教育外文文献.pdf

FORUM Student trajectories in physics the need for analysis through a socio cultural lens Mara Zapata Received 26 February 2010 Accepted 26 February 2010 Published online 30 March 2010 Springer Science Business Media B V 2010 AbstractAn analysis of student connections through time and space relative to the core discipline of physics is attempted as viewed through the lens of actor network theory by Antonia Candela Using lenses of cultural realities networks and perceived power in the discourse of one specifi c university in the capital city of Mexico and one undergraduate physics classroom the trajectories and itineraries of students are analyzed relative to a physics professor s pedagogical practices This ethnographic study then yields compari sons between Mexican undergraduate students and students from the United States Actor network theory recognizes that the symbiotic relationship existing between an actor and a continuum of space and time is defi ned by the symbiotic yet interdependent relationships and networks of practice Lemke in Downward causation Minds bodies and matter 2000 As part of this study and in line with actor network theory human actors and non human participants were viewed in relation to how subjects acted and were acted upon within networks of practice Through this forum I refl ect on this work with particular focus on the issues of situatedness of actors from a sociocultural perspective and how established networks viewed within this perspective frame and subsequently impact student trajecto ries and itineraries In essence I argue for a need to look at a myriad of further complexities driving the symbiotic relationships being analyzed KeywordsCultural capital Socio cultural theory Actor network theory Social tools Situated learning Resumen ejecutivoCrear sentido y comprender el feno meno socio cultural que ocurre en la educacio n requiere descifrar las complejidades impl citas reconociendo que lo obvio lo que en la superfi cie aparece como simple no es sufi ciente Desde este punto de vista yo planteo la necesidad de ident fi car lo que promueve la relacio n simbio tica que se presenta en el v nculo entre estudiantes en un programa de estudio universitario y considero la nec esidad de analizar estas complejidades para entender el signifi cado inherente que contie nen Como resultado de mi refl exio n sobre el art culo de Antonia Candela titulado Tiempo M Zapata mara fsu 123 Cult Stud of Sci Educ 2010 5 729 734 DOI 10 1007 s11422 010 9261 y y Espacio Fisica en Movimiento me refi ero a la necesidad de ser ma s expl cita en cuanto a los matices culturales que contibuyen a lo que ella estudia El contexto en el cual se desar rolla este estudio presenta la unicidad cultural inherente en una realidad socio pol tica y contribuye en gran parte a la trayector a de los estudiantes que se describe en este estudio etnogra fi co Este art culo presenta realidades culturales redes y hasta percepciones de poder que establecen los estudiantes todav a no licenciados de f sica en Me xico sin aclarar sufi cient emente su contexto Candela intenta un interesante ana lisis sobre las conexiones de estudiantes a trave s del tiempo y espacio relativo a la disciplina ba sica de la f sica utilizando la teor a del actor red Yo afi rmo que las normas culturales ta citas y la clase social de origen defi nen el acceso de estudiantes a actividades y personas es decir que su capital cultural y social deter mina sus oportunidades durante su tra nsito por el tiempo y el espacio de las trayector as que se estudian en el art culo La comparacio n entre estudiantes no licenciados de Me xico y de los Estados Unidos es otra oportunidad para descifrar y hacer expl citos estos matices culturales La teor a del actor red reconoce que la relacio n que existe entre el actor y un continuo de espacio y tiempo se defi ne por las simbio ticas pero interdependientes relaciones y redes de pra ctica Lemke in Downward causation Minds bodies and matter 2000 Toda red de pra ctica esta enmarcada en un contexto de complejidades y las leg timas comparaciones pueden contribuir al proceso de descifrarlas Este estudio utiliza la teor a del actor red reconociendo tanto a los participantes humanos como tambien los no humanos es decir las estructuras que defi nen redes de practica Estas estructuras se analizan en relacio n a co mo los sujetos actu an entre estas redes y como estas redes accesibles o no determinan esa practica Esto es complejo y da apoyo a el argumento que se requiere descifrar estas complejidades para entender lo que en realidad ocurre determinando la trayectoria de estudiantes En particular es importante reconocer que todos los estudiantes no esta n posicionados igualmente desde un punto de vista socio cultural Esta posicio n en la cual se encuentran los actores establece la manera en que las redes a su alcance en realidad determinan su trayector a e itinerarios Examining student trajectories more than meets the eye Making reference to Nespor 1994 Candela helps the reader understand students pro cesses of learning by taking into account the time and spaces of their movements These movements are complex spatial and temporal traces created by students which are an adherence or response to an institutionally defi ned trajectory in their study of physics There is no argument that Nespor 1994 focuses on an approach to learning within a process of movement through specifi c organizations of time and space such as a university