rather than forcing them to choose science or their own desires.

Working to help children ask questions, hear questions in the things they do and say and find ways that we can address those questions, I place girls' empowerment central in my practice. The girls in my classes, however, are occasionally unresponsive and so I change how I teach or the content of my teaching to try to involve them. As the girls in this story co-opt the science discussions to begin their own explorations of braiding and materials they enlarge our definitions of science to include the aesthetic and emotional/social. Jennifer, however, imposes her own form of social oppression not unlike that described by Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition as he defines the "terror" imposed by discourse communities:

By terror I mean the efficiency gained by eliminating, or threatening to eliminate, a player from the language game one shares with him. He is silenced or consents, not because he has been refuted, but because his ability to participate has been threatened (there are too many ways to prevent someone from playing). (Lyotard, 1984, p.64)

I tried to address this by my role in providing multiple opportunities and pathways of engagement. I suggest, though, that such terrorist activity might have been addressed explicitly although I can only speculate on the outcomes. In such science where curriculum decisions are driven by the needs and desires of the children, social role playing can take on very important dimensions which transcend the personal and individual. The teachers role is in mediating these, in finding compromises. Such "solutions" can only be partial. They are unsettling to the teacher when depicted as "frozen," snapshots out of time: I was very unhappy with this class for example. Such social roles, however, as Foucault points out in The History of Sexuality (1978) are to be played with and when played with act to destabilize all relations. Certainly what is destabilized here are definitions of science. As the classes progressed, social roles changed also and the children's relations to one another. Other children began introducing materials to the arts and crafts making our explorations much more science-like and restoring more of a negotiated equilibrium between children in which the dominance of one child was reduced.

Inventing Recycled Paper: Doing Science with Children at a Homeless Shelter (written by ACB)

I believe I learned a very important lesson at the shelter. As part of our environmental theme, I wanted to help the children invent ways of making recycled paper. Besides, it was near the winter holidays, and I wanted the children to have their own paper to make cards and gifts to send if they desired. In their informal conversations of the past few weeks, the children had been talking about the kind of things they wanted to get and give for the holidays. Most of these things were dream items--such as a "car for my mom"--as most of the children rarely possessed more than pocket change.

Before I arrived at the shelter, I planned to have the children collect leaves, twigs, dirt, and other natural items from around the block. I brought with me a stack of old newspapers, string, fabric, and office paper, for the recycled paper as well as popcorn, juice, and graham crackers for snack. Although I planned for the children to invent their own recycled paper, I had also planned their inventions around the ingredients I thought the children might use and how they might go about using them through the kinds of things I brought and had the children talk about. After all, I had made recycled paper successfully with several other children in the past. When the children began mixing their choice of ingredients for recycled paper, three boys separated themselves from the rest of the group. In their bowl instead of mixing the materials from outside with the newspapers and other materials, they instead were mixing popcorn and graham crackers that I had brought for snack along with some leftover flour from an activity a few weeks earlier. They mixed their concoction to a thick paste, spread it into a thin sheet on a large rectangular pan where they were to have put their recycled paper to dry, then asked if they could bake it.

While their concoction was baking I asked them about what they were doing. Jason informed me that they had decided to make "edible paper." When they were done, they cut their product up into tree shapes, ate some of them and made plans to give the rest of them out as edible Christmas cards.

I was fascinated with the boys' choice to make edible paper. I was also fascinated by the kinds of questions the boys were asked by their peers, and the responses they gave, when their peers learned about their covert actions. In this conversation, Jason, as the spokesperson for the boys, indicated that they examined and discussed the sample pieces of recycled paper I brought for the children. The boys understood that there was a particular way to make recycled paper, and based on their analysis of the sample pieces, they described what that process was. The boys also described what it was they wanted to do different from the planned activity.

For example, Jason was asked why he made the edible paper. His response was that he "didn't want to make ordinary paper," that he "saw how you could do it" and had "different ideas for something [he] wanted to try." He also said that when they "took a close look at the paper" they knew it could be "done different ways", and that the purpose of recycled paper was to "make it from what you already got, using materials that already served a purpose." In making this point he picked up the sample paper I made and pointed to the pine needles embedded in it, then compared that to the popcorn kernels in his own paper. Finally, Jason also told how if he gave away "edible cards" then "people could eat it", and that it would be "like a two-way present."

