Ways of Knowing in Science and Mathematics Series

RICHARD DUSCHL, SERIES EDITOR

ADVISORY BOARD: Charles W. Anderson, Nancy Brickhouse, Rosalind Driver,
Eleanor Duckworth, Peter Fensham, William Kyle, Roy Pea, Edward Silver,
Russell Yeany
Connecting Girls and Science: The New Science Teacher:
Constructivism, Feminism, and Science Cultivating Good Practice
Education Reform DEBORAH TRUMBULL
ELAINE V. HOWES
Investigating Real Data in the Classroom: Problems of Meaning in Science
Curriculum
Expanding Children’s Understanding of
Math and Science DOUGLAS A. ROBERTS AND
RICHARD LEHRER AND LEIF ÖSTMAN, EDITORS
LEONA SCHABLE, EDITORS
Inventing Science Education for the New
Free-Choice Science Education: Millennium
How We Learn Science Outside of School
PAUL DEHART HURD
JOHN H. FALK, EDITOR

Science Teaching/Science Learning: Improving Teaching and Learning in

Constructivist Learning in Urban Science and Mathematics
Classrooms DAVID F. TREAGUST,
ELNORA S. HARCOMBE REINDERS DUIT, AND
BARRY J. FRASER, E DITORS
How Students (Mis-)Understand
Science and Mathematics: Intuitive Rules Reforming Mathematics Education in
RUTH STAVY AND DINA TIROSH
America’s Cities:
Reading Counts: Expanding the Role of The Urban Mathematics Collaborative
Reading in Mathematics Classrooms Project
RAFFAELLA BORASI AND NORMAN L. WEBB AND
MARJORIE SIEGEL
THOMAS A. ROMBERG, EDITORS
Transforming Middle School Science
Education What Children Bring to Light:
PAUL DEHART HURD
A Constructivist Perspective on
Children’s Learning in Science
Designing Project-Based Science: BONNIE L. SHAPIRO
Connecting Learners Through Guided
Inquiry STS Education:
JOSEPH L. POLMAN International Perspectives on Reform
Implementing Standards-Based JOAN SOLOMON AND
Mathematics Instruction: GLEN AIKENHEAD, EDITORS
A Casebook for Professional Development
Reforming Science Education:
MARY KAY STEIN,
Social Perspectives and Personal
MARGARET SCHWAN SMITH,
MARJORIE A. HENNINGSEN, AND Reflections
EDWARD A. SILVER RODGER W. BYBEE
 CONNECTING
GIRLS AND SCIENCE

Constructivism, Feminism, and

Science Education Reform

ELAINE V. HOWES

Teachers College
Columbia University
New York and London
Published by Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027

Copyright © 2002 by Teachers College, Columbia University

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Howes, Elaine V.
Connecting girls and science : constructivism, feminism, and science education reform /
Elaine V. Howes.
p. cm. — (Ways of knowing in science and mathematics series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8077-4210-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8077-4211-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Women in science. 2. Science—Study and teaching (Secondary) 3. Feminism
and science. I. Title. II. Series.
Q130 .H69 2002
500'.82—dc21 2001060390

ISBN 0-8077-4210-4 (paper)

ISBN 0-8077-4211-2 (cloth)

Printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1
My Teacher-Research Commitments 2
Doing Teacher Research 6
Organization 7

1. Dual Influences: Where Science Education Reform

and Feminism Converge 11
Science Education Reform 12
Review of Feminist Pedagogy 15
Strands of Feminist Theory Used in Analysis 22
Listening as Pedagogy and Research 30
Feminism and Teacher Research 30
Connections Between Feminism and
Science Education Reform 39

2. Studying Prenatal Testing: Connection and Alienation 42

Difference Feminism: Connecting Girls and Science 43
Two Caveats: Privilege and Essentialism 44
Teaching Genetics Through Studies of Prenatal Testing 46
Connection and/or Alienation 50
Two Models for Listening to Girls 66

v
vi Contents

3. To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 69

Feminist Critiques of Science: Science as a Social Enterprise 69
Science Education: Science as a Social Enterprise 72
Teaching Science as a Social Enterprise 74
“Kidmarks” 75
Kidmark A. Science and Objectivity 76
Kidmark B. Empathy: A Virtue Not Valued in
the Scientific Enterprise 85

4. To Be a Good Scientist: Science and

Social Responsibility 102
Kidmark C. Science and Social Values 103
Learning from Students About Science as a Social Enterprise 111

5. Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 115

Genuine Conversation and Feminist Critical Pedagogy 116
Science Education and Feminist Critical Pedagogy 119
Feminist Critical Pedagogy and
Student Talk: The Teacher’s Role 120
The Uneasiness of Genuine Conversation 140

6. Listening as Pedagogy and Research 143

Teaching and Listening 144
Welcoming Uncertainty 149
Notes on My Experience of Teacher Research 150

Notes 153

References 155

Index 163

About the Author 168

 Acknowledgments

This work would not exist without the people at Holt High School, espe-
cially Larry Burgess and Barbara Neureither, who welcomed me into their
classrooms and taught me most of what I know about teaching biology.
Thanks of course are also due to my students in genetics. I hope that I have
come somewhere near doing justice to your brilliance, thoughtfulness,
intellectual and emotional energy, and creativity.
The Women In Science Education Group (at Michigan State Univer-
sity) has been an ongoing source of support and inspiration for me. Each
member has in some way contributed to my life and my thinking. Deep
thanks are due to Angela Calabrese Barton, Constanza Hazelwood, Lynne
Cavazos, Lori Kurth, Paula Lane, Gail Richmond, and Deborah Smith. Spe-
cial thanks are due to Kathleen Roth: for being there, and for conversations
that wandered meaningfully between the emotional, intellectual, political,
and personal. Thank you for helping me to do what I wanted, even when I
wavered. Thanks are also due to Charles Anderson, for helping me learn
that students have ideas, and for suggesting that I read Reflections on Gender
and Science. A particular thank you to Christopher M. Clark, who helped me
to work beyond my positivist mind-set into one that was much more pro-
ductive in understanding the work of teaching. I would also like to thank
the editors at Teachers College Press, for their patience, and for insightful
suggestions in helping me to clarify my writing.
Thanks are due to my best friend, Stephanie Kay Williams, who has
given me the gift of unending faith and forever friendship. Thank you for
doing your best to keep me physically and emotionally fit over these hec-
tic years.
My daughter, Emily, has been a stalwart source of support and inspi-
ration, as only a brilliant and beautiful child can be. Thank you for your
commonsense insights about high-school girls, and for your indignant
feminism. Thank you for putting up with too much fast food, and too much
time without me; for baking bagels, for the lavender for my headaches,
and for trying to keep me up to date on music (especially Ani). Thank you
in the late days of manuscript preparation for reminding me that writing

vii
viii Acknowledgments

is hard. You are my constant reminder that schools and teachers would
do well to listen carefully and regularly to the wisdom and knowledge of
their students.
It is not possible to construct a thank you that will do justice to what
Bill Rosenthal has done in supporting me through graduate school, through
research papers and myriad research presentations, and especially in the
last days of book preparation. Only people who know Bill well can come
anywhere near comprehending the continual and constant support and
accompanying superhuman feats he has accomplished to help me create
this document. He pushed me to develop and nurture my ideas and my
writing. His editorial help was phenomenal—substantively as well as in
the details. From inception to finish, his energy and love fueled my own.
I am blessed with his daily intellectual, emotional, political, incite/insight-
ful, and just plain fun companionship.
And finally, thank you to my parents, Ruth Ostrander Howes and
Robert Craig Howes, who taught me to love words, learning, and reflec-
tion. I will always be grateful for having grown up in a household where
things of the intellect were valued, books spilled out of shelves and closets
and birthday packages, and scholarly conversation was typical dinner table
fare. With that for a childhood, what other course could I have chosen
but education?
 1
Introduction

The inspiration for this study was my fascination with the role that stu-
dents’ ideas play in the work of science teaching and learning. Accompa-
nying this interest was my desire to take part in actualizing science teaching
departing from that based in lectures, textbooks, and laboratory exercises
written by people who did not know my students. The intentional study
of one’s own practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993) affords an opportu-
nity to rethink both classroom teaching and the role of educational research
in that teaching. I had learned from traditional research the importance
of students’ thinking about natural phenomena, and about how vital it is
to take that thinking into account when planning instruction and assess-
ment. I had reached a point in my learning to teach at which I felt that I
could deviate from the safety of an already good science curriculum, based
in constructivist theories of learning, by trying to push that curriculum a
little bit further—specifically, further toward a pedagogy in which students’
ideas were central.
Science textbooks, teachers, and the media define science for students;
philosophers, scientists, and reform documents do the same for educators.
However, there remains a dearth of information pertaining to students’
knowledge and opinions regarding what science is and what it should be.
I have found students’ visions in this area to be fascinating in their variety
and richness. In this book, I begin to bring high school students’ ideas into
the public discussion about the role of scientific knowledge and practices
in their own lives, and in the larger society.
From teacher research in particular, I have found support for my dis-
covery that teaching is challenging intellectual and emotional work, and
that the structures of schooling and of the school day did not make much
room for this work. As could anyone whose work is situated in a public
school, I could have chosen any of a myriad of questions and issues to study.
Settling on a question has been a slippery, frustrating, and sometimes
impossible chore. I could have chosen “What do students say to each other
before the final bell?” I could have chosen “What are the differences in
male and female verbal interactions with their teacher?” I could have
chosen the infinitely difficult and concomitantly unavoidable “What sci-

1
2 Connecting Girls and Science

ence did the students learn?” Currently, however, all of these possible
choices have converged on one central question: What can intensive lis-
tening to students tell us about their thinking and beliefs concerning their
images of science as a social enterprise?
In the science classrooms in which I was the teacher, I wanted to make
things happen differently from how I and millions of other high school stu-
dents had experienced (and continue to experience) biology teaching and
learning. Instead of rote memorization of dead facts about deadened nature,
I wanted lively discussions bringing into being powerful explanations of
natural phenomena. Instead of presentations of desiccated life and desic-
cated thought, I wanted student initiative, action, and creation. Instead of
science presented as separate from and above human social life, personal
desire, and political action, I wanted to teach science as imbedded in the
complexities of human social and personal life. I wanted to use these ideals
to inform both my practice and my research, and see what came of it. The
two strands of thought that most actively informed my vision were femi-
nism and the contemporary science education reform movement.

MY TEACHER-RESEARCH COMMITMENTS

The research presented in this book was grounded in my teaching com-

mitments, which have grown out of my experiences as a woman, a teacher,
an educational scholar, and a research scientist. I was most interested in
finding out students’ ideas concerning what I will refer to throughout as
“science as a social enterprise.” My working definition of this phrase in-
cludes: (1) students’ thinking about what scientists do and why they do it,
(2) students’ ideas about the role of scientific practice and knowledge in
their own lives and in the larger society, and (3) students’ conceptions of
themselves as possessing (or not possessing) the traits that they deem
appropriate to “be a good scientist.”
Throughout this study, I refer to three broad theoretical sources to
ground my teaching choices and to analyze students’ thinking: Feminism,
“science for all,” and “listening to students.” The brief descriptions below
indicate that these sources overlap in pertinent ways; most notable for this
work is their common cause in terms of learning what students think and
care about.

Feminism

Feminism as a political and social perspective permeates my work. For this

writing project, the strands of feminist critiques of science, feminist re-
Introduction 3

search, and feminist pedagogy are central to my teaching and my research.

My feminist commitments also allow—even demand—that I include my
own subjective experiences and understandings. In this work, I utilize my
experiences in the learning and laboratory practice of science, my experi-
ences in educational research, and my experiences as a teacher. Another
aspect of this work has grown out of the common feminist objective of
forefronting silenced voices (Fine, 1992)—or, perhaps, voices that are regu-
larly passed over—in this case, those of my own students.
I am a feminist and a reform-minded teacher educator. The ideas that
I am using to look at my students’ ideas and my classroom experience came
from outside of the classroom. In my efforts to depict and clarify my own
understanding of these informing ideas—for example, how feminist cri-
tiques of scientific practice and knowledge have influenced my thinking
as a teacher—my writing may lean toward the theoretical and philosophi-
cal. It is necessary, as well, to give credit where credit is due; to explain
and describe the sources of one’s ideas is responsible scholarship. Yet
“theory” is not the core of this study. My interpretations, applications to
practice, and subsequent reinterpretations of theory do frame my think-
ing, analysis, and writing. My hope is that I have included enough theory
to introduce newcomers to feminist ideas, and enough to satisfy those more
familiar with feminism, but not so much as to overwhelm the reader and
discourage her or him from connecting with ideas and questions that have
arisen from my teaching with real students in actual classroom settings.
Possibly because I came to science, and then to education, later in my
life, after and during experiences of motherhood, housewifehood, and re-
search science, I am intensely aware of my changed visions of possibilities
and responsibilities of science teaching. I know that I have gone through
sea changes via my studies in feminism. I cannot, however, pinpoint when,
where, or why these transformations transpired. However, as Fonow and
Cook (1991) explain, this transformation is a common experience for
people who have participated in one form or another of feminist conscious-
ness raising:

Under ideal circumstances, transformation occurs, during which something

hidden is revealed about the formerly taken-for-granted aspects of sexual
asymmetry. . . . In this model, previously-hidden phenomena which are
apprehended as a contradiction can lead to one or more of the following: an
emotional catharsis . . . ; an academic insight and resulting intellectual prod-
uct; and increased politicization and corresponding activism. (p. 3)

The gendered structure of science was illuminated for me via a com-

bination of feminist consciousness raising and scholarly study. This under-
standing is now inescapable; it followed me into the science classroom,
4 Connecting Girls and Science

and into my explorations of students’ images of science and of their own

relationships to it. Once, science was to me impregnable, perfectly free of
any human emotion except for, perhaps, curiosity. Through feminism, I
have come to see science as a creative social production—and thus imper-
fect, no longer holy, and considerably more interesting and accessible than
the rarefied discipline portrayed in textbooks and scientific journals.
Feminism is not alone in its demand for critique of the practices,
knowledge, and teaching of science. However, feminist critiques of science
have indicated that science is not immune from relationships between male
and female that consistently represent the latter as lesser. Indeed, some
argue that science is based in such relationships (Griffin, 1978; Keller, 1985;
Schiebinger, 2000). Thus it feels inauthentic to me, a feminist who is also
a teacher, to teach science as if it were devoid of prejudice or possessed of
a special method that cleanses knowledge of human bias. Scientists may
attempt to be objective, and this form of rigorous self-doubt may remain
a check against socially irresponsible science, yet science itself is not in-
herently objective. It cannot be—because people do it. Here is a basic
premise on which mainstream reformers and feminists agree.

Science for All

From the beginning of my life in teaching, I have wanted to help all stu-
dents be attracted to and successful in science. As do many new teachers,
I began with delusions of grandeur that probably did little harm to my
students, but were certainly tough on my self-esteem. To be specific, I was
going to change the world through science education: change students so
that they would love and comprehend science for the complex, fascinat-
ing, and potent enterprise and knowledge producer it is, change schools
so that they would give students time and respect to develop into con-
scious and responsible democratic and scientifically literate citizens, change
science education so that it would include history, philosophy, and soci-
ology. Most urgent of all, I was going to change science itself so that it would
better represent the needs, knowledge, efforts, and dreams of women,
people of color, and people of the working classes, who have been excluded
from its practice.
“Science for all” is a fundamentally progressive imperative that has
yet to be realized in practice, although many have seized on its promise in
theoretical and research contexts (Atwater, 1996; Calabrese Barton, 1998;
Rodriguez, 1998). In this book, I concentrate on three fields from science
education research and theory that are rooted in an understanding of
the importance of students’ ideas in the learning of science content:
Introduction 5

(1) constructivist theories of learning, (2) critiques of science and its his-
torical and contemporary place in society, and (3) feminist and critical
pedagogies. Feminist and critical pedagogies provide a focus on the em-
powerment of learners, and inspiration for pedagogical efforts to create
curricula and instruction that are based in students’ lives, interests, and
questions. These pedagogical approaches aim to include and educate stu-
dents who are customarily ignored, or allowed to slip through the cracks,
in traditional school settings.

Listening to Students

This perspective and recommendation grew out of each of these three

fields. As any teacher knows, listening to students is a valuable way to learn
what students are learning, as well as to learn more about their lives in
order to create efficacious instruction. However, teachers have limited time
with students, and a great deal of that time is spent telling, rather than lis-
tening (Gallas, 1995; Meier, 1995). It takes concentrated energy and effort
to step out of the limelight and let students take over the airways. In ad-
dition, high school students themselves have learned that their role in the
science classroom is one of listener rather than speaker. For these reasons,
I have created and studied instructional situations in which student talk is
expressly the center of attention. These situations are not evaluative; I lis-
tened not in order to judge, merely to learn.
Listening is the main goal and methodological commitment of my
research. Briefly, the teacher-research contexts that I created and uti-
lized for this focused listening are (1) interview-conversations, in which
I discussed science with students outside of classtime; (2) audiotapes of
a week-long group assignment, and of the group presentations resulting
from that assignment; (3) whole-class discussion during a unit about
bioethics in human genetics; and (4) writing assignments given through-
out instruction.
Listening to students is pedagogically consistent with my feminist
commitments and with my desire to create and study instruction that at-
tends to “science for all.” This study of contexts in which I tried—and suc-
ceeded, to differing degrees—to really hear what these students were say-
ing forms the core of this book. While I concentrate on students’ ideas and
beliefs, I also include my reflections on their ideas and how these might
inform instructional and curricular choices. Thus this teacher-research
project originated in my commitments, which led to the development of
specific instructional contexts, which in turn allowed me to hear students’
voices in ways that are typically absent in traditional instruction.
6 Connecting Girls and Science

DOING TEACHER RESEARCH

As a person educated in science, I struggled to deal with the ambiguities

endemic to teacher research. This struggle resulted in some acceptance, if
not resolution, of the messiness of teacher research—and, as well, in some
insight into how teacher research can be designed to learn about our stu-
dents as we enact responsible instruction. In order to do this authentically,
I needed to become open to hearing and valuing the different views that
different students brought to this process. I did not put myself in the posi-
tion of altering their views, for two reasons: (1) I did not feel that I knew
enough about their original ideas to teach them to consider and adopt new
ideas about science; and (2) I felt that, for this research, the best way that
I could show respect for students’ thinking and beliefs was to accept them
as they were. Science education is already full of what is “wrong” with
students’ thinking. I wanted to provide examples of not necessarily what
was “right” with students’ thinking, but what that thinking looked like,
from my perspective as a feminist teacher researcher, and, in turn, how
honestly listening to students’ ideas insists that, beyond using these ideas
to inform instruction, we examine our own assumptions and visions con-
cerning science as a social enterprise.
The most powerful thing that I learned from this teacher-research
project was that really listening to students was not only good research
but also good pedagogy—but that it was not without its dangers, complexi-
ties, and frustrations. The attitude of listening brings other questions to
the fore, ranging from classroom management concerns to content issues.
For example, for all students to feel that their ideas are valued, it is neces-
sary to develop an environment in which all students feel welcome to
speak. Given the power of science (as a discipline and as a practice) to si-
lence most students in many ways, this becomes an especially vital, as well
as especially challenging, aspect of science teaching “for all.”
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS,
1998), one of the main players in the contemporary science reform move-
ment, is itself now calling for teacher research as one of the best hopes
for improving science education in real classrooms (pp. 90–92). Thus
teachers’ own scholarly accounts of the context-dependent particulars
of classroom teaching and learning are being recognized as necessary
aspects of widespread and lasting change in science education. The meth-
ods of teacher research are themselves particular to classroom context
and the goals of the teacher researcher (Ball, 2000). One of the aims of
this book is to present one example of a teacher studying her own prac-
tice—practice grounded in feminist, reform-minded science education.
Introduction 7

My prelude to this undertaking is “Feminists say this. Science educa-

tion reform documents writers say that. Sometimes, practice-oriented
messages that reinforce one another in my teacher thinking result from
these distinct arguments. What happens when I explicitly apply these
messages to my teaching and to my research into students’ thinking?” In
the spirit of accessibility, I attempt to use language that will not automati-
cally alienate any group with terminology unique to any other group. This
does not mean that what I say is noncontroversial—in fact, I hope that
what I have come up with inspires discussion and even dissension. Pro-
ductive conversation is more likely to ensue from these reactions than from
blandly smooth agreement.
Repeated readings of the national science standards have convinced
me that their writers have devoted little energy to considering multiple
perspectives. One of the main reasons to undertake this work is the very
absence in the national science education reform conversation of femi-
nist or other nonmainstream perspectives. Some believe that science is
meant not to be criticized but merely to be transmitted by educators. I
respond to this critique simply with the consensus view that the practice
of science and the creation of knowledge are social enterprises. People make
up societies; people are fallible. Continual skepticism is an integral piece
of science. Teaching our students and teaching teachers otherwise is a grave
epistemological error.