degree program However an aspect of his focus is to also recognize the relations of power that are part of the connection amongst individuals In other words movements through space and time naturally create opportunities for the development of social and power relationships In addition these same movements may at the same time facilitate hinder and or impede the development of the same depending on the activities and situations individuals involve themselves in the relationships they develop and what they bring personally and socially to thatrelationship based ontheir situatedness All situatednessis defi nedbymultiplecontexts which are very complex when looked at as a whole Gallard 2008a uses the metaphor of a spider web when he discusses the notion of educational complexities In order for these complexities to be understood the interplay between who a learner and teacher are and the infl uencing contexts they are constantly having to negotiate in and out of the classroom on a daily basis are and must be made explicit p 11 730M Zapata 123 Time and space within student trajectories while institutionally defi ned also involves learning that is situated Lave and Wenger s 1991 theory of situated learning focuses on practice emphasizing the importance of carefully examining the content and organization of activities in which individuals participate over time To them learning is situated in social phenomena In Candela s 2009 work students learn the content of physics but it is through their participation in their trajectories that they defi ne themselves in relation to others involved in the same process of movement in space and time Students views of themselves further develop and as such they also change throughout their trajectory Whether students are in so called developed or underdeveloped parts of the world and moving amidst a myriad of established traditions their learning is also situated in the culturally defi ned reality of not only the institution but embedded within a larger reality Depending on what students bring to the spatial and temporal experience some will hold power and privilege while others will not This power and privilege may be due to the variety of cultural capital students may have access to Bourdieu and Passeron 1977 argued that above and beyond economic factors cultural habits and dispositions inherited from the family are fundamentally important to school success As defi ned by Bourdieu 2001 one kind of cultural capital is refl ected in the social tools one possesses Bourdieu maintained that culture shares many of the properties that are characteristic of economic capital In particular he asserted that cultural habits and dispositions comprise a resource capable of generating profi ts they are potentially subject to monopolization by individuals and groups and under appropriate conditions they can be transmitted from one generation to the next Lareau and Weininger 2003 In societies characterized by a highly economically stratifi ed social structure such as Mexico and a system of formal education advantages largely stem from the institu tionalization of criteria of evaluation in schools that is standards of assessment which are favorable to children from a particular class or classes Bourdieu 1977 Candela mentioned some of the students that participated in the study as having already entered on the right footing If we use Bourdieu as a framework then deeper considerations should be given to the factors that contribute to their trajectory This is even more important if the problem as stated by Candela is to understand how events inside and outside the class room are articulated through structures curricular organization institutional norms mechanisms and representational artifacts that enroll students in certain trajectories across time and space then there is a complexity that frames this articulation and it needs to be recognized While issues of power and access to social tools are realities of all higher level institutions societies and cultures institutions in countries such as Mexico where social classes are prevalent in the greater social landscape that supports universities one must consider that a greater complexity lies with the question of what social tools do students bring and how do these position student engagement in their trajectory and defi ne their sense of effi cacy within a situated learning Gallard 2008b suggests when studying Latinos there is an entire set of factors nestled in the implicit and explicit understandings and values of society p 12 Students sense of self effi cacy or agency is complicated further by what Gallard 2008b refers to as a host of mitigating cultural economic and social issues to the picture For example class social economic status or poverty culture Black Indigenous language and gender that are defi ning factors for academic success Outside of Mexico since the comparisons are being made to the United States then a student of Latino background also faces awareness about and a need to understand the fact the he she is amidst non Latinos by which a standard of learning and connections with others is defi ned for them The understanding some students have of the social tools Student trajectories in physics731 123 they possess in this case may also play a role in defi ning their itineraries grounded in their awareness of and self perceived sense of effi cacy Student itineraries defi ned by power Social capital as defi ned by Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992 is the sums of resources actual or virtual that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintances and recognition Bourdieu s notion of social capital in particular is useful in understanding the social effects of higher education For example high social capital infl uences the itineraries of students because of an enhanced sense of self effi cacy that comes with the same Candela in her discussion of fi ndings specifi cally cites the fact that some students in Mexico present at conferences and that this is in stark contrast to the United States where students are less inclined to do so or to whom opportunities are not available It would be of value to unearth the differences in relation to social capital of the students in Mexico that Candela cites as Mexican students seem to take more initiative and to be more in charge of the con struction of their itineraries than are undergraduate students of physics in the US Could it be that only a student with a positive sense of self effi cacy and the correct socio economic relationships that support their engagement as active agents pursue the types of activities that render their participation as presenters at educational conferences If so then the statement that their identity and movements are not just pre established in this way merits further scrutiny in terms of how students entered the program and the development of relationships whether with their professors or peers contributed to the development of their identities Can students identities be solely attributed to a professor s instructional practices and a fl exible curricular structure I ask this because itineraries may be impacted by the rela tionship between professor and student and Candela emphasizes the rapport this particular professor establishes with students through his pedagogical style of presentation and interactions with students However I argue for an acknowledgement here also of the complexities that may drive or frame these relationships and how these are infl uenced by an existing culture at a higher level institution Further explanation is needed for how student identities that render them more likely to pursue activities outside of their program are framed by these complexities and there is a need to look at individual students and students levels of cultural and social capital inclusive of close relationships with others We need to understand that their sense of effi cacy is also infl uenced and dependent on the culture of the university where the expectation for students to do this type of presentation is pervasive of its existing culture The complexity of meaning The symbiotic relationships relevant to the fi lter of actor network theory require consid eration for an examination of the complexities that drive these relationships I wonder about the social and cultural meaning attributed to and even whether there is an awareness of the meaning system in use by those participating in their prescribed trajectories and the role of this attribution in defi ning their itineraries Lemke 2000 states The dynamics and development of ecosystems which contain humans who act according to cultural meaning criteria cannot be adequately described without a description of the meaning 732M Zapata 123 systems in use and how bias matters and energy fl ows in ways not predictable from regularities described solely in thermodynamic or biological terms In support of the importance of meaning and defi ning the systems that frame the processes in a framework of actor network theory Lemke 2000 argues that larger scale processes over more extensive communities and their longer term histories are always directly implicated in semiotic artifacts and that this fundamentally changes the scale relations for ecological semiotic systems as opposed to more purely thermodynamic ones Was the perception of students own situatedness or their own understanding about their position within the larger framework that defi nes their access to a specifi c trajectory considered as part of student interviews and questionnaires How did students perceive their movement within time and space as contributing to their development at a variety of levels In essence I refer here to the sense of self effi cacy that contributes to the choices students make within their trajectory based on their perception of where they stand within a larger framing This framing is social and cultural and important in terms of the meaning associated with their trajectories as it relates to the reasons some students may choose or not choose a certain trajectory and why There is a larger sociocultural reality that frames the complexity of meaning These realities present the kind of tensions Gallard 2008a describes as important to acknowl edge He states that while the key word is tension and the key action is acknowledge ment that much like each strand of a spider s web the number of tensions brought to awareness and put on the table for discussion are critical to providing a complex view of the issues As part of this study an awareness of or perhaps a promotion of cognizance brought about by an unearthing of the social and cultural dimensions of any country in this case Mexico would serve best the assertions being made and the arguments presented if they are defi ned and made explicit Contextual infl uences provide the complete story Candela s study serves to examine higher education and the contributions of bot