In some ways the very act of making recycled paper promoted the material separation of the "haves" and the "have-nots:" We were making recycled paper so that the children could have cards to give away as gifts. In addition possessing food and the times and places for eating it were strictly restricted by the shelter. In fact, as the teacher, I, like the students, was conscious of this positioning through their stories about "dream gifts." I wanted to recognize this reality, as it seemed particularly salient during the holiday season, and because I did not want to actively participate in how such material differences separate children through the have and have-not status. Besides recycled paper was "in", and making and giving recycled paper could be read as an environmentally friendly and even politically correct act just as it could also have been read as an act of poverty. Jason's imaginative subversion of this gift making by causing it to also be about having food in inappropriate places and times could only be admired.

Yet, Jason's actions pushed me to consider my whole analysis on another level. He addressed his desire to give a particular kind of present (rather than a prescribed one). He challenged rules about where food can be used and eaten at the shelter. Finally, he challenged the marginalization created by definitions of acceptable science through challenging the production, uses, and nature of science. Science no longer was something done by scientists far away in labs or by teachers who tell the students how to do the science through explicit directions or persuasion. Science became the active intersection between the knower and the social, political, cultural, and physical conditions and contexts embracing--but also being acted upon by--the knower.

Such acts of invention are socioculturally inscribed--science/technology and inventive acts occur as individuals interact dialectically with materials, desires, values and social goals in a distinctive way to generate something (Foucault, 1975; Haraway, 1997; Schon, 1983). Even when the agent is a single individual, invention remains a social and political act because the self is contextualized (Weber, 1949). In short, human agents always act dialectically--in the contexts of their interconnections with others, with things, and with the socioculture (Buber, 1970; Geertz, 1973).

Jason's and his friends' activity was much more than simply mucking about with food, and my choices were about much more than collapsing material separations between haves and have-nots. Jason chose to center his desires and dreams in a way that critically valued yet critiqued both school-based and home-based knowledge. Jason's actions promoted a critical rereading of the science in his life and his life in science. This critical reading politicizes and destabilizes the boundaries that define science repositioning the traditional power-knowledge relationships which influence how students learn to label valued knowledge--knowledge about self, others, and science. By valuing his choices and agency around materials, processes, and purposes, the boys and traditional science were re-positioned and effectively redefined.

Reconstructing "Science for All"

The complex dilemma of constructing a "science for all" can be explored through issues raised by K'neesha's school science experiences and the stories we have described of our teaching. Our stories suggest that if science education is to become inclusive of all children, science educators need to work to expand the vision of science education beyond an embodiment of White middle class culture but this process is neither simple nor without conflicts. The possibilities of science for all raised by our stories do not answer the problems of K'neesha's experiences in school but they do give our thinking about them a richness. The story of Jin and Timmy suggests that students concepts of "science" constrain roles and expectations, shaping power and privilege in science class by defining social identities. Most compellingly this is illustrated as a process constructed through interactions in the class that are deeply intertangled with the subject matter. The stories of Kristen and Jennifer illustrate the complexities involved in teaching when children co-opt institutional and disciplinary settings (i.e. formal school science or science camp settings) with their inherent hierarchies during the social and contextualized construction of personal identities and roles. The story of Jason and his friends challenges what it might mean for us as feminist scientists and educators to teach science in a way that values the lived experiences, ways of knowing the world and social identities held by all students, especially women and minorities. Finally, all three stories question how can we move beyond these assumed roles and perceptions to help girls and minorities become empowered and liberated through developing science understandings. Arguing that we need to encourage all science students to explore the natural world through their own ways of knowing and understanding and then through comparison and critique develop an understanding of the traditional science model is neither a simple or prescriptive statement.