ORGANIZATION

In this study, I describe and analyze activities in which students and

I engaged with my goal of providing contexts in which to speak of their
visions of science, attending particularly to students’ talk during these
activities. My analysis is structured to demonstrate the potential harmo-
nies between national standards for science education and feminist ap-
proaches to science and pedagogy. Harmonies, of course, do not exist unless
at least two voices are sounded at once. As a teacher, I kept feminist ideas
and standards-oriented, “science for all” pedagogy in my thoughts con-
currently. Usually there was little chance for concordance; usually, in the
acrimonious debate that went on in my head, the standards won out. But
there were times when the voices sounded in harmony. It is these com-
paratively harmonious times on which I report. I emphasize the correla-
tions among national standards for science education, feminist theories of
pedagogy, and feminist critiques of science. From these starting points, I
present students’ ideas and my analyses and reflections.
8 Connecting Girls and Science

The Standards Documents

The standards documents utilized in this study are Science for All Americans
(AAAS, 1990), Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993), and National
Science Education Standards (National Research Council [NRC], 1996). My
attitude toward the standards, I should say up front, is not one that looks
to them for unquestionable knowledge. A fair amount of my time in edu-
cational scholarship has been spent criticizing the silences that the stan-
dards contain, particularly the silence on radical theories of education and
critiques of science, including those deriving from feminism. And, as this
research has made me realize, the voices of students themselves are notice-
ably absent from the standards documents. Nonetheless, there is useful
material set forth in the standards. In some ways, the standards “work”
for me as a teacher. They help me to make content choices. They provide
justification for student-centered classrooms and for curriculum based in
depth of exploration over breadth of coverage. In addition, here and there,
I find pockets of possibility for pushing these standards to seize hold of the
powerful implications of “science for all.” In fact, I chose these three docu-
ments because they represent the call for science for all coined by the
authors of Science for All Americans, sponsored by the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science. This first document efficiently sum-
marizes (from a particular point of view, that of the representatives of the
members of AAAS) the science that “all Americans” should know when
they leave high school. It also sets forth recommendations for what liter-
ate Americans should know concerning what science is, who does it, and
to what kinds of knowledge it can and cannot lay claim. The second docu-
ment, Benchmarks for Science Literacy, grew out of Science for All Americans. It
is useful in a different way from Science for All Americans, because it sets
out in clear statements what students should learn as they progress through
school. Along with their content focus, these documents also provide con-
cise summaries—from one perspective—of what science looks like, what
scientists do, and what effect the scientific enterprise has on the knowl-
edge scientists produce.
The National Research Council’s 1996 publication of its own set of
standards, the National Science Education Standards, has added to the re-
sources that teachers can draw on for guidance in both content and peda-
gogy. As are the AAAS documents, these are based in constructivist theo-
ries of learning. They also take a Kuhnian approach to understanding the
development of scientific knowledge as being both “conservative” and
“revolutionary” (Kuhn, 1962). The NRC recognizes that scientific practice
is conducted by humans who hold certain values, reflecting both the val-
ues of science’s minisociety and those of the larger culture. As do the AAAS
Introduction 9

standards documents, therefore, the National Science Education Standards

offer a vision of what it means to “be a good scientist.”
In summary, all three of these documents represent a comparatively
progressive attitude toward science education, particularly in their peda-
gogical recommendations. However, none address the powerful implica-
tions of feminist scholarship in science or education. Nor do they ques-
tion their own assumptions in terms of the role of science in the world,
but uniformly portray it as a positive force in a democratic society. It is in
this context that I believe both feminists and students can most power-
fully inform and enhance the standards.

Overview of Chapters

Chapter 1, “Dual Influences: Where Science Education Reform and Femi-

nism Converge,” sketches the connections between reform efforts and
feminism. Here I draw from literature in feminist theory, philosophy, and
pedagogy to provide an overview of the theories I apply in the following
chapters. This chapter also describes methodological issues, contexts, and
choices that were made in the course of this research. The remainder of
the chapters present analyses of particular classroom assignments that grew
out of my feminist convictions. The analyses do not focus on the assign-
ments’ immediate instructional efficacy. Rather, they focus on what stu-
dents said, wrote, and did within these contexts. Chapter 2, “Studying
Prenatal Testing: Connection and Alienation,” marks my efforts to apply
the problematic and controversial theories of difference feminism to a class-
room activity designed to attract girls to science. I explore how my female
students expressed their relationship to and understanding of prenatal
testing, science, and their potential roles in their lives and in the lives of
others. Chapter 3 is titled “To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empa-
thy.” Here I present feminist critiques of science as a social enterprise and
the stance that the national science education standards take toward teach-
ing about science as a social enterprise. I then describe students’ views of
science as a social enterprise using a data-inspired focus on “objectivity”
and “empathy.” Chapter 4, “To Be a Good Scientist: Science and Social Re-
sponsibility,” continues the exploration begun in Chapter 3. In Chapter 5,
“Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics,” I focus on this ques-
tion: What might whole-group classroom discussions that foster students’
expressions of their beliefs, experiences, and feelings look like? Chapter 5
departs from a focus on students’ ideas per se to discuss the features of a
context in which these ideas were welcomed. Chapter 6, “Listening as
Pedagogy and Research,” summarizes the issues that have arisen from my
in-depth study of students’ ideas. Specifically, I speculate on how teach-
10 Connecting Girls and Science

ers might support students in externalizing their visions of themselves in

relationship to science and of science in relationship to society. My explo-
ration of these relationships (and lack thereof) has resulted in implications
for continuing standards development that attempts to carry out its “sci-
ence for all” rhetoric, through listening to students and other observers,
critics, practitioners, and consumers of the scientific enterprise and the
knowledge it produces.
In this study, I have focused on a few interview-conversations, two
writing assignments, and two days of classroom discussion. Cognizant even
of the chapters that have arisen from these foci, I still feel that I have so
much more to learn. I hope that this book will open up conversations
between science teacher educators, their students, and their students
around issues concerning students’ relationships to science, and their op-
timistic clear-eyed view of its current and potential role in our efforts to
create an egalitarian democracy.
 1
Dual Influences
Where Science Education Reform and
Feminism Converge

Feminist theory has fundamentally altered the way I look at classrooms.

As a feminist scholar and teacher researcher in science education, I am
eager to utilize the powerful explanatory perspectives created out of this
academic work. I am convinced that feminist theory can inform and pos-
sibly even transform science education, but there is a need for work that
brings science education and feminist theory together.
The contemporary recommendations for reform in science education
are rooted in the demand that “all Americans” attain a minimum level of
scientific literacy (AAAS, 1990, 1993, 1998; NRC, 1996). Women and
people of color are included in the “all” in the “science for all” discussion;
in fact, they are noted as groups excluded from traditional mainstream
science education. However, the aspects of scientific practice itself that
contribute to this exclusion are not addressed in these documents. Thus
these standards remain bound to the Western conception of the objectiv-
ity of scientific practice and knowledge that has historically shaped the
scientific enterprise and continues to create the possibilities and restric-
tions within which scientists do their work. Without a deeper understand-
ing of science and its role in society, imperfections and all, we will con-
tinue to fall short in welcoming everyone to the learning and practice of
science. Critiques of the scientific enterprise and the knowledge it produces
are a necessary, but underutilized, ally in fulfilling the science-for-all
mandate.
Feminist philosophies and sociologies of science and of education pro-
vide potent perspectives on science. These intellectual movements help
us comprehend science’s social power and create new visions for a science
education that is welcoming rather than alienating (Hubbard, 1989; Keller,
1985; Rosser, 1997; Women in Science Education Group at MSU [WISE
at MSU], 1995). Feminist pedagogy attends to issues that arise when teach-
ers explicitly attempt to include all students in the classroom in powerful

11
12 Connecting Girls and Science

learning (Calabrese Barton, 1998; Gore, 1992; hooks, 1994; Maher &
Tetreault, 1994; Ropers-Huilman, 1998; Rosenthal, 1994). Taken together,
these two extensive bodies of scholarship can provide something the stan-
dards leave out: attention to the experiences, perceptions, knowledge, and
ways of knowing of people traditionally and currently excluded from sci-
entific practice. In the case of this research project, my high school stu-
dents formed the group whose scientific experiences and epistemologies
were studied.

SCIENCE EDUCATION REFORM

Current thinking in science education demands that science teachers at-

tend to what our students are thinking. An outgrowth of constructivist
theories of learning, this requirement for responsible practice in science
teaching was one that I learned well in my teacher preparation courses.
Constructivist theories of learning are largely attributed to the research
and theorizing of the psychologists Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Accord-
ing to Piaget (1929), children develop ideas about how the natural world
works by interacting with that world. They may form new ideas when
existing understandings are challenged by an event in their environment
that cannot be satisfactorily accounted for by explanations available to
them. For example, a child might develop an explanation of thunder as
“God sneezing” (an explanation that has been used by several real-life
children). As the child grows, she will gain more experience with thun-
derstorms, and recognize that thunder is usually associated with dark
clouds, rain, and lightning. She will also likely learn that God, in Western
culture, is a spiritual being, without physical ties to the natural world. Thus,
with or without direct instruction on the topic, she may create a different
explanation for thunder, as something to do with sound waves and elec-
tricity. The gist of Piaget’s conception of learning is that all students have
ideas about anything that you plan to teach them. Even if these ideas are
not directly about the phenomenon under study, students will have some
idea, or quickly develop one, that provides them with an explanation with
which to work. For instance, I teach about chromosomal inheritance, and
students invariably come to my instruction with a well-formed personal
explanation for why children look like their biological parents.
Vygotsky (1933) moved our understanding of learning into the so-
cial realm. The role of the teacher, as well as peers, according to Vygotsky,
is vital for human learning. Language and learning are inseparable, in this
view. The implications for teaching are powerfully simple: Language-rich
learning opportunities will enhance students’ learning. Vygotsky’s ideas
Dual Influences 13

have been used to support collaborative learning, and also to encourage

teachers, across the subject matter areas, to use student talk as an instruc-
tional tool. In “talking classrooms,” students explicate their ideas and com-
pare them with those of classmates, teachers, and scientists. They regu-
larly engage with more- or less-knowledgeable others; learning is supported
via verbal interactions; learners are “scaffolded” so as to be supported while
they learn, and move within their “zone of proximal development” into a
different frame of understanding.
The very idea that my students’ ideas would shape what they learned
altered my vision of teaching from one in which my responsibility lay in
accurately relaying intriguing ideas to one in which my role was to pro-
vide learning contexts within which students would create their own ideas,
as individuals and as a social group. I cannot stress enough how much more
fascinating, complex, and challenging this simple concept of students as
knowledge-makers makes the work of teaching. A vital piece of teaching
based in constructivist theories of learning is that the teacher continually
assess what her students are thinking. The reason for this active monitor-
ing is to provide information so that the teacher can structure instruction
that allows students to better approach the concept under study. “Listen-
ing” has therefore become the image and the practice that I am using for
the kind of pedagogy I wish to develop and the type of research I employ.
In this work, I have taken a perspective that is slightly askew from
that of listening to students in order to support or challenge their think-
ing about natural phenomena. During my teaching, I set up situations in
which students could speak about their images of science. My teacher-
research goal was to listen in order to learn what students were thinking
and believing—but not, as I discussed in the Introduction, necessarily in
order to change that thinking or those beliefs. The students’ ideas I have
chosen to study are not conventionally scientific, nor were they explicitly
taught as content during the time I worked with these students. I focus on
students’ visions of science, which are connected to but distinct from the
explanations of the natural world that I hoped students would learn in
our genetics class.
Adult experts have spent of good deal of time and effort putting for-
ward our views on science education in the form of standards, teaching
recommendations, and teacher education recommendations. In these ef-
forts, we have drawn from the history and philosophy of science; we have
consulted with practicing scientists; we have pulled on the national en-
thusiasm for science as a way to improve the world and our place in it.
However, little mention is made in these documents of children’s or ado-
lescents’ perceptions of the content and practice of science and science
education, or of young people’s ideas concerning what the role of science
14 Connecting Girls and Science

is (or should be) in our society. As is often the way with expertise, specifi-
cally that aimed at improving the education of children, science educa-
tion reforms fundamentally ignore the very people they are meant to
benefit.
This omission leads me to a related feminist demand that we respect
our students as whole beings with valuable knowledge and beliefs of their
own. This perspective perturbs a knowledge hierarchy that places experts
at the top and K–12 students at the bottom. In the traditional expert-novice
structure, knowledge flows one way: from expert to novice. No matter how
attentive reformers are to pedagogies that recognize students’ ideas as
relevant to their learning, this epistemological escalator resists a change
in direction. Feminist pedagogy, on the other hand, suggests that teach-
ers and students should work to upset the arrangement in which teachers
(and the scientists they represent) are assumed to have the most, and the
most important, knowledge. Respecting the conceptions that students bring
to and develop in the classroom in terms of knowledge—as real knowl-
edge, not as something that needs to be altered or expunged—is a goal of
feminist pedagogy. This stance is different from the perspective permeat-
ing science education that views students’ ideas as “misconceptions” or
“naive theories.” Such a stance emphatically does not mean that feminist
teachers do not want students to learn, which means changing, in some
way, their current beliefs and understandings of the world. But it does
mean a subtle but powerful shift in focus, from the content to the student.
Contemporary reformers are certainly cognizant of and expert in
learning theories and pedagogical methods that attend deeply to students’
thinking. Recently, in fact, educators have begun to focus on young
people’s views and experiences, particularly as these relate to scientific
explanations of natural phenomena (e.g., Driver, Squires, Rushworth, &
Wood-Robinson, 1994). Nonetheless, young people are regularly left out
of the negotiations of what counts as scientific knowledge in school. Stu-
dents are viewed solely as consumers, not producers and certainly not
critics, of the ideas that curriculum developers, standards bearers, and
teachers decide that they must learn in order to function well in society. I
would like to begin to bring students into this discussion.
Feminist scholarship concerning science has also been largely ignored
in the development of science education standards. In this book, I try to
redress this situation. Feminist scholars have developed extensive and
potent critiques of the scientific enterprise and the knowledge it creates.
A now well-accepted finding of this body of work is that Western science
has been largely developed by Western men of the middle and upper
classes, and therefore embodies a set of epistemological rules that reflect
the values of this group. For example—an example that continues to in-
Dual Influences 15

form my research and my teaching—traditional Western science celebrates

“objectivity.” Objectivity demands the separation of emotion and personal
and social perspective from scientific theory development in order to at-
tain the truth about the world. Feminists argue that this vision of objec-
tivity is not possible, and that instead it is used (sometimes unconsciously)
as a smoke screen to hide emotional and perspectival aspects of the devel-
opment of scientific questions, explorations, and theories. While feminist
theorists, and indeed many other science observers, have come to assume
that objectivity thus constructed is moot, the public vision of science sus-
tains a view that rests on unimpeachable scientific portrayals of pure ob-
jective reality. Some students are attracted to this reputed certainty. I was
once one of these students; I left the uncomfortable, to me, subjectivity of
the arts for the sanctuary of “truth” that I believed I would find in sci-
ence. Others are put off by what they see as a cold, nonhuman subject.
We have both types of students in our science classrooms—and everyone
in between.
The simple proposition that Western science insists on objectivity
for its practitioners provides an interesting puzzle for science teaching.
Constructivism argues that students bring existing conceptions about the
world to science class. Therefore we must find out what those are. In ad-
dition—partly in fulfillment of this requirement, partly to help them con-
nect science to their own lives—we attempt, as teachers, to bring in, and
support students in bringing in “the real world.” Ironically, here science
teaching departs from the traditional qualities of scientific knowledge, in
that it attempts to heal the personality split that Western science claims to
have perfected. The teacher’s job entails bringing the rational abstractions
of science into the complex and whole lives of adolescents. The puzzle be-
comes how to welcome students’ experiences, feelings, and beliefs—things
that are not welcome in objectivist science—into a venue that also values
their learning of powerful explanations that scientists have created about
the world.

REVIEW OF FEMINIST PEDAGOGY

It is not my goal to provide a definitive description of feminist pedagogy.

To do so would misrepresent one of the very tenets of feminism, that is,
that there is great variety among women in our racial, cultural, sexual,
ethnic, and class identities; our lives, our interests, and our actions. In
particular, the teacher who does not critique the discipline, but concen-
trates on helping young women enter the field as it is, is not necessarily
less a feminist than the teacher who openly questions the objective ex-
16 Connecting Girls and Science

pertise of the scientific discipline. All efforts that attempt to improve the
prospects of individuals and groups of individuals who have traditionally
been blocked from full participation in the practice and understanding of
science can fit under this usefully vague umbrella of feminist pedagogy.
There are, as Jennifer Gore (1993) explains, two strands within femi-
nist pedagogy itself. These strands developed in comparative isolation, one
within women’s studies programs, the other inside departments and col-
leges of education. The first strand arose out of the consciousness raising
and community education efforts of the 1960s and 1970s (Gore, 1993;
Hartsock, 1979). The second has arisen within departments and colleges
of education, and is therefore concerned with connections to other tradi-
tions within educational history and theorizing, and with how these tra-
ditions can be critiqued, altered, and developed from a feminist perspec-
tive. People within education work to create pedagogies that include and
reflect their knowledge of feminist theory, history, and social and intel-
lectual critiques. This second group of pedagogies draws from, and often
takes as models, theories and practices developed in women’s studies, yet
reflects the stance and expertise of their developers within colleges and
departments of education (Calabrese Barton, 1998; Cohee, Däumer, Kemp,
Krebs, Lafky, & Runzo, 1998; Gore, 1993).
In feminist and critical pedagogies, the need to situate educational
practice in the experiences of the students is stressed. This aspect of teaching
from a radically student-centered perspective argues that content and
pedagogical choices (including evaluation) should be, at the least, influ-
enced by the group. However, particularly in science, feminist pedagogy
may be conducted even if science content is represented in ways that do
not address its social embeddedness. Teachers will frequently alter the tra-
ditional structure of the science classroom to include group work, discus-
sion, and long-term projects. In this sense, authoritarian relationships
between teacher and students are reconfigured without challenging the
authoritative position of the knowledge to be learned. This separation of
process and content leaves out critiques of the discipline, but it may suc-
ceed in attracting more women to science. However, this instance of teach-
ing practice illustrates a choice to forgo explicit feminism, and thus lose
the force for change that results from studying science’s exclusionary prac-
tices, and learning about the ways in which scientific knowledge is used
to maintain an oppressive status quo.
Feminist pedagogy itself employs many methods in common with
other pedagogies; it did not arise, fully formed, like Venus from the sea. In
fact, it is still very much in the process of evolving and unfolding, as more
teachers attempt to carry their feminist convictions into the classroom.
Feminist pedagogy falls within a progressive tradition that focuses on stu-
Dual Influences 17

dents’ interests and ideas. In this tradition, the teacher becomes a facili-
tator and a source of knowledge (but not the only source) and partially
surrenders her absolute authority over learning in the classroom (Dewey,
1902/1956; Maher, 1999; Oyler, 1996; Roy & Schen, 1987; Shor & Freire,
1987; Shrewsbury, 1987). Constructivist-influenced approaches to in-
struction share with feminist and critical pedagogies a progressive view of
learning in which students are not Locke’s tabulae rasae, but possessors
of knowledge that will influence how they interpret new ideas and how
they accept, reject, and alter the curriculum.
As contemporary offshoots of progressivism, critical and feminist peda-
gogy share the added aspect of listening to students’ “lived experiences” (Fine
& Macpherson, 1993; van Manen, 1990), bringing students’ lives into the
classroom, and, ideally, starting the curriculum in students’ questions and
concerns. As practiced and popularized by Ira Shor and Paulo Freire (1987),
critical pedagogy takes liberation as its goal, via the recognition of oppres-
sive structures and the development of collective action to change political
situations. Feminist pedagogies are different from most critical pedagogies
in that they focus on gender oppression and create learning situations and
material deriving from women’s lives and feminist theorizing.
As do all pedagogies, feminist pedagogy “implies both instructional
practices and social visions” (Gore, 1993, p. 15). Both facets define and
create feminist pedagogy; connections between the two form the most
intriguing and most problematic opportunities for teaching. Feminism lends
itself to such useful ambiguities and multiple conceptions, as does teach-
ing itself. For example, it is one thing to portray scientific knowledge as
tentative, created by human beings interacting socially, and thus imbued
with fallibility and affect; it is another, although related, effort to argue in
a classroom that academically respected knowledge is created by mem-
bers of a society that has yet to rid itself of class, racial, ethnic, and gender
biases and inequities. This latter teaching work creates tensions between
addressing students’ visions of science and supporting them in their
learning of accepted and socially powerful scientific knowledge. Investi-
gations of the social contexts of scientific knowledge is complex and time-
consuming—and, some believe, the purview of women’s studies and phi-
losophy, not science.