We do believe, however, a reform movement designed to promote "science for all" is detrimental when it is located in the politics of assimilation. Although the argument is strong for enculturating all students into the culture of science so that their careers paths in science will be open, we believe that this action promotes elitism at the expense of equality. It also promotes a static image of science rather than the shifting and contextual image emergent in our stories. The essence of an inclusive science lies in a desire and ability to value a multiplicity of cultural experiences, values and expectations. Following from this, the life experiences of all children need to be incorporated into the science class. Life experiences recounted in science class can promote an understanding of science less abstract, broaden the definition of science with which students come to class, broaden the forms of science practiced in class, and connect theories of school science to intuitive understandings. By valuing the life experiences of all children, teachers and students, in the struggle to create an inclusive science, can begin to "stand up" to the institutions of science and education by creating spaces from which to make explicit and problematic cultural biases in the teaching and learning of science (Barton, 1998). To accomplish this teachers, administrators, and curriculum writers need to develop cultural sensitivity and a critical perspective in order to find creative ways to explore the natural and physical world across cultural barriers. We believe that this critical exploration must move beyond cursory glances at "cultural difference" in science learning; they must involve theoretical and practical explorations of the meaning and production of culture in science class as well as knowledge-power relationships maintained by the institution of science. This involves a recognition by all that traditional science embodies and reflects cultural assumptions itself: it is not "a-cultural."

None of the children in our stories have engaged in science in ways devoid of culture. All have brought their histories, values, beliefs and emotional, social selves to our science. As teachers we would not, could not, deny this or ignore it. Our acts and theirs effectively re-write science. We believe that participation in science by all children would increase if science was taught in a way that reflected human life and experience. An inclusive science would be more conducive to minority students participation because it rejects traditional scientific practice as the only way, and postulates other viable ways of obtaining scientific understandings. Students will have the opportunity to explore personal, individual development of hypotheses and interpretations of results. Facts, procedures and theories will still exist, but they will be publicly acknowledged as value-laden. They will become guiding or reference points instead of potentially marginalizing truths. This will also mean that students will be expected to approach the construction of knowledge from multiple perspectives including those that have been marginalized or utterly rejected: they will not feel they have to chose between their home culture and the culture of science and school. It will mean that they will not feel mastered by the material nor themselves be master of it. Finally, they will experience science in the classroom as they experience the world: holistically, interactively, passionately, and intellectually.

As feminist science teachers we wish to encourage such critical empowerment through understanding, liberation (Barton and Osborne, 1995) and our belief that science is constructed, through discourse, as a set of knowledges, and can act as an expression of identity. This provides us with the means to re-construct science and science education so that girls and minorities can find a place or create a new place for themselves within it. Such goals, however, are in conflict with the constraints and demands of an entrenched, established discipline and become the terrain in which science becomes remade. The children's engagement in our science takes on the form of destabilizing activities, challenging and breaking/remaking the grand narrative of science. This makes it into a "science for all," or at least a closer approximation.

Conclusions

As educators, we often pretend power relationships do not exist or matter in school settings. From national policies like desegregation, to classroom-based activities like group work, we are asked to create the illusion that power relationships are absent or at least negotiable. Our stories about children such as K'neesha remind us that all children are not equal partners in the process of schooling and they do not stand at equal levels to construct knowledge in classroom settings.

In the context of science education, assuming that equal "levels" should be attained, that acquiring the same knowledge and understandings by all is a goal, could be self-defeating. As we attempt to infuse our teaching practices with the notion that all knowledge is constructed socially we recognize that the question of knowledge construction is not just an epistemological position. It needs to involve serious reflection about identity and experience as these relate to science education and as balanced against an individual child's purposes, both within science and their larger culture.

To uncritically accept the knowledge base of science is to perpetuate relationships of power and domination (Barton, 1997; Barton & Osborne, 1995). Current reform initiatives--even those aimed at enabling students to negotiate their way into the culture of science--if not concerned with helping students critically examine science, may contribute to students choosing to remain outsiders to science and to the culture of science by posing either/or choices about ways of knowing and hence identity. Despite the doors that a social constructivist position on subject matter opens (Atwater, 1996; Eisenhart, Finkel, & Marion, 1996), the otherness created by alternative cultural ways of knowing remain unexplored in traditional pedagogy (Barton, 1997; Brickhouse, 1994, Stanley & Brickhouse, 1995). The borders of science that need to be traversed in school settings require that students who have been marginal to dominant cultures take a step towards involvement. This involves acknowledging the unequal power relations of "knowledge" and "authority" in science (Gore, 1993; Foucault, 1980), and that they willingly examine other culturally defined identities and ways of knowing but it does not mean that they do so uncritically (Barton & Osborne, 1995).