Feminist Pedagogy and Science Education

The only science in the index of The Feminist Classroom (Maher & Tetreault,
1994) is biology; no chemistry, no physics, no mathematics. This is con-
sistent with the observation that biology has been, for various reasons,
accessible to women and to feminist critique, and is surely an effect of
18 Connecting Girls and Science

the comparatively large numbers of women in the life sciences (38%) as

compared with chemistry (25%), physics (8%), and mathematics (19%)
(Finkbeiner, 1994). While there are multiple feminist critiques by scientists
and philosophers of the knowledge and practices of biology (Bleier, 1986;
Fausto-Sterling, 1992; Hubbard, 1990; Keller, 1983; Tavris, 1992), there
are few in the sciences of chemistry and physics (Harding, 1991; Keller,
1992). It appears that, as the study and critique of biology have been fertile
fields for feminists, so is the teaching of biology the place where feminist
pedagogy in science is setting its early roots.
Compared with the other sciences, biology is open to verbal expres-
sion, with a lesser stress on more parsimonious symbol systems. Biology is
more immediately about our bodies and our world than are chemistry and
physics, and more closely linked to socially sanctioned women’s work of
caring for others. While the role of caretaker is not assigned exclusively to
women in our society or any other, it remains true that women are expected
to be adept at its multifaceted requirements. Women and girls in our con-
temporary world remain greatly responsible for the care of the young, as
well as for ill and elderly humans. A world in which all people were directly
responsible for the health, well-being, and education of the young and vul-
nerable would be preferable. This is not the world we have now; thus, for
this and other reasons, many girls and women may continue to be more
interested in the life sciences than they are in other sciences.
Maher and Tetreault (1994) depict two college-level biology teachers
who illustrate different possibilities in the feminist science classroom. One
of these professors utilizes her understanding of pedagogy to welcome
women (and also men new to science) into the world of laboratory prac-
tice. In this sense, she is fulfilling several of the recommendations laid out
by Rosser (1992):

• Increase the numbers of observations and remain longer in the observa-

tional stage of the scientific method. This would provide more hands-on
experience with various types of equipment in the laboratory.
• Use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in data gath-
ering.
• Use more interactive methods, thereby shortening the distance between
observer and the object being studied.
• Use less competitive models to practice science. (pp. 128–129)

In addition, the students in these classes developed and carried out

their own laboratory studies.
This professor uses techniques that intrigue and satisfy students, often
increasing their confidence in their work as scientists. She does not, how-
Dual Influences 19

ever, address the underlying issues of the social construction of scientific

knowledge:

She seemed to be saying simply that if women—and their differences—were

included in scientific thinking and practice, then science would be expanded
and improved. She left untouched the structure of the scientific disciplines
and the political and social uses to which they are put, and did not engage
the broader views on gender differences. (Maher & Tetreault, 1994, p. 138)

While a purist might question whether this kind of teaching, which

employs the processes of feminist pedagogy without explicitly addressing
gender issues and their part in the construction of science, can really be
called feminist, what this teacher is doing clearly steps out of the bounds
of traditional competitive, fact-focused, large-lecture-hall science teaching.
This effort in itself may be subversive, in its refusal to use the do-or-die
method of elimination from a rigorous field of study; it certainly appears
to be effective in helping students develop a more accurate understand-
ing of the work of scientists.
The other teacher whom Maher and Tetreault profile utilizes her
knowledge of feminist epistemology to explicitly address the political and
societal features of science. Ruth Doell, at San Francisco State University,
has created a course, “The Genetic Revolution,” in which she works to

make students authorities with regard to the social implications of science

. . . [considering] “the male dominance of women’s reproductive lives, the
male dominance of genetic engineering, the construction of science for the
well-being of men, with no consideration for the well-being of society at large,
or of women in particular.” (Maher & Tetreault, 1994, p. 131)

This professor’s language indicates that her course is based in an under-

standing that places science squarely in an inequitable gender system. She
uses this course to help students learn to critique scientific knowledge from
this perspective. Ironically, her classroom situation does not reflect an
assumed aspect of feminist pedagogy that demands that all students’ ideas
be treated with respect. In an example described by Maher and Tetreault
(1994), Doell supports a female student’s argument contradicting that of
a male; this is, importantly, because Doell agrees with the woman’s com-
ment, and wishes to use it to make a point about the inevitable fallibility
of scientists. This situation illustrates a contradiction in feminist pedagogy:
Can one respect all ideas and, at the same time, make a stand about one’s
beliefs (which is itself, according to Weiler [1988], a requirement for the
feminist teacher)?
20 Connecting Girls and Science

A more extensive study of feminist pedagogy in science at the college

level is presented in Angela Calabrese Barton’s Feminist Science Education
(1998). In her position as a community college chemistry instructor,
Calabrese Barton taught working-class women—women with different
backgrounds and different goals from most four-year university students.
As a component of her curriculum, she required students to create oral
histories based in interviews with scientists, many of them women. She
utilized these histories to help students think about their own relation-
ships to scientific knowledge and activity. She also engaged students in a
“hands-on” critique of science in a two-part assignment: First, she elicited
students’ examples of the gas laws in their everyday lives (e.g., boiling
water). Second, she asked them to conduct more traditional experiments
using typical chemistry laboratory equipment. In her reflections, she illu-
minates tensions that arise when we attempt to help students connect to
and value scientific knowledge and activity that has been developed with-
out them in mind.
Via focusing on students’ lived experiences, and through in-depth
interviews and unique insights into laboratory science and the ways it
disallows connections between science and students’ lives, Calabrese
Barton (1998) has explored a “feminist liberatory science education”
(pp. 1–19) that explicitly values all students and works to demystify sci-
ence. Her central goal was to support students in their “revisioning sci-
ence through experience” (p. 93). Calabrese Barton pushes our thinking
toward a more complex and complete transformation of postsecondary
science education; her model provides support for the feminist instruction
that I enacted in my high school science classroom.

Feminist Pedagogy and High School Science Teaching

The examples above point to obvious difficulties in carrying out such ac-
tivities in the high school. First of all, high school teachers have limited
say in the development of the curriculum; no matter how much leeway
an individual teacher has, she is still constrained by building, district, and
state requirements. In addition, high school students are not self-selected
for courses and teachers, so the teacher is charged to teach whoever ends
up in her classroom. So while “feminist professors must negotiate author-
ity issues in the institution as well as in the classroom” (Maher & Tetreault,
1994, p. 130), high school teachers face these difficulties, intensified, in
addition to having limited control over content, course organization, and
student clientele.
The traditional structure of schools, with classrooms separated by dis-
cipline, discourages the overlap of history, philosophy, or sociology with
Dual Influences 21

science that would help to create the content necessary for feminist theory
to enter the classroom. Furthermore, curriculum, if not mandated by the
district or the state, remains within the bounds and the requirements of
particular schools and departments. It is these institutional constraints that
are missed by studies in feminist pedagogy at the postsecondary level,
where students are self-selected, not compelled to be in certain schools or
classrooms, and where teachers may design courses more amenable to a
focus on feminist or women’s issues.
These objections to easy implementation of any practice from outside
the school are familiar. As with other recommendations for reform that
do not take into consideration the culture of the high school, they may be
discarded as untenable (Sarason, 1982). Thus it is important that feminist
teachers within the high school itself develop and critique curricula and
pedagogies that fit their particular contexts, while maintaining and utiliz-
ing their beliefs and perspectives.
Based in the knowledge that women have been and continue to be
oppressed, feminist pedagogies are openly political. This political impera-
tive, joined with the centrality of women’s lives, distinguishes feminist
pedagogies from others. It becomes necessary to address the notion that
not only has science been used for maintenance of conservative social struc-
tures, but that science itself is imbued with ideology. It is also in these
considerations that we can help students explore otherwise unexamined
ramifications of scientific methodology and argumentation.
As with any pedagogy, content and process are intimately linked in
feminist pedagogies. This truism is far from a simple one, particularly in a
science classroom, where people all along the political spectrum hope to
foster inquiry, curiosity, and an acceptance of ambiguity and the tenta-
tiveness of our knowledge about the natural world. It follows from this
ideal that one would not encourage such “habits of mind” by presenting
knowledge in such a way that it is perceived as finished and unquestion-
able. Rather, we might engage students in thematic inquiry, thus facili-
tating their growing sophistication in scientific process (Richmond & Striley,
1996). Alternatively, or in parallel, we might construct activities in which
students practice scientific reasoning and debate (Rosebery, Warren, &
Conant, 1992). Both approaches include the communal sense-making that
marks generation and alteration of knowledge within the scientific
community.
The biological science of human genetics, which was the content of
the high school course I study in this book, welcomes versions of science
teaching that include the human and social development of scientific theo-
ries. For instance, genomics, as a subscience of genetics, has made front-
page news with the recent development of a map of the human genome.
22 Connecting Girls and Science

Some scientists claim that this map provides us with great power in
understanding humanity. Others protest that knowing our genetic blueprint
is not enough to comprehend our biology, let alone our social and cultural
selves and societies. This debate is imbued with philosophical and empirical
questions such as: What does it mean to be an individual human being?
How do we become who we are? More strictly scientific questions have to
do with the relationships of genes to the proteins that build and run our
bodies, as well as the relationships of genes to one another. None of these
questions have been answered in a closed and certain fashion; they thus
hold great potential for engaging and educating young people in the knowl-
edge, practice, and social effects of the scientific enterprise.

STRANDS OF FEMINIST THEORY USED IN ANALYSIS

Feminist thought ranges from the Enlightenment-based demand that

women be treated as humans (Pollitt, 1995; Wollstonecraft, 1792/2001)
to radical separatist theories that see no way out of oppression but escape
(Daly, 1990; Firestone, 1970). What all feminisms have in common is the
centrality of gender, whether biologically or socially defined, as an ana-
lytical frame and egalitarianism as a political goal (Harding, 1987; Lorber,
1994). In my mind, none of these types of feminist thought eclipses any
other. In this context, theory is a tool for insight, not a predictor of reality.
Feminist theory can serve multiple purposes in science education re-
search. It includes a substantial amount of critical historical, sociological,
and epistemological analysis of the Western scientific enterprise and the
knowledge it creates (Birke & Hubbard, 1995; Bleier, 1986; Fausto-Sterling,
1992; Keller, 1985; Schiebinger, 1993). This work overlaps with other femi-
nist disciplinary critiques in its concern with gender’s role in knowledge
production, and has led to the claim that values and desires are so much
a part of being human that they should not be ignored in the creation and
evaluation of knowledge claims. Feminist studies have also exposed the
institutional and classroom incarnations of sexism in American schooling
(Grumet, 1988; Thorne, 1993; Weiler, 1988), and have indicated that girls
and boys experience schooling differently (American Association of Uni-
versity Women [AAUW], 1992; Sadker & Sadker, 1994). The application
of these findings and perspectives is currently minimal, but they provide
promising lenses for exploration of the progressive agenda of “science for
all.” My analyses bring these varied perspectives to the effort of develop-
ing egalitarian science education.
Like other scholars, academics working in feminist research resist la-
beling ourselves. Comparatively friendly names are assigned to feminists
Dual Influences 23

by other feminists. In addition, most feminists draw on and practice vari-

ous strands of feminist (and other) theories and practices; few identify
solely with one strand or another. Therefore, I am joining with other
authors (Lorber, 1994; Rosser, 1997; Tong, 1989) in developing labels
that fit my particular case—a teacher-researcher study of high school stu-
dents’ images of science. The descriptions I provide below are thus open
to disagreement. For now, I will explain my own labels and visions
of feminist strands of thought as they pertain to this book. I briefly ad-
dress liberal feminism and poststructural feminism here, because while
not openly utilized in the data analysis, they inform my thinking. In
addition to being described below, feminist critiques of science, differ-
ence feminism, and feminist critical pedagogy are expanded on in Chap-
ters 2, 3, and 4, respectively.

Liberal Feminism

Liberal feminists recognize that women have largely been barred from
practicing science because of political and social forces external to science.
They would argue, however, that this historical fact does not provide an
intrinsic motivation for keeping women out. Fix the political and social
forces, and more women would practice science—the way it is—success-
fully, as is indeed demonstrated by the increasing number of women in
science (but not in math or physics!). Educational reform efforts in sci-
ence are based in this perspective. In science education, gender equity is
included in national calls for reform that demand scientific literacy for all
students (AAAS, 1990, 1993; NRC, 1996). This requirement indicates a
“liberal feminist” perspective that leaves epistemological and political is-
sues untouched, yet is potentially potent in its openly egalitarian stance.
Most programs that attempt to help girls succeed in school science are
of the sort that we might call liberal feminist. In these models, girls and
women are supported in practicing skills and attributes that appear to be
important in scientific work. For example, they might be assisted in de-
veloping mathematics skills and spatial reasoning (Rosser, 1997). This
approach assumes that if women were to think, behave, learn, and work
more like male scientists, the problem of women in science would be
solved.
However, liberal feminism is less than satisfying because it leaves
unchallenged the basic structures of society and scientific practice. Many
feminists argue that the underpinnings of our society are founded in sex-
ist, racist, and classist perceptions of the social world. Merely moving
women around—even up—in a sexist structure will not alter the funda-
mental inequality endemic to the structure, not for most women, and not
24 Connecting Girls and Science

for most people. Liberal feminist perspectives fall into a “discourse of gen-
der neutrality” (Eisenhart & Finkel, 1998, pp. 179–206) in which women’s
and men’s capabilities are assumed to be qualitatively identical and quan-
titatively equal. From this, then, it follows that men and women should
be treated the same; in fact, for example, maternal leave may come to look
like special, rather than equitable, treatment. A viewpoint based in gen-
der neutrality (an assumption that women and men will be treated equally,
according to their merits and degree of hard work) hides the realities of
basic sexism, and precludes any opportunity for institutional change
(Eisenhart & Finkel, 1998).
Although equity projects—that is, efforts that teach girls to succeed
in professions dominated by men—remain a necessary part of feminist
work, these alone will not create science education that welcomes all stu-
dents. Contemporary professional science is firmly grounded in an ineq-
uitable social system, and we need to stay aware of this fact if we are to
make productive changes. When I first entered education, it was with the
goal of helping more girls like and succeed in science as it is. My learning,
through reading and in discussion with colleagues, and experientially, as
a scientist and as a teacher, has led me to a more critical perspective.

Difference Feminism

Various forms of “difference feminism,” which focuses on the effects of

socialization and/or biology on women as intellectual and moral beings,
have also made their way into education, impacting the way some teach-
ers view their students and construct their pedagogies (Belenky, Clinchy,
Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Gilligan, 1982; Maher & Tetreault, 1994). This
strand of feminism argues that girls and women, because they are raised
to nurture—physically, emotionally, and psychologically—the species’
young, demonstrate traits that are peculiar to their sex. Among these traits
is a sense of the importance of connection, mostly to other people. The
term connection also turns up in studies of girls’ and women’s “ways of
knowing” (Belenky et al., 1986). This, in turn, reflects the idea that human
relationships are central to girls and women, and helps to explain the preva-
lence of women in scientific work that is of direct social and environmen-
tal importance (Eisenhart & Finkel, 1998).
Some theorists call what I am calling “difference feminism” cultural
or radical feminism. I am using the former descriptor because it seems to
get at the gist of what this aspect of feminism is about—that is, the differ-
ences that are used to distinguish girls and women from the male norm,
both those that are biological and those that are socially constructed from
our perceptions of that biology.
Dual Influences 25

Carol Gilligan’s (1982) landmark study of women’s development and

practice of moral judgment proposed that women utilize an “ethic of care”
that is based in relationship. Other researchers have explored the impli-
cations of this model with pre-adolescent and adolescent girls (Barbieri,
1995; Gilligan, Lyons, & Hanmer, 1990). In this model, women consider
particular situations as well as the people involved in making moral choices.
This departs from a masculine model that is based in abstract rules of jus-
tice applied to all situations equally. Implied in Gilligan’s model is a valu-
ing of empathy with others. Thus feminine moral reasoning is based in
connection, in maintaining important human relationships, and in con-
sidering the particulars of the situation under study. In these aspects, femi-
nine moral reasoning and intellectual reasoning have much in common.
We notice, and act on, distinctions between people. One of our basic
distinctions is that between girls and boys. As teachers, we may think that
we treat all children equally or equitably—but this is very unlikely. In fact,
studies over the past decade have shown that even the best-intentioned
teachers call on boys more often, and encourage them to expand on their
ideas to a greater extent (AAUW, 1992; Rosser, 1992; Sadker & Sadker,
1994). Obviously, then, we will hear more from boys than we do from
girls. Therefore some explicit mention of listening to girls is called for.
If we are not explicit, our noticing of gender differences tends to go
underground. We are so accustomed to assuming the male norm as the
human norm that we will see female differences as deviant. In this light,
difference feminism appears to be a necessary part of the end to women’s
oppression. Certainly, merely celebrating traditional female roles associ-
ated with child care can “‘tie’ the individual to her identity as a woman
and thus cannot represent a solution to sexism” (Hartsock, 1995, p. 440).
But ignoring the ways that we as individual teachers and society as a whole
stereotype people in gendered ways is not going to help us to break the
stereotypes. To use a common classroom example: Children are gendered
by being put in lines to exit the classroom according to their sexes (“Boys
on the left, girls on the right”). The assimilation and continuation of gen-
der dualities results from the “everydayness” of institutional habits such
as these (Thorne, 1993).
A semantic aside is pertinent at this point. The words sex and gender
are often used interchangeably. From the viewpoint of feminism—differ-
ence feminism in particular—it is important to make a distinction between
the two. Gender indicates a social construction; gender is something that
people learn how to do. Gender consists in a set of traits, behaviors, and
expectations that cultures train girls and boys to practice and hold. The
words feminine and masculine, in this book, indicate that I am talking about
traits that I associate with gender. In counterpoint, sex is the word—and
26 Connecting Girls and Science

male and female the differentiators—indicating biological difference between

girls and boys, men and women. Sex is created by the chromosomal
complement of sex chromosomes: Males have an X and a Y; females, two
Xs. Other than this sex-chromosome difference, all humans carry the same
types of chromosomes. Due to the sex differences allowed by these differ-
ent chromosomes, however, males and females develop different repro-
ductive organs. Thus, women are biologically different from men in that
we can conceive, carry, and nutritionally provide for fetuses and infants
from our own bodies.
The studies utilized in this book come from a perspective that states
that gender is socially constructed, therefore malleable. I do not argue that
girls and women behave, learn, or make decisions in feminine ways be-
cause they are biologically female. One could picture an argument in which
someone says, “So, okay, girls don’t like to do science. There are plenty of
other things they might do. And plenty of boys to continue on with scien-
tific work. Vive la difference.” However, scientific practice is too powerful to
deny girls and women participation. Scientists and scientific knowledge
have been implicated in maintaining political and social systems that op-
press women. The work of scientists is prestigious and well-paying. For
these reasons alone, women need to gain access.