Our research in informal science education settings indicates that science education ought to be about more than passing on the disciplinary knowledge of science. Science with children is an incredibly complex social site marked by multiple interacting layers of power arrangements and social and institutional forces which shape and define the boundaries of what is possible. For example, Kristin, Jin and Timmy had found ways to use science time to further their social role playing. This suggests just how much science education is about issues of power and relationships on a personal as well as an institutional level. As Weiler (1988) claims, "teaching extends beyond subject matter knowledge; the centrality of teaching lies in a recognition of the values of students' own voices, subjective experiences of power and oppression, and the worth of their class and ethnic cultures" (p. 148). Envisioning science as a social construction locates the learning and doing of science within social relationships on a day-to-day level, not just historically. Allowing these relationships and the questions and concerns they provoke to guide the science creates opportunities for self and social empowerment (McLaren, 1989). This was clearly the case with Jason and his friends.

In the Post-Modern Condition Jean-François Lyotard suggests two contradictory societal roles for knowledge which in turn support conflicting models of social structuring.

One can decide that the principle role of knowledge is as an indispensable element in the functioning of society, and can act in accordance with that decision, only if one has already decided that society is a great machine.

Conversely, one can count on its critical function, and orient its development and distribution in that direction, only after it has been decided that society does not form an integrated whole, but remains haunted by a principle of opposition. (Lyotard, 1984, p.13)

Such views presuppose a functional rather than passive role of knowledge in society--either actively contributing towards its homogeneity and continuity or playing a fundamental role in its fragmentation and reconstruction. These ideas of knowledge also suggest an active role for knowledge in the creation and maintenance of power differentials in society although the outcomes for such differences in each model are radically different.

Working with girls, minorities, and children in poverty is not easy in general and trying to construct science with these children that connects with their lives and empowers them in a liberating manner has compound difficulties. These children's lives and needs are complex. The manner in which the children in this paper explore science allows spaces to fit science into this entanglement rather than keeping it unconnected and separated as so much traditional schooling and science would do. Race, class and gender, however, are not only dimensions of our social structure that reflect forms of power and privilege, they are also ways to think about our social processes and the way we live our lives. We argue that relationships are not always smooth or of an actor's choosing; they are constructed in contexts where actors have certain access to power and resources depending not only upon their relationships in the educational structure, but also their location and identity in the larger society. Attempting to consider the multiple layers that emerge and are formed in educational settings, this focus becomes important for understanding the complex problems and issues that emerge in connection with pedagogy and curriculum in classrooms.

In looking at our stories, pedagogically, in the construction of science curriculum, and in our relationships with children, we want to recognize that these are linked and all must be altered before the marginallized can engage in science. Indeed our concepts of the role of disciplinary knowledge in society must alter to incorporate change, evolutionary and revolutionary. Underlying our discussion of approaches to dealing with diversity is a questioning of what those courses of action imply about attitudes towards difference. Do they imply that difference is something to be "fixed," changed or that difference should be worked within and maybe finally respected or even advocated? Don't they suggest that difference is fundamentally at the root of the democratic processes of our society?

Our stories cause us to think about what doing something about diversity means to us and to society. Respecting diversity (rather than trying to fix it for instance) implies that our assumptions about the norms of society as reflected in the discipline of science will change. This implies that our ideas about subject matter and assumptions about good behavior, homelife, interests and goals will evolve and enlarge. We suggest in answer to such concerns a rethinking of science the discipline in trying to construct a "science for all." We echo the classic writing of Peggy McIntosh (1983) in saying that we can't describe what such a new science might be. As our stories and this final quote from Lyotard suggest it must be emergent through the acts of its creation:

The postmodern would be that which, in the modern, puts forward the unpresentable in presentation itself; that which denies itself the solace of good forms, the consensus of a taste which would make it possible to share nostalgia for the unattainable; that which searches for new presentations, not in order to enjoy them but in order to impart a stronger sense of the unpresentable. (Lyotard, 1985, p.81)

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