Feminist Critiques of Science

The extensive scholarship of feminist philosophers and scientists forms the

epistemological backbone of feminist pedagogy in science. Feminist sci-
entists have developed powerful critiques of scientific theories used to
justify the oppression of women in Western society. The much-cited in-
terrelatedness of science and society is clarified and exemplified by femi-
nist critiques (e.g., Bleier, 1986; Fausto-Sterling, 1992; Keller, 1985;
Schiebinger, 1999, 2000). Male (and sometimes female) scientists have
produced theories about women and men that are based in sexist attitudes:
theories that put women below men in an intellectual hierarchy (Fausto-
Sterling, 1992, 2000; Gould, 1981); theories that place women’s role as
sexual temptress and nurturer into a natural primate heritage (Strum,
1987); theories that split the human brain and assign women whichever
half is considered less powerful and important at the time (Tavris, 1992).
With a recent upsurge in biodeterminism—a philosophy that states that
men and women are created solely by their genetic codes—it has become
apparent that there is plenty of work left to be done in this field. In the
biodeterminist view, particularly as taken up by evolutionary psychology,
women are naturally passive and monogamous; men are naturally active,
polygamous, and prone to be rapists (Thornhill & Palmer, 2000). Surely
Dual Influences 27

men do not welcome this timeworn perception of their individual selves

any more than do women!
The ideological promise that underlies objectivity as the best way to
find truth has also been debunked in the philosophical community (Grosz,
1993; Harding, 1991; Rorty, 1991). Nonetheless, strangers to science—and
practicing scientists themselves—often accept the immutability of scien-
tific fact, because it is thought to have been collected and collated by those
who have disowned, at least in the practice of their craft, any prejudice or
bias coming from their experiences and views of the world. Scientific
methods and peer review are meant to clean up any of the messiness left
over. Located inside a world view that sees their own cultural and episte-
mological norms as “the only way,” scientists, as all human beings, regu-
larly fall prey to an inability to see outside their own perspectives. Femi-
nists have, indeed, argued that objectivity is male subjectivity (Code, 1993).
Feminists assert that the scientific claim of objectivity does not provide its
practitioners with a yellow-brick road to the truth. In its place, they are
beginning to create a more complex and wholly human epistemology for
learning about ourselves and the rest of the world.
Liberal and difference feminists would agree that science has been
developed (historically) without the benefit of women’s contribution.
Feminist critics of science claim that this has made science “masculine,”
unwelcoming to women, lacking in certain “feminine” attributes that
would widen and improve the practices and effects of science, particularly
its social impact. Thus girls and women students are not attracted to sci-
ence and science is unwelcoming to them. The presence of more women
in science might help to both reveal and prevent “bad science” about
women and to create a more balanced science (another point with which
most feminists would agree).
This line of thinking is very powerful when addressed to the domi-
nant Western world view that has made and been made by scientific
thought. Feminist critics of science question its claims to objectivity, call-
ing it, for example, a “chimera” (Longino, 1993, p. 10)—a mythical beast
constructed of disparate parts—neither a natural nor an obvious way of
knowing about the world. The superior ways of knowing that scientists
have claimed for themselves are thus undermined and alternative ways
of creating knowledge about the natural world are explored. Among these
is Evelyn Fox Keller’s “dynamic objectivity,” which is “a pursuit of knowl-
edge that makes use of subjective experience” (1985, p. 117). Keller re-
fers to this approach to learning about the natural world as “a kind of love”
(p. 117). Put up against the typical scientific rationality that permeates
modern Western science, any mention of the word love is certain to raise
a few eyebrows.
28 Connecting Girls and Science

A less poetic and possibly more conservative alternative to traditional

objectivity is the strong objectivity of Sandra Harding (1987). She begins
with the unassailable claim that women and non-White middle- and
upper-class men have been and continue to be excluded from the prac-
tice of science. Coupling this with the observation that there are personal
and social forces that affect the choice of scientific questions, determine
what is counted as knowledge, and influence who is heard and who is
silenced, Harding argues that the inclusion of women and those men whom
science has made unwelcome would create a wider and more socially rele-
vant science. In addition, the varied perspectives that a wide variety of
people would bring to science would increase its ability to be objective. In
this effort, she also requires that scientists should make their biases, de-
sires, and goals known, in order to obviate the tendency of scientists to
hide their biases behind assumptions of traditional objectivity.

Poststructural Feminism

In poststructural feminism, gender is conceived of as continually con-

structed and never constant, thus amenable to intentional social change
(Alcoff, 1988; Elam, 1994). In this view, there is no way to define an es-
sential humanity, let alone an essential womanhood. The intellectual and
institutional structures that shape our interpretations and actions are ever-
changing creations of people and our relations to one another. These struc-
tures are often dichotomous. For example, sex is split into male and fe-
male; gender into feminine and masculine; Homo sapiens sapiens is split into
body and mind; creative work is split into scientific-rational-generalizable
and artistic-emotional-particular. While there is no way for us to predict
what individuals will become, these structures can be constraining in the
sense of identity development, as well as influencing what we see and do
not see as salient.
Feminists have used poststructural stances to examine theories de-
veloped by feminists themselves—thus attempting to see how and where
our own otherwise unexamined viewpoints and desires might color our
interpretations of social life. This is not to say that poststructuralism is a
way to rid our work of bias, but that recognizing our positions in the world,
and our desires for ourselves and others in the world, may help to keep us
honest, and may help us to work consciously for change.
In feminist critiques of science, claims that scientific knowledge is free
from context, therefore “true” everywhere; free from prejudice, emotion,
personal, and social values; uncoupled from the body, heart, and soul; re-
sponsible only to pure “mind,” are not taken as accurate. The analytical tool
of deconstruction (among other intellectual efforts, e.g., searching for “bad
Dual Influences 29

science”) has debunked the idea that mind-work can be separated from social
and personal beliefs (Cherryholmes, 1988). Used very powerfully in science
to undermine the epistemological claims that scientists make for their work,
and also those that philosophers of science such as Bacon, Popper, and Kuhn
have made on their behalf, feminist poststructural critiques of science have
disclosed the ways that social and personal desires certainly have affected
the knowledge that the scientific enterprise has produced. In addition, this
work has opened up the possibilities that science itself could be different,
better, more complex and less alienating, if it were to recognize its own
embeddedness in the human social world.

Feminist Critical Pedagogy

“Feminist critical pedagogy” focuses on the social categories of class and

race as well as gender, and notes the role that science plays in oppression
and could play in democratization (Calabrese Barton, 1998; Eisenhart,
Finkel, & Marion, 1996). Issues of power and authority are upset and ex-
plicitly addressed, including notions of what valuable knowledge is, who
creates it, and who has access to it.
In feminist critical pedagogy, students’ understandings of the world
are joined with new knowledge; students’ experiences and feelings are
valued and count as “real knowledge.” Conversation and discussion are
vital pedagogical tools and learning activities, and may lead to communal
theory making plus action (often called “praxis”). The explicit politics of this
kind of teaching, joined with the desire to change life outside of the class-
room, differentiate it from pedagogy based solely in constructivism, which
may adopt many of the same pedagogical strategies.
Feminist critical pedagogy makes certain demands on the teacher that
other progressive pedagogies may not. For example, the teacher’s role in
upsetting authority for knowledge includes examining her own author-
ity. The teacher’s own expressions of values and experiences can leave her
feeling vulnerable and lacking in control; the typical teacher behaviors of
guidance toward a particular learning goal are put into question. She may,
paradoxically, in her efforts to establish an egalitarian relationship between
her students and herself, end up alienating students who disagree with
her. These conditions regularly clash with traditional science education,
in which scientific knowledge is presented as truth and students are ex-
pected to learn it absent its social and political implications or sources. These
conditions also conflict with business as usual in a high school classroom,
because the feminist critical teacher takes her time, deals with controver-
sial issues, and has unexpected journeys and uncertain endpoints. How-
ever, I believe that it holds great promise for “science for all.” Two main
30 Connecting Girls and Science

points stand out for me here: (1) the honest valuing of students’ experi-
ences, feelings, and beliefs; and (2) the potential for supporting students
in recognizing and acting on the fact that science is a socially embedded
enterprise with implications for the lives of women. Both of these features
of feminist critical pedagogy may help us understand our students better,
while helping them learn that “real science” is not the fact-oriented, un-
questionable entity that they find in their textbooks.

LISTENING AS PEDAGOGY AND RESEARCH

Until recently, the intellectual dominance of detached scientific rational-

ity in educational research has quieted the voices of teachers and students
alike. The emerging methodologies of teacher research have provided
powerful means to speak from and listen to these voices, without giving
up the emotional, intellectual, and practical richness that make students’
and teachers’ work so complex (Ball, 2000; Lampert, 1990; Wilson, 1995;
Wong, 1995). Feminist-influenced research also challenges the distanc-
ing stance approved by Western scientific objectivity (Keller, 1985; Weiler,
1988). My methodology draws on each of these efforts, both of which
challenge intellectual dichotomies that dominate modern academic and
commonsense thought.
Practitioners in the domains of feminist research and teacher research
are actively questioning traditional research paradigms and experiment-
ing with new ways of conducting and writing research. A willingness to
explore and experiment with varied ways of representing experience and
creating knowledge is evidenced in this work as people struggle with is-
sues of authenticity, rationality, and objectivity; intellectual authority; and
troublesome political implications of the methods and uses of social scien-
tific research. Methodology and epistemology are distinct but necessarily
mutually responsive concepts and activities in these ongoing contempo-
rary discussions. This mutuality is pertinent in the epistemological frame
of feminist research, because it argues that the researcher’s theoretical,
political, and social positions are inseparable from knowledge production.

FEMINISM AND TEACHER RESEARCH

Because I was learning to teach at the same time that I was learning femi-
nist theory, my understandings of both pedagogy and feminism developed
concurrently. My focus gradually shifted from my own visions of science
to my students’ visions. Because I was a researcher, encouragement and
Dual Influences 31

urging to make this move came from pedagogical recommendations sup-

ported by constructivist theories of learning as well as the politically mo-
tivated intentions of feminism and critical pedagogy. Below, I delineate
how these two threads in my teacher-researcher thinking continue to guide
my analyses of students’ visions of science.
The initial purpose of this teacher-research project was to conduct an
in-depth study of instances in my high school biology teaching in which I
perceived my practice to be feminist. I wanted to explore the ramifications
of feminist recommendations put into practice. While the purpose of ex-
amining my own feminist practice remained very much in the picture, I
shifted away from myself as the analysis became focused on “listening to
students.” The scenarios that I chose to study are those in which I was able
to concentrate on what the students were saying. By extension, this work
also describes situations (inside and outside of class, but always in school)
in which students’ ideas were front and center.
Because I am a feminist educator and teacher researcher, my goal
is to challenge and change, not to replicate. Therefore it is necessary to
express my political, social, and theoretical places in the world as clearly
as possible. As do other feminist researchers, I distinguish myself from
other qualitative researchers by “put[ting] the social construction of
gender at the center of . . . inquiry,” while “the methodological task . . .
has become generating and refining more interactive, contextualized
methods in the search for pattern and meaning rather than for predic-
tion and control” (Lather, 1991, p. 71). Thus my research originates in a
conception of gender as something that permeates and is actualized by
human social and intellectual interactions, including those interactions
that generate scientific knowledge and create science classrooms. While
some researchers speak of feminism as a methodology, others consider
it a perspective (Reinharz, 1992). The latter matches most accurately my
analytical approach.

Feminist Methodology and Epistemology

Methodology of any type provides a frame for hearing, seeing, and feel-
ing human experience, and thus has implications for the knowledge that
the researcher creates about the social world. Methodology is chosen to
fit with the epistemological demands of the researcher and the researcher’s
community. Epistemology—the study of knowledge—produces and ex-
amines bases for validity, authenticity, and usefulness of the researcher’s
accounts and explanations. One of the most powerful of the contributions
that feminists have made to epistemology is the argument that knowledge
cannot be value free (Shulman, 1994). This is to say that individuals hear,
32 Connecting Girls and Science

see, and feel differently not because we are biologically different, but be-
cause we are differentially placed in a social structure that gives prece-
dence to some ways of knowing over others. All humans are located in a
social structure that constructs our desires, interests, and sense of power
(actual and perceived)—including the means and norms for creating new
knowledge. Thus feminist epistemology speaks of and to all people—not
just the female ones—who claim knowing as their business.

Feminist epistemology is neither the specification of a female way of know-

ing (there is no such thing) nor simply the articulation of female subjectiv-
ity which reveals itself to be diverse, contradictory and at least partially dis-
cursively constructed through patriarchal oppositions. Feminist epistemology
consists rather in attention to epistemological concerns arising out of femi-
nist projects, which prompt reflection on the nature of knowledge and our
methods for attaining it. (Lennon & Whitford, 1994, p. 13)

Feminist methodologists and epistemologists insist on attending to the

observation that method, methodology, and epistemology are intertwined,
with tendrils and vines from one organically tied to each of the others.
This idea is probably not new to qualitative researchers of any political or
epistemological persuasion (Griffiths, 1998). What is “new”—what is re-
quired—is the notion that the researcher make her place in this thicket
overt and accessible to readers. Valuable knowledge resulting from re-
search—its creation and uses, particularly—is defined by those in power,
often to re-create, fundamentally unaltered, the very systems that they
study (Gould, 1981; Keller, 1985; Schiebinger, 1989, 1993). In an effort
to work against this tradition, femininist approaches include making one’s
own beliefs about knowledge and its creation through research and writ-
ing as explicit as possible (Harding, 1987; Olesen, 1994; Smith, 1987).
Feminist methodologists, along with other qualitative writers, have
also made the revolutionary claim that emotional and personal aspects of
the researcher’s work need not (in some case, should not) be ignored. In-
tellectual work and personal, practical experience are not discrete but
connected: Theory and knowledge claims are not heaven-sent but are
based in persons who exist within a social system. Questions and issues
that attract one’s attention arise from one’s place in the world. An anthro-
pologist sees and hears different things from a microbiologist even if they
are both hanging out around the Ganges; a parent perceives her or his child
differently from how a teacher does. My point is merely that what we
know, and what we experience, shapes what we note as salient, intrigu-
ing, or disturbing. This perspective on intellectual perception is a tenet of
constructivist theories of learning as well.
Dual Influences 33

It is here that my, and I would argue anyone else’s, methodology lies:
in the interaction between the ideas in the head and heart and the rest of
the world. In this sense, traditional dichotomies of self are set aside by both
feminist and teacher-researcher methodologies. They both refuse to deny
the subject—the observer, the participant, the feminist, the teacher—who
plans, collects, and interprets the data. They allow apparently contradic-
tory ways of being and thinking to occupy the same space: feminism and
science, emotion and rationality, generalization and particularity, complex-
ity and clarity, are attended to simultaneously; one need not be sacrificed
for the sake of the other.

Teacher Research as Listening

Teachers are embedded in classrooms. Like no other nonfamilial adults,

we are uniquely placed to listen to students on a day-to-day basis. There
are, nonetheless, barriers to attentive listening by the teacher. Lessons must
be got through. Eager students in the front of the room direct our atten-
tion away from those in the back who have “checked out.” Public an-
nouncements regularly interrupt classroom discussion and even pull stu-
dents out of the classroom, for softball practice, band rehearsals, or golf
tournaments. Even in the best of cases, we usually listen for what we wish
to hear, attempting to connect and transform students’ ideas to the con-
tent at hand; hoping to work with the flow of discussion so that it con-
verges on a pertinent question or intriguing theory; listening for student
ideas that can help us push their science learning forward. In this context,
it is difficult to focus on what the students are really saying, let alone take
the time to explore their visions of science as a social enterprise.
A researcher sitting in the back of the room certainly has advantages
over one standing in the front, in terms of intellectual sanity and clarity.
However, this outside-observer perspective would not provide me with
access to the internal struggle ensuing from teaching with feminist ideas,
some more clearly formed than others, in my head. It would also not grant
me the intensive, particular relationships that the teacher develops with
students. Indeed, outsider research might tend to produce a relatively
impoverished understanding of what was going on in the classroom. It
would not get at what was in my head as I taught, at least not in the same
way (Ball, 2000).
The opportunity to conduct research on students’ ideas gave me the
reason and the excuse to stop and listen to what students were really say-
ing. The activities that I planned and conducted as these students’ teacher
provided the material for this study, and that was part of their purpose. I
want not to separate, therefore, my role as teacher from my role as re-
34 Connecting Girls and Science

searcher, because, in fact, my ideas as a researcher informed my teaching

choices even as the teaching was going on. Conversely, in my role as re-
searcher, my teacher-thinking is always present.
Nonetheless, the factor of time is one that I cannot ignore. As a full-
time graduate student and part-time teacher, I was blessed with the time
to listen. I had the opportunity to delve into the students’ ideas. I was free
from the regular school-day pressures and constrictions that keep many
full-time teachers from engaging in research. In view of the ways that
teaching, science knowledge in school, and the high school day are cur-
rently structured, this time to listen carefully to adolescents was a luxury.
The chance to listen at leisure to students intensified my desire to learn
how to listen better in the moment, in the midst of educational relation-
ships and activities. In a broader sense, I am inspired to work at restruc-
turing schooling and science teaching so that students and their ideas
become the center of the learning experience.
The classroom assignments I used as data sources are journal writing,
group work, classroom discussions, and student presentations (described
below). Other than the interview-conversations, all of these data sources
came from regular classroom work; while I designed assignments particu-
larly to encourage students to express their ideas and beliefs, these assign-
ments also supported the science curriculum. In addition, as with any
teaching, there were always plenty of data ready at hand. Teacher-research
data are the very stuff of which our teaching and our students’ learning—
we hope, if we attend to their words and their work thoughtfully—is made.

Interview-conversations

Interview-conversations were conducted with student participants dur-

ing the last semester of my four years of teaching high school biology. These
interview-conversations were voluntary, as students responded to my
requests made to the whole class. I took an intentionally semistructured
approach to these interview-conversations, encouraging students to pur-
sue lines of questioning that they found intriguing, while adding gender-
related questions and issues to the conversational mix. I did have a list of
prepared questions that I used to get the conversation going and to re-
mind myself to ask things that I did not want to forget. However, these
were not purely one-way interviews, because they shifted with each stu-
dent or set of students, and because I also inserted my own ideas and be-
liefs occasionally. They were not strictly conversational, either, because I
did have particular issues that I guided students to talk about. It is due to
this structure that I employ the term interview-conversations rather than
interviews or conversations. Some interview-conversations were one-on-one,
Dual Influences 35

with a single student and myself. Others were attended by more than one
student.

Students’ Writing and Drawing

Students wrote, on more than one occasion, in response to questions I

developed with the intent of learning about their images of scientists and
scientific work.1 These questions were also aimed at figuring out how the
students thought of themselves as scientists. I asked these questions at the
beginning and the end of the semester. I also utilized similar data from
the semester before, during which I had asked questions concerning ste-
reotypes of scientists. The only students’ writing that I used from this pre-
vious semester, in which students had taken general biology with me, was
that of students who were also in the genetics class that forms the focus of
this study. The questions asked in this vein were:

• What do you think it means to “be a good scientist”?

• Do you think that you have the traits of a “good scientist”? Why,
why not, some yes, some no?

I asked students to respond to these questions on January 30, early in the

semester. I asked them to respond again, on June 1, late in the semester,
with the addition of this question:

• Have your ideas changed at all since the beginning of the year or
of the semester? Please explain how and why they have or have
not changed.

The question asked in the semester before appeared on a biology ex-

amination (January 20). This was:

• We spent a few days discussing the concept of stereotypes of sci-

entists, and how scientists we could imagine could be different from
these stereotypes. Explain your position on this issue. Approach it
however you like—humor is allowed—but take it seriously, none-
theless.

Students in this classroom often drew on overheads and newsprint.

This drawing was to accompany presentations, or else to indicate to me
their thinking as an addition to or substitute for writing. Drawings were
usually made in groups. The drawings also contribute to the data for this
study.
36 Connecting Girls and Science

Classroom and Group Discussion

Audiotapes and videotapes of group and classroom discussion were uti-

lized for this study. Occasionally, I have utilized comments that students
made to me, or to the whole class, during times outside of these dates.
The data addressed come from small-group and whole-group discussions
during the prenatal-testing unit, as well as our bioethics work (please see
Tables 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3).

The Course and the Students

The subject population consists of students enrolled and participating in

the genetics course described below. The class started out with 19 students,
one of whom transferred to another section and one of whom transferred
to another school. This left us with 17 students: 1 African American girl,
13 White girls, and 3 White boys. Their school served a largely White neigh-
borhood of a variety of socioeconomic classes, mostly working- and middle-
class families. The small town that this school served was at the time a
mostly White working-class community; parents worked in local indus-
try, in service positions, or for the government in the nearby county seat.
A small number of Latinos and African Americans attended the school.
New housing developments were beginning to replace the farmland in the
surrounding rural areas; therefore more middle-class students were com-
ing to the school than had in the past.
The data from this study are from the fourth and last year I taught
this course, which was one of four choices that students had after a
semester-long course in biology. Students participated in this study on a
volunteer basis, with parent or guardian permission. The class was inten-
tionally heterogeneous in terms of students’ past academic success, match-
ing a schoolwide philosophy that rejected tracking. All students had taken
a required semester of general biology. The human genetics course that is
the focus of this study fulfilled a second-semester requirement of biology;
human genetics was one of four biological sciences among which students
chose (the others were botany, human physiology, and zoology). For most
of the students in the class, this was the last science class they would take
in high school. The focus in human genetics was chosen as a way to help
students learn basic Mendelian genetics as well as more recent develop-
ments in scientific understanding of genetics at the cellular and molecu-
lar levels. Traditional activities such as crossing problems (e.g., What are
the possibilities for offspring if a tall pea plant is crossed with a short pea
plant?) were interspersed with unusual activities including studying and
discussing “case studies” of teenagers with genetic conditions such as Down
Dual Influences 37

Table 1.1. Overview of the Human Genetics Curriculum

Dates Content

January 23–24 Introduction to human genetics

January 26–31 Cystic fibrosis and Mendelian
genetics
February 1–4 Mitosis
Karyotypes
Genes make up chromosomes
Chromosomal replication
February 5–7 Meiosis
Karyotypes
Genes make up chromosomes
Chromosomal inheritance
February 7–28 Genotypes and phenotypes
Dominance and recessiveness
Pedigrees
Chromosomal inheritance
Inherited human traits
March 1–21 Monohybrid crosses
Punnett square
Product rule
Probability and deviation
Dihybrid crosses
March 23–April 11 Population genetics
Hardy-Weinberg rule
May 1–4 Sex-linked inheritance
Lyon Hypothesis
Blood type inheritance
May 8–10 Mutations and genetic defects
Chromosomal mutations
Prenatal testing
May 11–17 Prenatal testing
May 22–31 Bioethics
May 31–June 11 Applied genetics
Molecular genetics
w
38 Connecting Girls and Science

Table 1.2. Overview of the Prenatal Testing Unit

Date Content Summary of Lesson

May 4 Chromosomal mutations Students look up prenatal screening

tests in text (BSCS), and write
Prenatal tests summaries of the procedures and
the information they provide.

May 5 Chromosomal mutations Students read stories about teenagers

with Klinefelter’s syndrome and
Down syndrome and answer
accompanying questions.

May 8 Chromosomal mutations Students take notes on teacher’s

lecture. Whole-group discussion
Prenatal tests about content.

May 9 Chromosomal mutations Lecture, whole-group discussion,

and group work on chromosomal
mutations assignment.

May 11 Chromosomal mutations Begin prenatal testing assignment:

Choose prenatal test and begin
Prenatal tests research.

May 12 Prenatal tests Students continue research and

prepare for presentations.

May 16 Prenatal tests Introduction to crossing over.

Begin presentations of prenatal tests
Crossing over and chromosome research.
mapping

May 17 Prenatal tests Finish prenatal tests presentations.

Whole-group discussion of prenatal
Crossing over and chromosome tests.
mapping Review for exam.

and Klinefelter’s syndrome. The instructional structure was regularly var-

ied between lecture and whole-group discussion, and group work and
group presentations. The students were familiar with this structure in sci-
ence; because the teachers in the science department worked closely to-
gether and based their instructional choices in constructivist theories of
learning and locally (within the school) developed curriculum, the science
classes generally had the same basic structure.
Dual Influences 39

Table 1.3. Bioethics Unit Overview

Date Content Summary of Lesson

May 22 Bioethics Survey

Hammer Exercise
Begin Personal Reference Sheet
(which will be added to and revised
throughout the unit)

May 23 Bioethics Writing and discussion finishing the

sentence “Life begins when . . .”

May 25 Bioethics Discuss: Why study bioethics?

Read and discuss bioethics case studies
Applied genetics

May 26 Applied genetics Work on applied genetics content, in

groups

May 30 Bioethics “60 Minutes” video about bioethics

Continue with case studies
Applied genetics

May 31 Bioethics Writing and discussion of “Life begins

when . . .” and “Life ends when . . .”
Applied genetics Begin “Design a Life Form” group
activity, simulating the use of
traditional and contemporary genetics
engineering techniques

June 1–12 Bioethics Work on “Design a Life Form”

Present “life forms”
Applied genetics Vote for “best life-forms”
w

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN FEMINISM AND

SCIENCE EDUCATION REFORM

Teaching and learning all of the contemporary content of science, let

alone keeping track of what ideas, concepts, and interpretations are cur-
rently in vogue, is a possibility not seriously considered by science edu-
cators. Instead, teaching science in ways that demonstrate its intellec-
tual power has been the focus of reformers since at least the Sputnik scare
of the 1950s. This emphasis, which runs throughout science reform rec-
ommendations, stresses the learning of scientific methods, disciplinary
structure (Bruner, 1966; Schwab, 1978), and Deweyan “habits of mind”
40 Connecting Girls and Science

(1902/1956; AAAS, 1990). None of these plans, however, recommend

that students learn that science holds within its very structures the traces
of social values and prejudices, both explicitly and implicitly developed
and encouraged by scientists throughout history as well as in our own
times.
In addition, arguments for reform in science education uncritically
celebrate science as the way to national technological and economic pre-
eminence in an increasingly interrelated global society. Understandably,
in a venue that needs to accent urgency in order to garner active support,
reformers draw on the demonstrated efficacy of scientific knowledge in
its ability to productively confront the problems of humanity (Glenn Com-
mission, 2001). This tactic supports a stereotype of scientists and their
activities that alienates those who are unwilling to wield such superhu-
man power; it also feeds a protective aura around science, denying its
political and social contingency.
Portraying scientific knowledge as socially constructed—that is, as
developed, contested, and consensualized by a social group imbedded in
and interactive with the larger society—can dissolve the mystification that
has arisen around scientists, scientific practice, and scientific knowledge.
Therefore, the knowledge that scientists work in a value-laden world, and
themselves hold particular values, is cause to celebrate. While refusing to
assume that social isolation and consequent certainty of scientific knowl-
edge increase the intricacy of teaching, we may also use this perspective
to create more intriguing educational practices.
Along with a denial of the social imperviousness of science comes the
recognition of the political aspects of science. “Political” here is meant not
as a pejorative, but as a name for that within science that precludes the
desirability, or even possibility, of a view of science that disowns its place
in society at large. As is claimed in Science for All Americans, it is important
for students to recognize

the influence of society on the development of science and technology, and

the impact of science and technology on society. It is important, for example,
for students to become aware that women and minorities have made sig-
nificant contributions in spite of the barriers put in their way by society; that
the roots of science, mathematics, and technology go back to the early Egyp-
tian, Greek, Arabic, and Chinese cultures; and that scientists bring to their
work the values and prejudices of the cultures in which they live. (AAAS,
1990, p. 189)

It is easy to criticize reform documents for what they leave out; for
example, while Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1990) argues for the in-
Dual Influences 41

clusion of “all” in science education, it does not examine how science

itself maintains exclusionary practices. Nonetheless, this explicit recom-
mendation to teach science as reciprocally related to society suggests the
possibility of helping students come to a critical understanding of the sci-
entific enterprise. In order to move toward this complex goal, one of the
many things that we need to attend to is what students themselves think
about science as a social enterprise. Feminism provides a forceful ally in
this effort.
42 Connecting Girls and Science

2
Studying Prenatal Testing
Connection and Alienation

[When girls are intrigued with science] there is often a special emphasis on
the relevance of science to social issues (Mason & Kahle, 1988; Stage et al.,
1987) and to everyday occurrences with which girls are likely to be familiar.
—Brickhouse, 1994, p. 3

Sound teaching usually begins with questions and phenomena that are inter-
esting and familiar to students, not with abstractions or phenomena outside
their range of perception, understanding, or knowledge.
—AAAS, 1990, p. 188

In this chapter, I explore how a few high school sophomore girls expressed
their relationships to and understandings of prenatal testing and its pos-
sible place in their lives and in the lives of others. The data come from
an assignment I designed to help students bring their understandings of
prenatal testing into the realm of personal choice, as well as practice ap-
plying the science of chromosomal inheritance. Here, there were two con-
cerns supporting my teaching choices. First, my feminist convictions en-
join me to recognize and value girls’ interests and knowledge. Second,
progressive science education requires that we help students make con-
nections between science and students’ “real worlds.” The design of this
particular assignment was premised on the tenets of difference feminism,
which I interpreted as implying that girls might be interested in science
that connects to human bodies, children, and women’s traditional re-
sponsibilities, particularly childbearing and child-rearing. In examining
this hypothesis, I concentrated on this question: How can difference femi-
nism help us to better comprehend high school girls’ relationships with
female bodies (their own and others’), with science, and with reproduc-
tive technology?

42
Studying Prenatal Testing 43

DIFFERENCE FEMINISM:
CONNECTING GIRLS AND SCIENCE

Difference feminism tends to focus on biological, psychological, and so-

cial differences between men and women. This aspect of gender studies
did not arise with feminism; in truth, it carries within it the capacity for
reactionary and repressive power. However, it is also potentially revolu-
tionary. For example, such scholars as Carol Gilligan et al. (1990) and the
authors of Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice and Mind
(Belenky et al., 1986) originally insisted on studying only women. This
choice is notable in itself. In our patriarchal society, men are kept as the
standard and the rule, while women, at least since Aristotle brought us
the theory that women are “mutilated males” (Lerner, 1986, p. 207), are
viewed as not only different from but inferior to men. Therefore by mak-
ing the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of girls and
women the substance of their studies, these researchers and their follow-
ers are denying the focus on men, and/or comparison with men, that has
characterized work in human moral and intellectual development.1
I choose to look at this work as a way to add to the panoply of moral
and intellectual traits that girls and boys, women and men, can make part
of ourselves and act on. For example, experiences of “connected ways of
knowing,” in which learners recognize and use their lives and emotions
to connect to course content, ring true for many people of both sexes
(Belenky et al., 1986). Notably, “connected” is not how most science teach-
ing is characterized. Instead, as represented in textbooks, lectures, and
canned laboratory experiences, scientific concepts are regularly separated
from the rest of our lives.
As a feminist biology teacher, I am intrigued by feminism associated
with biological differences between male and female human bodies. Out
of the myriad activities that humans participate in and carry out in order
to survive and thrive as a species, pregnancy, childbirth, and the ability to
produce corporeal sustenance from our bodies are uniquely female. Be-
cause women can literally embody the fertility and life-sustaining processes
of nature (Daly, 1990; DiQuinzio, 1999; King, 1995; Merchant, 1980;
Schiebinger, 1993), we may assert a special power grounded in the ability
to nurture and bring forth new life. However, this particular attribute of
female humans is also used to oppress women in most if not all cultures
(Fausto-Sterling, 1992; Lerner, 1986; Plumwood, 1993; Rubin, 1975). For
example, in the United States, the ability to become pregnant—whether
or not one is pregnant, has been pregnant, or plans to become pregnant—
often bars women from attaining permanent and potent positions of power
44 Connecting Girls and Science

or maintaining stable employment (Lorber, 1994; Pollitt, 1995). In addi-

tion, scientists and philosophers have argued for centuries that this female
connection to nature puts us on a lower plane than men: We are placed,
in the White male-centered intellectual hierarchy, closer to the animals
and further from the angels.
Because women conceive, carry, birth, and nurture new life, we have
historically been associated with images of fertility and nurturance. We
have also been assigned the emotional and practical knowledge and tal-
ents that attend the roles of childbearer, child-protector, and child-feeder.
Women are socialized to fulfill these roles from the moment their biologi-
cal sex is determined. Difference feminists argue that we learn to care for
others; learn to identify with others’ emotions, pain, and fear; and learn
to manage relationships so that they benefit everyone involved—not nec-
essarily, but often, excluding ourselves. Thus these physical and psycho-
logical identifiers of the female are linked, resulting in social and personal
assumptions that put women in charge of children and intimate human
relationships. The biological certitude that women can bear children be-
comes the justification for the validity of status-quo beliefs about roles of
men and women, and, consequently, the justification for training and
expectations that distinguish boys from girls and aim to help all children
fit into their gender assignments.
Following this line of reasoning, then, women learn to be in the world
and in relationship in ways fundamental to their identification as female.
One of the reasons that difference feminism is problematic is that via its
focus on differences between men and women, it tends to create catego-
ries that clump all women together, setting aside distinctions among indi-
vidual cultures and individual women. We need to affirm that individual
girls’ and women’s conceptions of their gendered selves are constructed
in interaction with family structures and relationships, race, class, and
sexuality. Although we hold biological female-ness in common,2 there are
powerful variables that conspire to make each of us unique in how we
view and use our reproductive capabilities.

TWO CAVEATS: PRIVILEGE AND ESSENTIALISM

The perspectives of what I am calling difference feminism are very pow-

erful for me. Difference feminism both helps me to explain my own rela-
tional world and has suggested theoretical frameworks for studies in co-
educational science classrooms. Nonetheless, my first caveat originates in
the recognition that these ideas have developed mainly from studies with
White middle- and upper-middle-class adolescent girls and women. For
Studying Prenatal Testing 45

example, Making Connections: The Relational Worlds of Adolescent Girls at Emma

Willard School (Gilligan et al., 1990) is the result of longitudinal studies of
the developing moral lives of adolescent girls at a private school. This group
represents privileged girls growing up in financially secure—even
wealthy—circumstances. I am certain that the authors would agree that
it would be inappropriate to apply their findings to all girls. Therefore I
use their ideas as suggestive insights, not as testable truths.
The second caveat arises from my scientific sensibilities. As a feminist
in the life sciences, I am painfully aware of the ways that my chosen dis-
cipline has been utilized to maintain oppressive and undemocratic gen-
der roles. The type of difference feminism that claims special connection
to the Earth, to other women, to children, to peace, and to the cosmos
can sometimes be spiritually comforting. (A graduate student once told
me that she was loath to give up this powerful connection in deference to
a rational argument against any special link women possess to nature
purely because they are women.) But difference feminism becomes dan-
gerous when it slips into the claim that behaviors commonly thought of
as feminine or masculine—for example, nurturance or aggressiveness—
are “natural.” In addition, this perspective can absolve men of responsi-
bility for the care of children, for the environment, and for peaceful rela-
tions between people and nations.
I want to make it very clear that I do not operate from the assump-
tion that women possess the traits delineated by difference feminism di-
rectly because they are biologically female. As soon as babies are identi-
fied as male or as female, a whole set of gender-socialization activities goes
into motion. Babies are clothed in order to advertise their sex; they are
supported in the pursuit of gender-appropriate roles; they are punished
for gender-deviating behavior and praised for suitable behaviors. (Lest we
become comfortable in a contemporary society that apparently accepts
alternate forms of gender identification, we need to recall the recent growth
in violence toward people who dare to pretend to be anything other than
their dualistically defined biological sex.) Therefore, although the gendered
behaviors noted by difference feminists may result from the facts of sexual
biology, they are not the biological result—they are the social result. And
therefore, these behaviors vary and can change (and do change)—socially,
individually, and across sexes.
I aim to keep these caveats in the front of my mind as I study these
students’ words and work. I ask you, the reader, to do the same. We have
been taught to behave in particular, socially constructed ways because of
the reproductive organs with which we were born. For me, this conjec-
ture is at the core of what I am calling difference feminism. It is the ten-
sion between recognizing the value of traditionally feminine traits, while
46 Connecting Girls and Science

insisting that these are neither natural nor immutable because one is bio-
logically female, that holds both the most trouble and the most potential
for difference feminism.

TEACHING GENETICS THROUGH

STUDIES OF PRENATAL TESTING

Contemporary science education reforms, based in the egalitarian ideal of

“science for all,” urge teachers to help students connect to science via a
recognition of students’ existing interests and knowledge. This idea rec-
ognizes the constructivist learning tenet that students come to the class-
room study of phenomena with theories of their own, developed from their
experiences and learning in other contexts. Thus, for example, my stu-
dents had heard of amniocentesis; they had an idea of what it was from
health class, television, and relationships outside of school; and they had
tentative explanations for its purposes.
The standards documents explicitly state that teachers should attempt
to choose themes and activities that help students to connect science to
their so-called real lives. However, there is no mention of how teachers
might specifically connect girls and science. This is a place where the stan-
dards documents open up an area for exploration in the pursuit of “sci-
ence for all”; a place where we can draw on the rhetoric to explore its fuller
implications.
Researchers concerned with the underrepresentation of women in
science and the lack of success of large numbers of girls in school science
have looked for reasons for these inequities (AAUW, 1992; Brickhouse,
1994; Rosser, 1992, 1997; Sadker & Sadker, 1994). These studies have come
up with a common conclusion, summarized here by Myra and David
Sadker (1994):

Girls participate less in science class, allow boys to take over the lab equip-
ment, and watch male students conduct scientific demonstrations. As in the
case of math, they do not understand the usefulness of science to society or
to themselves. Many girls say that science makes them feel stupid. (p. 124)

In the AAUW study (1992) How Schools Shortchange Girls, the authors found
that girls lag behind boys in achievement in all of the sciences, with biol-
ogy showing the least difference (p. 26). For whatever reasons, girls ap-
pear to be more interested and more successful in the biological sciences.
Along with these well-documented and much-publicized studies come
recommendations for the development of curricula and pedagogies that
Studying Prenatal Testing 47

will more closely match the interests of girls and young women. In gen-
eral, these recommendations indicate that scientific content explicitly based
in the experiences, feelings, and interests of girls will help us to develop
scientific content and teaching methods that attract more girls to science.
Difference feminism, in particular, helps to illuminate these possibilities.
Attentively and openly listening to girls, studying their interactions with
topics aimed to hook up with interests that we tentatively assume they
hold, we may learn something about how to teach science so that it more
successfully connects to girls’ lives. In addition, we may ourselves learn to
value the experiences and the knowledge that girls bring to science.
As a teacher, I do not assume that students are interested only in things
that are close to their bodies and their lives. Students do, however, regu-
larly bring to biology class their questions about the anatomical and physi-
ological conditions of others. They revel in discussions and learning about
things that human bodies can do, in normal and especially in unusual cir-
cumstances. My ability to predict what will captivate my students falls short
of their ability to ask questions that I have no clue as to how to answer. In
this context, the pedagogical challenge is to connect teenagers’ fascina-
tion with the unusual to the everyday and the mundane, which is what
most of basic genetics involves. We did devote attention, in this course, to
genetic conditions that result in individual biologies that depart from the
norm; as well, prenatal testing itself is an example of looking for genetic
markers or predispositions that might result in offspring with genetically-
based disorders. The prenatal-testing assignment described below was an
attempt on my part to intrigue students with the details of genetic screen-
ing in such a way as to enrich their understanding of chromosomal and
gene inheritance, which was the basic stuff of genetics that we were
studying.
I designed this assignment concerning prenatal testing partly to ex-
plore the research-based hypothesis that girls would be attracted to sci-
ence that they could connect to their bodies and their lives, present and
future (Brickhouse, 1994; Rosser, 1992, 1997). Because, like pregnancy,
the direct physical experience of prenatal testing is something that only a
woman can have, it provides a context within which women’s bodies and
lives are central.
I especially hoped that girls would connect with this assignment in
ways that would lead to a confident comprehension of the techniques and
scientific bases for prenatal testing. The time-honored feminist statement
“The personal is political” is nowhere so pertinent as in the arena of re-
productive choice. And because women, not men, incubate, nourish, birth,
and suckle new human beings, it remains the one thing that we hold (at
least for now, and for some women more than others) certainly in our
48 Connecting Girls and Science

grasp. Thus images of women as life-givers evoke both images of power

and competence and visions of tenderness and its attendant vulnerabil-
ity. My thinking here is reflective of these questions: What can we do to
help girls believe that science can play a valuable role in their lives? How
can we help them learn to feel smart, rather than stupid, in their encoun-
ters with scientific knowledge and practices?
As the culminating product of the students’ prenatal-testing study, I
required that they create a presentation concerning a particular type of
prenatal genetic testing to the class in the form of a role play. The roles
that I suggested were (1) doctor, (2) pregnant woman, (3) her husband,
and (4) a concerned relative or friend. I chose “husband” instead of “part-
ner” to avert negative repercussions from students or parents concerning
out-of-wedlock birth or same-sex relationships. Because, as a feminist, I
believe that it is innappropriate to constrict women and men to hetero-
sexual relationships, or to childbirth and child-rearing only within het-
erosexual marriage, this choice was not comfortable for me and is some-
thing I would approach less conservatively next time.
Up to this point, students had been studying ultrasound, amniocen-
tesis, chorionic villi sampling, and Alphafetoprotein (AFP) testing using
an age-level genetics text (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, n.d.) and
my lecturing. (Chorionic villi sampling is a prenatal test in which the
embryonic chromosomes are obtained by taking a sample of the villi that
line the chorion. The chorion is made by the developing fetus; therefore
its cells contain fetal chromosomes. AFP is a protein produced by the de-
veloping fetus. High levels in the mother’s blood indicate at least three
possibilities: One, that twins are expected; two, that the fetus has Down
syndrome; and three, that the fetal spinal cord is not developing properly.)
For their research, I added other print materials to the available re-
source. Some students contacted local hospitals and clinics to gather more
information.3 The questions that I required students to address were:

• Why is the doctor recommending this test?

• During what time period in the pregnancy is this test used?
• What, specifically, do geneticists and doctors use this test to find
out?
• What are the possible dangers of this test?
• Would you choose (or encourage your wife to choose) to have such
a test?
• Do you think that women should be required to have such tests?

As in any bioethics study that involves delicate and private issues, I did
not demand that any student participate if he or she was uncomfortable.
Studying Prenatal Testing 49

All students chose to participate. Students generally adhered to the roles

that I suggested, with exceptions when the size of the group or its makeup
encouraged students to play sister or brother instead of or in addition to
husband.
Student presentations are one way for a teacher to give up the floor,
thus upsetting the typical knowledge hierarchy in which all ideas ema-
nate from the teacher. In addition, they create situations in which stu-
dents talk directly to each other, during both the planning process and the
presentation itself. This allows for a special kind of teacher listening, dis-
tinct from that which goes on during typical class discussions in which one
student speaks at a time, then the teacher, then another student, then the
teacher, and so on (Cazden, 1988; Lemke, 1990). When students are in
charge of presenting ideas, their words need not continually be filtered
through and reinterpreted by the teacher. Thus the students can hear each
other, and the teacher can listen to the students as they portray knowl-
edge, question each other, and develop public understandings of ideas as
well as clarify and externalize individual beliefs and comprehensions of
the scientific content.
My goals for this assignment were to support students in applying the
science of genetic inheritance theory in order to comprehend the tech-
nology, and to begin to struggle from scientifically informed perspectives
with the ethics involved in reproductive choice. I wanted to give them
practice with the scientific concepts that we had been working with
throughout the semester: meiosis and mitosis, the connections between
genes and physical traits, the contributions that each parent makes to off-
spring, and the effects of gene and chromosomal mutations. I hoped to
support them as well in exploring their own beliefs in a context that might
mimic their future experiences as pregnant women, as concerned others,
as doctors and other health professionals, and as scientists faced with dif-
ficult and subtle scientific and personal issues.
The boys in this class were full participants in our study of prenatal
testing. Men too can be parents, and thus cannot be ignored in learning about
genetic screening. It is usually couples, in fact, not women on their own,
who have the means even to consider any form of genetic testing. How-
ever, here again I hit on one of the tensions endemic to difference femi-
nism: It is women who bear children and women who provide for the bulk
of their care. This remains true even for most successful professional women
scientists in our new century (Schiebinger, 1999). But my intention was to
provide a welcoming setting for all students to think about conception, preg-
nancy, and potential children from a perspective based in genetics.
Thus my objectives for the activity described above were both scien-
tific and feminist: to help students further explore and refine their learn-
50 Connecting Girls and Science

ing about genetic inheritance; and to practice thinking into the future,
about what it might be like to consider and participate in such a test ei-
ther personally or vicariously, as an intimate other (e.g., a husband). In
conjoining these two goals, I intended that students, by gaining a stron-
ger grasp of the science, would in the future be able to interact with doc-
tors and technicians with confidence and understanding. In a larger,
sociopolitical sense, I hoped that students would explore and explicate their
ideas concerning governmental and societal pressures in the areas of abor-
tion and genetic screening, particularly regarding the capacity to restrict
or support women’s reproductive freedom to choose to or choose not to
carry a pregnancy to term.
My exploration of these students’ talk during this assignment focuses
on the female members of this class; boys’ talk is included only when it is
part of a transcript that includes girls. As readers may recall, the member-
ship of this course comprised 14 girls, 3 boys, and me. Therefore this focus
on girls was not difficult to attain. The analysis is not comparative between
the girls and the boys; I am, again, centering on what the girls say. Thus I
follow the example of Gilligan et al. (1990), Belenky et al. (1986), and other
researchers mentioned earlier in this chapter, not in order to compare girls
and boys, but to address the concerns, interests, and learning of the girls
on their own terms. The following sections are devoted to describing what
I learned from listening to these girls as they developed and presented their
work.

CONNECTION AND/OR ALIENATION

My teacher-researcher goals are forefronted by my belief that students have

plenty to say when they are given the opportunity. Thus, I listened for stu-
dents’ interactions with the assignment and the material under study, pre-
pared to hear signs of their interest in the processes of pregnancy and fetal
development. I did not foresee the girls’ alienation from the topic that I have
perceived through this research. Presuppositions that I harbored that girls are
“naturally” interested in pregnancy, just because it is something their bodies
can do, were quickly put to rest. During my analysis, I recalled my own teen-
aged self: Pregnancy and childbirth were about as close to my mind as the
10-dimensional universe posited by superstring theory.
However, my biology courses never included such a focus on these
female- and feminine-associated activities. If they had, would I have
expressed the concern for the developing fetus and, in particular, a view
of fetus as “baby” that I hear coming through loud and clear in the girls’
discussions and presentations? Would I have contributed to the abundance
Studying Prenatal Testing 51

of student questions and stories based in their outside-of-school lives—

the media and neighbors’, mothers’ (but not fathers’), and even their own
direct experiences with prenatal testing and similar technologies? I would
certainly have had plenty of data, growing up as I did in a family of seven
children, in which I was regularly called on to support my parents in baby-
care responsibilities.

Questions and Perceptions About Fetuses,

Babies, Pregnancy, and Childbirth

Based on the perspectives and hypotheses of difference feminism, I had

hoped that, because it concerned female bodies and pregnancy, the pre-
natal-testing assignment would particularly interest female students. In
addition, I stressed the interpersonal aspects of prenatal testing by suggest-
ing roles recognizing that the human contexts of prenatal testing and the
issues it implies are often relational—between couples, between women
and doctors, between women and family members or friends. This dual
approach was fruitful in developing a context within which to approach
girls’ thinking and connections (or lack thereof) to biomedical science. Its
pedagogical success is, I believe, more tenuous and difficult to determine.
The girls took up this assignment as both a setting within which to
discuss babies (those of others as well as their own potential children) and
a site for demonstrating their distaste for the scientific representations of
women’s bodies and developing fetuses. The following excerpt also serves
as an example of the girls’ tendency to move quickly from the science of
prenatal testing to the context of babyhood and pregnancy.

Misti: We’re going to do ultrasound.

Tammy: Is that necessary though? Yeah, to check the baby’s
development. We’ll do that then. Well, you don’t really want, I
would not want to know [the sex of the fetus], personally. But
I would so I could decorate their nursery.
Misti: I’m not going to know.
Tammy: But don’t make any pastels; make dark colors. Reds, and—
when they’re developing, they can see the primary colors.

In her knowledge of infant development, Tammy shares a kind of

knowledge that is not normally valued in science class. She knows some-
thing about visual development and has picked up on a recommendation
for taking advantage of this knowledge in parenting. In tandem, the girls
are discussing how knowing the sex of the child would be useful in deco-
rating the nursery! Although they would insist, I’m certain, that women
52 Connecting Girls and Science

are equal to men, they plan to decorate their babies’ rooms in “gender-
appropriate” colors (while possibly also heeding advice to support visual
development).
Tammy also indicates her experiential knowledge of infants in the
following excerpt. Her question is directly about fetal development, but
she uses my (uncertain) explanation to develop an explanation of her own
concerning infant behavior.

Tammy: This has to do with babies. Do they, when they’re just

hooked up the umbilical cord, do they go to the bathroom
through that?
Teacher: They get rid of their wastes that way.
Tammy: How?
Teacher: Their excretory system isn’t working yet, so the wastes
that are produced are passed into the bloodstream and out
through the umbilical cord.
Tammy: So it’s not like they form poop.
Teacher: I don’t know, because certainly by the time they’re born
they’re able to do that, so I think probably later in the
pregnancy they probably can.
Tammy: So later on they like poop in the placenta?
Teacher: I would think so; I don’t know, I’ve never asked that
question before.
Tammy: That’s why babies can stand like sitting in a diaper,
forever.

I love this portion of the dialogue. I liked Tammy; she was outgoing
and talkative and sure of herself—at least, in this context of “baby care,”
she felt that she was. (Certainly a baby might sit in a dirty diaper “forever”—
he or she hasn’t much agency in this matter—but how well it is tolerated is
questionable. Experienced caretakers are aware that babies notify us when
they are uncomfortable.) On the contrary, Tammy did not have confidence
in herself as a scientist. She felt overwhelmed, or possibly put off (as did
others in the class) by two boys who were adept at using academic scien-
tific language. She didn’t appear to care—and yet, from my perspective as
her teacher, this dynamic may have kept her from engaging intellectually
in some of our more abstract science discussions. During this project, though,
she was voluble, and made statements and asked questions that were per-
tinent to the science and to her personal experiences.
Carolyn was not as talkative as Tammy in whole-class discussions,
although she occasionally made thoughtful and even powerful pronounce-
ments that indicated to me her intellectual and emotional engagement in
Studying Prenatal Testing 53

our discussions during this project. I believe that our context of study (pre-
natal testing) encouraged her to come to me with the following story.

Carolyn: I have a question. What is water on the brain? I don’t

understand that.
Teacher: That’s when water builds up between, it’s between the
brain and the membrane that surrounds the brain, sort of
holds it in place.
Carolyn: Umhm.
Teacher: Between that membrane and the brain water builds up
and there’s pressure.
Carolyn: My sister was talking about it because her boyfriend’s
cousin had a baby and he had “water on the brain.” She was
saying that he didn’t move at all. She just held him. I didn’t
know what it was.
Teacher: So are they able to do anything about it?
Carolyn: No. He died and they had a funeral.

Carolyn’s story is an example of the kinds of relational stories that

girls brought to our prenatal-testing study. Such stories were often cur-
rent, deriving from knowledge about family, neighbors, and friends. As
will happen with questions based in genuinely real-world social circum-
stances, Tammy and Carolyn both asked me questions that I could not
answer well. This is an unavoidable consequence of welcoming into the
classroom students’ stories and questions grounded in their social lives,
and a reason that science teachers often discourage them. I found myself,
in both cases, speculating, because I did not know enough about fetal
development or “water on the brain” to respond with surety. I was not
uncomfortable about my uncertainty at the time; in fact, I was glad to be
a science teacher who was not all-knowing and, more important, was
modeling a kind of science learning in which one uses what one does know
to address new questions. This was a conscious choice at this point in my
learning to teach. I do not know how it would have played out had the
content been different, or had I been at a different stage in my growth as
a teacher and my learning about prenatal testing and fetal and infant
development.
The context of prenatal testing inspired questions and stories that would
not have arisen had we stuck to a more traditional mode of study for ge-
netic inheritance. Nonetheless, while the girls claimed expertise and evinced
interest in pregnancy and childbirth, they did not positively relate to tradi-
tional scientific representations of pregnancy and childbirth. They tended
to alternate between disgust and verbal demonstrations of affection for the
54 Connecting Girls and Science

developing fetus (or “baby”). Their talk around the science of fetal develop-
ment and prenatal testing included overwhelmingly—although not totally—
negative expressions of their perceptions of the fetus. In the excerpt below,
students are describing the fetal villi as represented in a video they saw in
health class. In the second excerpt, different students are looking through a
college graduate–level text for information for their presentation.

Carolyn: No, maybe, no, that was in health.

Belinda: Yeah, that was in health class.
Nicole: Yeah, they have those little fingers or something—
All: Yeah. Umhm. Right.
Teacher: Little what?
Nicole: They’re like little hairs. The babies have hairs on their
whole body, or something like that?
Carolyn: And it falls off.
Teacher: Oh, okay.
Belinda: I don’t know, I don’t know if—
Carolyn: It falls off, and the skin goes with it.
Nicole: They help the baby breathe or something like that.
Carolyn: Yeah it goes into their lungs and something like that? I
thought it was gross!
Belinda: [Quietly] I thought it was cute.

Tammy: Okay—Ew!! Ew, look at this picture. That’s the uterus

right there. That’s the embryo. I don’t think soooo! Prenatal
period, okay. Cleavage, we don’t want to know about that.
Don’t even want to know. How about—I don’t care.
Misti: Come on, Tam.
Tammy: I’m looking for like tests and stuff—oh, look it. I don’t care
how it’s developed—
Tammy: It looks like a big blob. I just want to find out what tests
you can do on it. It’s nasty.
Misti: Won’t they do it when they know that amniocentesis—
Tammy: Ew, look it! It looks like an alien.

These excerpts exemplify a kind of alienation from the visions of

fetal development with which these students are interacting. They describe
the fetus as “gross” and “nasty”; it even “looks like an alien.” In the sense
that she perceives the video fetus as “cute,” Belinda is the odd person out.
As demonstrated later, Belinda’s view connects to “baby-oriented” per-
ceptions of fetal development. Tammy, who here says, “I just wanna find
out what tests you can do on it,” later said of amniocentesis, “No, because
Studying Prenatal Testing 55

the baby could die doing that; I don’t want to do that.” Despite their aes-
thetic opinions of the film of a fetus, Carolyn, Belinda, and Nicole appear
to have developed an understanding of the fetal ability to obtain oxygen
from the mother. But while Misti repeatedly attempted to get Tammy back
to the assignment, her efforts were overwhelmed by the other girls’ dis-
gusted fascination with the unfamiliar scientific representations of a de-
veloping fetus.
The transcript below is from Lily, Nina, and Becky’s presentation on
amniocentesis. Lily reads from a two-page set of notes densely covered
with words; the scientific vocabulary used is extensive, and she stumbles
over the syllables. Lily’s delivery throughout the presentation of this sci-
entific terminology is light-hearted; she smiles regularly and good-
naturedly jokes along with her audience as they quiz her. Nina is playing
the mother, Becky is the father, and Lily is the doctor.

Nina: Hello. We’re here for our appointment.

Lily: Oh, yes. I’d like to talk to you about something. I need to, we
need to do a test called “amniocentesis.”
Nina: What’s that?
Lily: Well, let me give you a little background on this. It was
developed in the 1960s. First as a test for Rh incapability.
[She’s a little slow on this word—laughter from audience. I
question class on Rh compatibility.] This is how it happens. Let
me just—[Lily puts overhead transparency on the projector
and turns it on. Students chuckle.] A needle is inserted
through the mother’s body wall and uterus, and it draws about
10 to 20 millimeters [sic] of fluid.
Students: Oooh.
Lily: [Reading.] This procedure does not require hospitalization; it
will be done in the clinic. Now, a test for Down syndrome,
neural, let me start again, Down syndrome, neural tube
closure defects, anencephaly, and spina bifida. [Some difficulty
with these words. Laughter from class.]
Becky: All right. I’m fainting. [Fake faints.]
Lily: Okaaay. The amniotic fluid contains fetal secretions and living
epidermal something cells from the respiratory and digestive
tracts. Karyotypic analysis is done on the cells. Over a hundred
single gene defects can be identified. What happens is when
we stick that needle in there, we just take out some of the
fluid in there, and then we grow cells, and then we, we, we
grow them—
Tammy: No, wait. Do you grow ’em? [Laughter]
56 Connecting Girls and Science

Lily: We grow them, yes.

Nina: Why do you grow them?
Lily: We grow them so we can make a karyotype out of the cells
and we can detect Down syndrome. There are about 5,000
cases a year; and this is identified by an extra chromosome; an
extra 21 chromosome. Neural tube closure defects: 6,000–
8,000 cases yearly. And this is detected by the presence of
elevated levels of—oh boy! [jokingly]—Alphafetoprotein.
Teacher: Often known as AFP.
Lily: Often known as AFP. In the amniotic fluid. Now anencephaly
is absence of brain or spinal cord. And spina bifida is an open
spine due to failure of normal closure of the spinal cord during
embryonic development.
Becky: Will this harm our chances of having another kid?
Lily: Becky, you shouldn’t ask that. [Laughter.] It won’t harm your
chances of having another kid. [She looks back at me.]
Teacher: You mean the actual test?
Becky: Sure. Whatever you’ve got.
Lily: But it does result, sometimes it does result in spontaneous
abortion, or, if you do this too late in the pregnancy, then
when the test results come back you will not be able to have
an abortion if the child is not having a brain. [Quiet giggles.]

In describing deviations from the norms of fetal development, Lily,

while demonstrating that her group had done a thorough job of research,
did not appear to have internalized or identified with the ideas her group
had been exploring. There is no evidence that she was disgusted by pho-
tographs of fetuses. Instead, her alienation took the form of the use of
unfamiliar scientific vocabulary. The language she uses (except when
deviating from her notes) is itself so technical that it is unlikely that most
prospective parents would understand her account of the test or its pur-
pose. In this small classroom moment, the divisions between scientific
views of pregnancy and the individualized perspectives of particular preg-
nant women come to the fore. Lily succeeds well in portraying distanced
medical science; she did not do so well in professing compassion for or
empathy with the prospective parents. In addition, she becomes silly, which
appears inappropriate when she is explaining the quite awful condition
of fetal anencephaly. Her humorous departure from her notes, which in-
cluded a definition of anencephaly, resulted in laughter from the class,
which apparently encouraged Lily to continue her joking. Lily is thus
doubly distanced: from both the science and the actual facts and experi-
ences of pregnancy and fetal development.
Studying Prenatal Testing 57

Notably, this group had, as part of its presentation, an overhead

transparency with a colorful drawing of a uterus surrounding a smiling
and very aware-looking humanoid—definitely more chubby baby than
3-month-old embryo—with a cartoon balloon “hello” emanating from
within the uterus. This portrait of “fetus in utero” was anything but sci-
entifically accurate. The child was smiling, chubby, Anglo-Saxon, and
literate. No webbed digits or curved backbones or unfamiliar bodily pro-
portions here!
The girls, as indicated above, tended to move back and forth between
the scientific content and their own visions and knowledge of fetal devel-
opment and pregnancy. The real-life contexts were there; the science was
there—but the two did not mesh often or powerfully. Lily’s group did not
bring any personal stories or outside-of-school knowledge into its presen-
tation. Becky did ask, “Will this harm our chances of having another
child?”—a question indicating the use of a hypothetical real-life situation;
this is an example of students “thinking into the future,” which was one of
my pedagogical goals. However, their extensive use of highly technical vo-
cabulary overwhelmed any stories or questions from experiences of self or
others. Thus the science and “real life” remain disjoint areas of study and
concern. Was this too wide an abyss for these students to cross without more
guidance from their teacher? Should I have insisted that they put their ex-
planations in everyday language, which might have helped them not only
make connections to their own lives but actually learn the science?

Stories and Connection

The girls in this study indicated much stronger and less ambivalent in-
terest in pregnancy, childbirth, and prenatal-testing events and issues
encountered in media and experiences outside of school science. They told
stories and shared knowledge in their small groups and during whole-
class discussion about fictional and actual representations of pregnancy
and childbirth, including the pregnancies, labors, and babies of neigh-
bors, relatives, and friends. References to videos, television shows, and
movies were plentiful. On separate occasions, students mentioned and
described an incident portrayed on “Rescue 911,” a birth on The Learn-
ing Channel, a video in health class about fetal development, and the
movie Lorenzo’s Oil, the story of a couple’s quest for a cure for their son
born with ALD. (Adrenoleukodystrophy [ALD] is a severe disease that
affects the nervous system. The gene for ALD is carried on the X chro-
mosome, therefore boys are much more likely to be born with it than
are girls.) These and other apparently irrepressible connections that the
very mention of pregnancy, childbirth, and babies brought up for these
58 Connecting Girls and Science

female students dominate the data. Kari’s story is typical of the ways that
girls brought accounts of other women’s real-life experiences into this
curriculum.

Kari: The lady that lives across the street from me? She has three
kids. She didn’t have one for a long time, and then she had
one when she was older, and she had to get a test done on
that, to see that it was okay, because she was older.
Teacher: They don’t force you to take any tests, but yes. Often
women who are older like to have those tests. And everything
was okay?
Kari: Yeah. She had the baby. It’s fine.

I follow with an extended excerpt from Linda and Jessy’s presenta-

tion on ultrasound. The presenters and two audience members (Misti and
Tammy) are engaged in a discussion concerning the accuracy of determin-
ing fetal biological sex utilizing ultrasound. For their part, Misti and Tammy
were preparing to present their group’s learning on ultrasound, and there-
fore they may have felt confident enough, and in tune enough with what
Jessy and Linda were describing, to provide productive critique. Early in
this excerpt, the four girls are discussing the probability of the correct in-
terpretation of the ultrasound images; from this, they move into another
actual situation. The presenters here are Linda and Jessy; the other speak-
ers are members of the audience.

Linda: They sometimes can determine the sex of the child through
ultrasound.
Jessy: Sometimes. Not always.
Misti: Isn’t that more most of the time, like 95% of the time?
Linda: That they can what?
Misti: Determine the sex. I mean if—
Linda: Well no because it can be wrong because—
Misti: Well how often are they wrong?
Linda: Sometimes they are, they—
Misti: Yeah, but how often?
Linda: I don’t know. There’s, I don’t know, I don’t think there’s
any—
Tammy: They’re not allowed—
Teacher: You people are so statistically oriented.
Linda: A 50-50 percent chance, probably. Because you can’t
always, I don’t know.
Studying Prenatal Testing 59

Teacher: What would you do, Tammy, or Jessy or Linda, if the

umbilical cord was, for example, wrapped around the baby’s
neck? What could you do about that?
Linda: They would probably, make, do a caesarean instead of
delivering the baby like normal. Yes Tammy?
Tammy: When my neighbor had her babies, she had twins, and the
doctors were not, they told her they were not allowed to tell
you; they can’t just say, “Oh it’s a boy, oh it’s a girl” because
they could be wrong. And they’ve gotten sued for that. So
they’re only allowed to say, “We think it’s a boy, we think it’s
a girl, we’re almost positive.” They’re not allowed to say that.
Linda: Sometimes they can, they know for sure if it’s a boy or a
girl.
Misti: They still could be wrong though.
Linda: Yeah, unless, if they say it’s a girl, they usually know for a fact.

This segment of classroom talk indicated two things: first, the power
of stories from outside-of-school life as a basis from which girls can be-
come engaged with science; and second, these girls’ understanding of the
uncertainty of the predictive power of prenatal visions via ultrasound
imaging. My attempts to pull girls away from the predictability discussion
was a mistake, and I am glad that they ignored it. And again, when I tried
to move the talk back to what ultrasound might be used for other than
determining the sex of the fetus, Tammy insisted on returning to the sta-
tistics. It seemed frivolous to me, but she and Linda considered the ques-
tion worth clarifying. Via Tammy’s story and the eventual agreement that
ultrasound technology was fallible, these students sanctioned the signifi-
cance that society places on the sex of a child: A misinterpretation of the
ultrasound on the doctor’s part could be serious enough for legal action.4
Initially, I was disturbed by this continual storytelling, because I wanted
the girls’ focus to be on the science, not on stories of personal experience.
I now believe that the girls’ sharing of their out-of-school knowledge is
saying something important to feminist science teaching. Traditional sci-
ence content is disembodied—and therein lies its generalizability. Femi-
nist pedagogy, in its focus on the personal and the particular, concerns itself
with questioning content at its core, and stresses connections between lives,
knowledge, and sociopolitical structures. As indicated in the previous ex-
cerpt, the girls were noting the fallibility of medical technology. They were
also utilizing their understanding of probability, an important concept in
the study of genetics, to discuss the interpretation of prenatal tests. In this
context they are combining their real-life knowledge with their learning
60 Connecting Girls and Science

about the technology of prenatal testing. This situation provided me with

one of several missed opportunities to push their critique into a realm that
included the science itself, as represented in this study that connects di-
rectly to women’s lives.
In reference to more mainstream recommendations, science educa-
tion standards stress connections to the real world and to students’ every-
day lives and experiences. As these students relay their anecdotal evi-
dence, the complications of the applications of prenatal technology are
brought forth. The uncertainty of real life and the uncertainty of science
and technology meld. Something that I always want students to do—
question the efficacy and unquestionability of science and its attendant
technologies—is indicated here; and the students are doing it, without
prompting from me.

Pain and Safety

A continual topic of discussion during this unit was the question of the
fetus’s safety. Concern for the pregnant woman’s physical well-being or
psychological state of mind was either peripheral or missing altogether.
In this first excerpt, Misti and Tammy are looking through reference books
trying to decide which test they will study.

Tammy: What’s the question again? Oh, it was the next page.
Okay. “A technique in which a sample of amniotic fluid is
withdrawn, inserting a hollow needle through the mother’s—”
Ew. No. The baby could die doing that; I don’t want to do that.
Misti: I’ve heard about that.
Teacher: Yes, the risks are pretty low, but there is a risk.
Misti: Yeah, but they could hurt the baby, if the baby moves or
something.
Teacher: Well, what test can we use along with it, to help keep the
baby safe?
Misti: Ultrasound. So, would they do both, they’d have the monitor
on to watch the baby as they do it?
Teacher: Exactly.

As readers may have already noticed, Tammy and Misti chose ultra-
sound for their presentation. I suspect that they chose ultrasound because
they found that it provided the least potential for danger to the develop-
ing fetus; it may be that they considered the mother’s perspective as well.
And another point: Their classmate Becky did combine the comfort of the
mother with the “danger” to the “baby” in her description of chorionic
Studying Prenatal Testing 61

villi sampling as being “faster, but it’s more painful for the mother and it’s
more dangerous to the baby.”
Much more common than the feelings or physical safety of the con-
scious adult woman were references to the fetus’s subjective physical ex-
perience of pain or danger. In Misti and Tammy’s discussion above, as well
as elsewhere, students focused on the experience of the fetus. During Nina’s
group’s presentation, speaking as the pregnant woman, she asked, “Isn’t
it possible to like stab the baby?” Misti shared with us (more than once)
her learning from television about science-related topics. Below, I was
trying to reduce her sense of danger to the fetus from amniocentesis.

Misti: On the Learning Channel they had a mother having a baby.

And, what happens if the child is having to move, like its leg,
you know kick or something, when they’re putting on—
Teacher: Well, they’re careful, and it’s a skinny needle, and the
baby—
Misti: Yeah but it’s still—
Teacher: At that stage, okay? This is before 3 months, right? The
baby’s still pretty little.

I, along with the students, said “baby” when the accurate terminol-
ogy would have been “embryo” or “fetus.” What does it say that we not
only used this language, but regularly put the “baby” first, and rarely con-
sidered the mother? We seemed much more able to make the unborn fetus
real than to make the pregnant woman’s physical, emotional, and intelli-
gent existence prominent.
There are, in contemporary Western culture, at least two extant view-
points of women’s relationships with the fetus during pregnancy. There is
a patriarchal vision of women’s wombs as vessels in which the develop-
ing fetus is held and nurtured. In this understanding of pregnancy, the
inseparable biological interconnections between woman and fetus are not
acknowledged. This perspective leads to a concept of the fetus as an indi-
vidual, with rights and a life that are at least as important as its mother’s.
The perspective of “woman as vessel” is not an anachronism; in contem-
porary times, it supports an increasingly conservative movement that in-
cludes legal constrictions on women’s reproductive rights and even their
lives (hooks, 2000; Purdy, 1996; Tong, 1997). Thus the fetus’s health and
life may take priority over the woman’s:
There is a growing tendency among some legal and medical authorities to
view women as the enemies of the fetuses they carry—as heartless types who
show inadequate concern for their fetuses’ well-being. In recent years some
pregnant women have been forced to undergo caesarean sections against
62 Connecting Girls and Science

their better judgment; others have been imprisoned for drug abuse or other
socially unacceptable behavior likely to damage their fetuses. In the future,
fetuses might be “protected” against their mothers in even more restrictive
ways. . . . Unless feminists more adequately explain the woman-fetus rela-
tionship, the already-existing anti-abortionist explanation of this relation-
ship will prevail. (Tong, 1997)

I doubt that these girls bought into the “woman as vessel” doctrine; they
told enough stories about women and girls whose lives were affected by
pregnancy and childbirth to convince me that they knew pregnancies were
carried out by real-life individual human women. However, our focus on
the fetus—the “baby”—makes me believe that we were thinking of the fetus
as an autonomous individual, not as biologically inextricable from its mother.
One of the purposes of prenatal testing is to help potential parents
decide whether to carry a pregnancy to term. Abortion was regularly
mentioned during these students’ presentations, but any discussion thereof
went underground, probably with my collaboration. In abortion’s place
as a reason for a woman to have a prenatal test was put the importance of
preparation for a difficult child. This is not to say that students were anti-
abortion. It is to say that abortion was only twice used as a reason to con-
sider prenatal testing: once, in Lily’s group’s presentation (see above), and
again, when Carolyn’s group had the floor, explaining amniocentesis as a
test for ALD. Here Carolyn is responding to my question “Would you rec-
ommend that a woman have this test?”

Carolyn: In my opinion, I would want to have the test done,

because, it explains that it’s a long, stressful process to treat
ALD, and, if I were pregnant with a baby who had ALD then I
wouldn’t really want to bring that child into the world. I mean
not to sound cruel or anything because I think it would be
better to not bring him into the world than to bring it into the
world under a lot of pain. That’s just my opinion.
Teacher: Thank you.
Carolyn: And I think women should have this test done because
they would know ahead of time, before the child was born.

I remember thinking, “Yes! Someone’s come out pro-choice, and I am

going to recognize her bravery by indicating my own approval through
my tone of voice.” This was an isolated incident. It was easy for me to forgo
discussing abortion with the students; my avoidance was connected, I am
certain, to restrictions (internalized, if not explicit) on what may properly
be spoken of in science class, or even in school. Abortion is an emotion-
Studying Prenatal Testing 63

ally and politically contentious topic in our society; making it a topic of

deep discussion in a high school classroom would lead to a situation that
I was not prepared to use productively. And there is a personal aspect here
as well: Abortion is not something I enjoy discussing. While I am firmly
pro-choice, I continue to be emotionally ambivalent. As bell hooks (2000)
writes, “A woman can insist she would never choose to have an abortion
while affirming her support of the right of women to choose and still be
an advocate of feminist politics. She cannot be anti-abortion and an ad-
vocate of feminism” (p. 6). hooks’s statement comforts me and clarifies
my thinking. Regardless, my own set of irreconcilable emotional buttons
would have been hit hard if abortion had become an openly discussed
issue during class. I am certain that many of my students would have joined
me here. Hence I did not discourage the students’ tendency to fail to ad-
dress the possibility of abortion when a fetus’s genetic profile indicated a
deviation from the norm and its future needs might be beyond those of a
healthy child.
As the students conducted their presentations, they mentioned “spon-
taneous abortion” as a “danger” of each kind of test. This danger is one
that certainly involves both mother and fetus. Nonetheless, there was a
marked tendency on both the students’ and my part to focus our atten-
tion on “the baby”—its comfort, safety, and successful journey through
development and birth. As Barbara Rothman (1989) puts it, “Fetuses . . .
have been made ‘real’ for us by science. . . . And people who have never
been pregnant, never shared anyone’s pregnancy intimately, can visual-
ize the fetal head shape, fetal hands, fetal movement in utero” (p. 115).
Teaching a topic as abstract as chromosomal inheritance, it is not easy to
engage students in real-life experiments. The fact that people in our soci-
ety, including students, have seen many representations of fetal develop-
ment is something that I want to take advantage of, although it continues
to disturb me that the pregnant women responsible for the fetuses’ exis-
tence are not in the forefront of these discussions.
In addition to Carolyn’s advocacy of prenatal testing, there was an
incident in which a female student expressed her right, as a woman, to
understand what was being discussed concerning her body. In this bit of
transcript, Kari is the pregnant woman, Alex is her husband, Jonathan is
her brother, and Sam is the doctor. Kari was the only girl in her group,
composed of herself and three boys. The test they are discussing is chori-
onic villi sampling. Alex is an actor; he participated regularly in school
musicals, to popular acclaim. In this presentation, he adopted a German
accent, and “fainted” on hearing a description of the sampling procedure.
The tone of this group’s presentation was one of humor supported by good-
natured kidding from the audience.
64 Connecting Girls and Science

Alex: So how long does this all take?

Jonathan: [sotto voce] And when should you do it?
Alex: And ven should you do it?
Sam: Eight to 10 weeks after life begins. Or conception. Whichever
you prefer.
Kari: All right, before we get any further, and you guys are talking
about my body—
Alex: Hold on—
Kari: No, I want to say this.
Sam: You get the results in seven to nine days.
Kari: What are the dangers of me doing this? You doing this test on
me?
Sam: The dangers are spontaneous abortion.
Kari: Okay! [laughter]

Kari’s statement “You guys are talking about my body” was of a type
that I was hoping to hear from more students. I hoped, as explained early
in this chapter, that girls would connect to the study of prenatal testing
because it involved female bodies and linked to possibilities for discussion
about women’s reproductive rights. Kari was not only interrupted, but
quickly gave up her temporarily assertive stance when she was told that
the possible danger to her is “spontaneous abortion”! After her bid to focus
the discussion on her well-being, she faded into the background as the male
students—the “doctor,” her “brother,” and her “husband”—took over the
discussion. The picture of these “men” discussing the pregnant woman’s
(Kari’s) fate was rather disturbing and, for me, emblematic of the impor-
tant feminist issue of reproductive control.
Reproductive control does not mean only the right to have an abor-
tion. It also means the right not to have an abortion and the right to good
prenatal care. It also may include the right to good and affordable (if not
free) child care, which is more difficult to come by when a child is dis-
abled. As a feminist science teacher, I remain invested in girls’ learning to
comprehend the interconnectedness between the woman and the fetus
that characterizes pregnancy. I am also concerned that they develop a
consciousness that supports them in making careful reproductive choices
for themselves. I believe I have made progress, particularly through this
study, on the former. I have not yet figured out how to do the latter.

What’s in a Name?

I surveyed transcripts from this prenatal-testing unit, specifically: 15 min-

utes each of two groups preparing their presentations, 55 minutes of group
Studying Prenatal Testing 65

presentations (which included questions and comments from teacher and

students in the audience), and 35 minutes of whole-group discussion con-
cerning prenatal testing. This forms a substantial portion of the talk dur-
ing our study of prenatal testing. The sample contained 10 uses of the words
fetal or fetus, one each of embryo and embryonic, and 82 of baby.
In all of the transcripts I have of this unit, only two girls, unprompted,
used the words fetus and embryo in their biologically accurate sense (see
Tammy above, also Lily during her group’s presentation). Below I include
one example from my talk and two from students.

Teacher: Try not to laugh too hard at my drawing, okay? This is a

uterus. [I draw on the board, accompanied by gentle student
laughter and comments, e.g., “It looks like a mushroom!”] And
then, the placenta, as you know, lines the uterus, where the
oxygen and the food and the waste pass back and forth
between the mom and the baby. This thing, it’s called a
chorion; it’s a membrane that’s attached to the baby.
Misti: What test do you use to find out if the baby has Down
syndrome?
Linda: An ultrasound is when they send sound waves. Like where
the baby would be. And it reflects, it bounces off the baby,
gives a shape of the baby on a monitor.

Neither the students nor I practiced using the pertinent scientific lan-
guage during this unit. I believe now that this was not an oversight, but
a semiconscious understanding that insisting on using fetus and embryo
would work against my desire that the students connect to the science
content. Lost in the translation from scientific to everyday language are
distance, objectivity, and clarity; gained in the translation are intimacy,
complexity, and untidiness. This is a prevalent pedagogical issue: How
and when should we allow unscientific vocabulary to be left unremarked?
If it is true that we can help students connect with science by avoiding
potentially alienating scientific knowledge, what then? Should I have
insisted that the students say fetus and embryo? Or did allowing them—
even encouraging them, by my own language—to use the words of their
choice allow them access to knowledge that might have been denied them
if other words were utilized in our discussions? The overuse of scientific
vocabulary succeeds in confusing and alienating more students than it
intrigues. Nonetheless, I continue to wonder to what extent not insist-
ing on scientific vocabulary may have deprived students of the opportu-
nity to question their assumption that a “fetus” and a “baby” are bio-
logically identical entities.
66 Connecting Girls and Science

This issue is problematic from a feminist viewpoint as well. Recogniz-

ing the fetus as “human” by calling it “baby”—which in scientific terms it
is called only after birth—may have influenced these students to believe
that abortion is murder. As a feminist, I hope that student-citizens will work
for and practice reproductive choice. As a science teacher, I wonder if where
they stand on abortion is any of my business.

TWO MODELS FOR LISTENING TO GIRLS

There is a thin line between difference feminism and essentialism, and

it is easy to trip over that line. Visions of women that are either stereo-
typical or essentialist place us within a scheme that overdetermines our
lives as caring and relationally focused. Some researchers have found that
girls and women express these characteristics as part of ourselves, and
as affecting our interests (or lack thereof) in school subjects (Belenky
et al., 1986; Gilligan, 1982; Rosser, 1992, 1997; Roychoudberry, Tippins,
& Nichols, 1993–1994). I feel that a conflict arises here, one that femi-
nist theory and practice can illuminate, if not resolve. I am emphatically
not implying that girls should not learn science, or that they are well set
with their planned role as mothers—in fact, I am arguing for exactly the
opposite. I do want to say that the girls in this class were here able to
speak with authority—because they did have a wide amount of experi-
ential and anecdotal knowledge concerning pregnancy, childbirth, and
children; because they have female bodies; and because, as my college-
student daughter reminded me, these topics are something about which
it is socially acceptable for girls and the women into whom they grow to
be interested and knowledgeable.
Difference feminists have found that girls and women regularly con-
sider people other than themselves in their moral decision making. “Put-
ting others first” is one way that this finding may be interpreted. It fits in
well with a mythological model of women as self-sacrificing and other-
centered, and helps to explain and maintain the roles of women as the
primary nurturers in our society. This myth is something I had hoped to
help students challenge. I found myself, however, so well versed in this
psychological habit that I not only readily recognized it in my students,
but expressed it often myself. I very likely encouraged the girls to see them-
selves in the role of nurturer, protecting a helpless being in the face of
possible danger and pain. The live woman involved in the decision may
have been assumed capable of taking care of herself—as well as of the fetus
(or “baby”) that students assigned to her care.
Studying Prenatal Testing 67

A more complex and less stultifying moral model is developed by

theorists in difference feminism (Barbieri, 1995; Gilligan, 1982; Gilligan
et al., 1990). In this model, girls and women learn to consider both them-
selves and others in their thinking. This representation of “feminine” moral
reasoning is more complicated than “either I suffer for your benefit, or I
ignore you in favor of my own well-being.” Girls and women learn to
become adept at constructing views and decisions that consider all involved
parties. This is not to imply that females possess a magical ability to make
everybody happy. We may agonize about the effects our own decisions
will have on others and struggle to develop outcomes that hurt everyone
as little as possible. The pertinent point for this chapter is that this model
helped me to hear the girls availing themselves of multiple imaginary and
actual perspectives—their own and those of fetuses, of babies, and of
women—to think about issues that arise from the technology of prenatal
testing.
Education is not meant merely to reinforce adolescents’ interests and
values. On the contrary, good education introduces people to ideas that
they would not encounter in the course of their daily lives. Seeking out
students’ experiences and questions about and explanations of those ex-
periences is not a concluding action, but an ongoing pedagogical under-
taking. Although the very act of describing and questioning often leads to
a more sophisticated understanding and more clearly formed questions,
at the heart of a science teacher’s job is providing examples of and access
to scientific theories and methods of exploration that may help students
understand life, writ large, as well as their own experiences, in a more
“adult” way. In figuring out how to help students connect to and actively
use new ideas, learning about their examples is invaluable. Thus attend-
ing to girls’ lives is not a move to keep them where they are—as individu-
als or as a group—intellectually, socially, or politically. It is instead a teach-
ing strategy, widely recommended—something on which the standards
documents, feminist pedagogy, and most all along the political spectrum
agree. It is also a move to open up what science and science education
could be—open it up so that, for example, traditional women’s work, and
those attributes and activities labeled feminine, may thrive in scientific
practice and in science classrooms.
Medical science’s ability to see inside a woman’s body, and to make
claims concerning the condition, sex, and genetic makeup of a develop-
ing fetus, has grown in efficacy and popularity within our adult lifetimes.
The concerns that this technological development bring up are pertinent
to people of all political persuasions. Even when we leave aside the per-
sonal and societal ramifications of this technology, the study of prenatal
68 Connecting Girls and Science

testing offers a rich focus for the study of chromosomal inheritance, the
influence of the sex chromosomes on biological sex, and the causes and
manifestations of a variety of genetic conditions.
In most situations, particularly school science, women’s and girls’ sto-
ries about pregnancies and childbirth and baby care do not count as “sci-
entific.” It speaks to the divisions between girls’ knowledge and experi-
ences of reproduction and the science of women’s bodies that I used this
“baby knowledge” as a way to get girls into the science. Why not vice versa?
Why does knowledge of babies, reproduction, pregnancy, and the accom-
panying relationships belong in health class, not in science curricula?
I propose that topics such as prenatal testing, in which women are, at
least in nonscientific life, considered “expert,” allow for more connecting
pathways for engagement with the content of science. To reiterate, preg-
nancy and childbirth are life experiences that our society expects girls to
be knowledgeable about. That doesn’t mean that they are knowledgeable—
or that they care to be, particularly on an individual basis. But social ex-
pectations and personal behavior and knowledge interact, and the girls in
this classroom demonstrated a strong sense of their own knowledge in this
area and a broad collection of relational anecdotal evidence for their theo-
ries and questions. Girls dominated in the talk during this unit; in turn,
discussions of real-life experiences and anecdotes enriched the talk. Girls
moved back and forth between science and their real lives. The focus was
on actual experience, and there were times when the science was brought
in as a way to understand its effects on those particular physical and emo-
tional experiences.
 3
To Be a Good Scientist
Objectivity and Empathy

Once contextual considerations of any sort are admitted as relevant to scien-

tific argumentation . . . values and interests can no longer be excluded a
priori as irrelevant or as signs of bad science.
—Longino, 1990, p. 83

Scientists bring to their work the values and prejudices of the cultures in
which they live.
—AAAS, 1990, p. 189

Teaching students that science is a social enterprise is advocated by both

mainstream science educators and feminist critics of science. Helping stu-
dents recognize the implications of the statement “science is a social enter-
prise” may help them to move beyond stereotypical visions of scientists as
socially isolated, miraculously intelligent, and devoid of the everyday emo-
tions, passions, and relational interests of humanity. I was resolved to address
this issue in my teaching, but uncertain as to how to go about it. As a re-
searcher, I was intent on discussing with students the concept that science
is a social enterprise; the bulk of this discussion took place during interview-
conversations between a self-selected set of students and me. In particular,
I was and remain intrigued by the connections, or lack thereof, that students
make among science, people, and society.

FEMINIST CRITIQUES OF SCIENCE:

SCIENCE AS A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

Feminist scholars of scientific activity observe that the practice of science is

a social practice, therefore imbued with human values. Once one recognizes
that science is not separate from society, it becomes possible to see that sex-

69
70 Connecting Girls and Science

ism itself has found its way into the practice of science and the knowl-
edge it produces. This image of science is difficult to reconcile with tra-
ditional science education, which presents knowledge as fixed; its cre-
ators distant, dead, or nonexistent. The gender, race, and class inequities
of the enterprise are hidden behind a façade of objectivity and unques-
tionable truth.
Feminist studies of science as a social enterprise, therefore a human
construction, illuminate the ways that scientists’ work and knowledge
interact with their social, political, and personal environments (Bleier,
1986; Griffin, 1978; Harding, 1991, 1998; Keller, 1985, 1992; Schiebinger,
1999). Out of these studies has grown the idea that science as purely human
disallows what Donna Haraway (1989) calls the “God-trick”—the ability
to think from outside of one’s social, intellectual, and historical position
and heritage. The conception of science as social implicates political,
cultural, and personal issues beyond what is typically represented in science
courses. It even permits emotion, connectedness between the scientist and
the phenomenon or organism being studied, and responsibility to the Earth
and its inhabitants—all aspects of being human that are not typically
included in traditional representations of science.
Feminist studies (e.g., Harding, 1998; Kurth & Smith, 1997; Rosser,
1997) have led to understandings of why women, people of color, and those
from the working class have been largely excluded from the practice of
science. In addition, these studies are producing the impetus and the power
to develop and enact changes in the practice of science education in order
to make it more inclusionary and socially responsible.

Feminist Critiques of Objectivity

In everyday life, “objective” means simply the calm, unemotional evalua-

tion of a situation. Science is identified with objectivity, therefore with a
dispassionate, fact-driven interpretation of natural phenomena. As Helen
Longino (1990) phrases it, objectivity “is generally thought to involve the
willingness to let our beliefs be determined by ‘the facts’ or by some im-
partial and nonarbitrary criteria rather than by our wishes as to how things
ought to be” (p. 62). The traditional conception of objectivity relies on the
disconnection and detachment of the knowing subject (the scientist) from
the to-be-known object (the aspect of the world or the living entity that
the scientist is studying). As a distinguishing aspect of scientific discourse,
objectivity can be a positive feature, utilized as an honest striving to avoid
prejudice and fantasy. However, an uncritical belief in objectivity relieves
the scientist from recognition of her or his beliefs, emotions, and invest-
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 71

ments in the development of scientific knowledge. It also allows scientists

to skirt issues of ethical choice in research and technological development.
Possibly even more destructive are the ways in which nonscientists use
this form of objectivity—that is, to argue that something is true and un-
changeable because “science says so.”
Feminist philosophers of science have studied this construction of
objectivity as an effort to delete human emotion from scientific practice.
This effort requires and gains support from a differential valuation of
women and men in Western society—the society that has developed
Western science. In this split, human traits are assigned to two genders:
The feminine is associated with emotion, closeness, passivity, and nur-
turance; the masculine becomes intellect, separation, activity, and con-
trol. Evelyn Fox Keller’s (1985) indispensable analysis of the development
and practice of science, Reflections on Gender and Science (a classic in femi-
nist literature), explores the implications of this psychosocial dichotomy.
She argues that scientific practice and knowledge flow from and reinforce
the separation of male from female.
A third strand of feminist work with science and objectivity has re-
sulted in a vitally important set of critiques of scientific practice and theory
that reveal the sexism inherent in a field that has excluded women from
its inception. Male scientists have consistently created theories about
women that feminist scholars have successfully shown to be “bad science.”
Feminists have broken through the patina of traditional objectivity to
demonstrate that scientists continue to develop theories unquestionably
skewed by prevalent preconceptions of women (Bleier, 1986; Fausto-
Sterling, 1992; Hubbard, 1990; Tavris, 1992).

Feminist Ideas About Empathy

Empathy is not currently valued in the scientific enterprise. Its basis in sub-
jectivity and caring outlaws it from the separateness and dispassion man-
dated by traditional scientific practice. Feminists have begun to analyze this
situation, and to imagine how empathy might be included as a positive and
enriching factor in understanding the world (Griffin, 1995; Keller, 1983;
King, 1995; Plumwood, 1993). Coupled with a political stance arguing that
science and technology are in need of ways to develop knowledge that do
not harm or threaten people or the Earth, these ideas are in danger of being
discarded by others as “irrational.” The feminist response is that the split
between rationality and emotion is not the only way, or even the best way,
to understand the world. While this split has resulted in knowledge that is
useful to humanity, it has also produced knowledge and practices that are
72 Connecting Girls and Science

dangerous and deadly. Feminists assert that opening science up to alterna-

tive ways of learning about the world would not only enliven science, but
would attract more women and people of color to science.
While traditional objectivity treats emotional connection (i.e., empa-
thy) as an impediment to knowledge about the world, feminists argue that
the recognition and utilization of emotion and connection can create an
epistemology that engages the whole person-scientist more honestly and
fully. Keller (1985) names this epistemic revisioning “dynamic objectiv-
ity,” which she describes as

a pursuit of knowledge that makes use of subjective experience . . . in the

interests of a more effective objectivity. Premised on continuity, it recognizes
difference between self and other as an opportunity for a deeper and more
articulated kinship. . . . The scientist employs a form of attention to the natu-
ral world that is like one’s ideal attention to the human world: it is a form of
love. (p. 117)

A challenge for feminist science is to honor empathy. We also must

take care not to identify empathy solely with the female, or we will
succeed only in reinforcing the very dichotomies that keep women
and men, and the traits with which they are associated, separate and
differentially valued.

SCIENCE EDUCATION:
SCIENCE AS A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

Authors who do not identify themselves as feminist have also addressed

the concept of science as a social enterprise (Bronowski, 1965; Gould, 1981;
Lewontin, 1992). In fact, national standards and benchmarks for science
education include these (nonfeminist) observations as an integral piece
of their recommendations concerning the nature of science (AAAS, 1990,
1993; NRC, 1996). Mainstream science educators recommend that students
learn that the practices of science and the knowledge its practitioners cre-
ate are embedded in a social context. Generally, as represented in the sci-
ence-for-all standards documents, the logic runs as follows:

1. People do science.
2. People are social beings.
3. Therefore science is a social enterprise.
4. Scientists’ work and thought, and the knowledge they produce,
are therefore influenced by social values and social pressures.
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 73

Up to this point, feminist analyses of science and the science educa-

tion recommendations run parallel. Now, however, the standards docu-
ments trail off and become less helpful. For example, the authors of Sci-
ence for All Americans state:

Before the twentieth century, and well into it, women and blacks were es-
sentially excluded from most of science by restrictions on their education
and employment opportunities; the remarkable few who overcame those
obstacles were even then likely to have their work belittled by the science
establishment. (AAAS, 1990, p. 9)

Here is a simplistic attitude, one that implies that it is only the social forces
external to science that have kept women and Blacks from breaching its
borders. It also assumes that the “belittling” of the work of women and
people of color in science is a thing of the past.
Neither of these claims is complete. Science itself is a part of the cul-
ture and the history that have kept women and others out of the scientific
enterprise; the very knowledge that science has created, especially in human
biology and psychology, has played and continues to play a role in keeping
women and others outside of the scientific enterprise. In fact, the develop-
ment of scientific practice by middle- and upper-middle-class European males
has led to a set of values and virtues (AAAS, 1990; NRC, 1996) defining
science—values and virtues that are not comfortable for all.
However, there exist vital connections between contemporary main-
stream science education and feminist thought. Most pertinent here, sci-
entists as intellectual, social, and idiosyncratic beings are included in con-
temporary standards’ representations of science. Scientists are celebrated
as curious, clever, observant, persistent, sometimes even revolutionary.
Scientists buck dogma; they develop new ways of viewing the world; they
create exciting and surprising descriptions and theories about how the
natural world works. This image of science is surely more attractive to most
than one that describes science as cold, asocial or antisocial, and step-
driven. Often, however, even these aspects of science tend to get left out
of science teaching. I argue in this chapter that because they are not all
that people use to do science, it is not enough to account for these scien-
tific traits. Suppressed and repressed are the negative human characteris-
tics that influence the practices of science, such as selfishness, stubborn-
ness, and prejudice. Also ignored are positive human traits that would
enrich and enlarge the scientific world view and the knowledge it pro-
duces, such as empathy and a commitment to democratic goals.
Science education recommendations stress the importance of learn-
ing what students bring to the study of natural phenomena. If we in-
74 Connecting Girls and Science

tend to take the standards seriously and teach about the actual practices
of science, it is no less important to explore students’ ideas concerning
science as a social enterprise. The National Research Council (1996)
mentions these views:
Many high-school students hold the view that science should inform soci-
ety about various issues and society should set policy about what research is
important. In general, students have rather simple and naive ideas about the
interactions between science and society. (p. 197)

This statement falls short of explicitly describing how scientifically literate

people should envision scientists’ responsibilities to society. Nor does it
expand on the concept that citizens should have something to say con-
cerning the creation of knowledge through the scientific enterprise or,
alternatively, keep its hands off in the interests of intellectual freedom. In
addition, this quote indicates a lack of appreciation for the sophistication of
adolescents’ thinking concerning the role of science in society, as well as
the interactions between intellectual and personal values and virtues and
the practice of science. I intend for this chapter to enlarge our views of
students’ ideas and beliefs concerning science as a social enterprise, as well
as teach us more about how we can teach them this powerful concept.

TEACHING SCIENCE AS A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

As a science teacher, I am convinced that the requirement that we teach

students that science is a social enterprise should be a vital, central ele-
ment of my pedagogy. During the semester that I worked with students
in studying the science of genetics, I wanted them to recognize that preju-
dice, bias, and power are deeply implicated in the creation and uses of
scientific knowledge. I also wanted them to understand that science could
be used for democratically progressive programs. Nevertheless, I remained
puzzled as to how to address these issues with my students. Why?
The feminist project of demystifying science by placing it squarely
within a real society peopled by actual human beings who possess a set of
cultural values is intellectually, socially, and politically important. It has
also been, for me, profoundly disillusioning. It took some time and some
work after my initial encounter with feminist (and other) critiques of
science to work my way back to a love of scientific knowledge and a re-
visioning of my relationship with science as it is and science as it might
be. How, within the constraints of the public school chronology, could I
help students learn that science is a social enterprise without leaving them
disillusioned and unsupported in developing a more personally useful
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 75

vision of science? I could just tell them, of course—but constructivist theo-

ries of learning, my experience, and my instincts told me that that tack
would not do. I struggled to find a foothold.
As a biologist and a biology teacher who values—with skepticism, and,
I hope, an open mind—the knowledge and accomplishments of my fields,
I find feminist critiques of the biological sciences and the knowledge they
have produced particularly valuable. As a scientist and a feminist, I find
feminist critiques of biology pertinent and their usefulness clear, saturated
as they are with stories of bad science concerning women and epistemo-
logical analyses that expose the social basis for sexist science. As a biology
teacher, I find this feminist knowledge still pertinent and yet I remain un-
clear as to what I should do with it.
I could have spent a lifetime puzzling over pedagogical approaches to
these issues. Instead, I reminded myself that students have their own ideas
about science as a social enterprise. Individually and in interaction with
their peers, elders, and the media, students construct their own idiosyn-
cratic, fluid versions of what science is and what scientists do. What did
my students think and how could I find out? Somewhere might I find step-
ping stones between students’ and feminism’s transformative ideas, so that
none of us need drown in their import or intellectual sophistication? I
resolved to attend to Vivian Paley’s (1986) maxim:
We are, all of us, the actors trying to find the meaning of the scenes in which
we find ourselves. The scripts are not yet fully written, so we must listen
with curiosity and great care to the main characters who are, of course, the
children. (p. 131)

This chapter reflects what I learned from a set of experiences designed

for listening to students, specifically to divine their perspectives on “sci-
ence as a social enterprise.”

“KIDMARKS”

The social values and human virtues that students shared with me are
distinctly the students’ own. Therefore, I have given them their own
name—“Kidmarks”—with apologies to Benchmarks for Science Literacy
(AAAS, 1993), and to 15- and 16-year-olds who know that they are not
“kids.” I attempt here to demonstrate my own feminist, constructivist
conviction that students’ ideas should be neither ignored nor manipulated
nor excised by standards developers, feminist critics of science, or their
teachers. Students’ theories and theorizing should be attended to as seri-
ously as those markers of scientific activity developed by their elders.
76 Connecting Girls and Science

Objectivity provides the focus for Kidmark A (see Table 3.1, p. 86);
empathy for Kidmark B (see Table 3.2, p. 100). Kidmark C (see Table
4.1, p. 111) grew out of these students’ insistence that science is respon-
sible to society. Because this last Kidmark provides the most exciting ad-
dition to our efforts concerning science for all, I have saved it for the next
chapter.

KIDMARK A. SCIENCE AND OBJECTIVITY

Kidmark A is based in an interview-conversation that I conducted with

the three boy students in our class. This section mentions no girls. The
reasons for my choice to focus on these boys are practical, analytical, and
theoretical. Practically, Sam, Jonathan, and Alex alone participated in the
interview-conversation that makes up the bulk of analysis in this section.
It would thus be strained and artificial to include girls’ ideas about objec-
tivity here, because girls never explicitly addressed the issue by name,
either during this interview-conversation or elsewhere. Theoretically, as
a feminist researcher and teacher, I am interested in what the boys say,
because they are no less a part of our sexist society than are the girls. But
most important, I did not want to include girls’ words and ideas in this
section in a way that would feel like an add-on rather than an in-depth
analysis. To do so would demean the very girls’ ideas and words that I
wished to respect. Girls’ ideas are attended to most seriously under Kidmark
B. Both girls and boys are represented in Kidmark C.
Ironically, and distressingly, one of the results of this situation—that
I spoke only with boys about objectivity—is that it serves to support, rather
than undermine, the sexist notion that boys (and the men they become)
excel in logical and unemotional thinking, while girls (and the women they
become) are specialists in emotional decision making and caregiving work.
I do not want to add more evidence to a hurtful and inaccurate dichotomy
that I wish to challenge. I hope that readers will keep this in mind, and
also understand that Sam and Jonathan were exceptional even among high
school boys in that they were extraordinarily successful in mathematics
and science. It would therefore be inappropriate to claim that they came
anywhere near representing all boys in their peer group.

Sam, Jonathan, and Alex

Sam, Jonathan, and Alex were the only three boys in this genetics class of
17 students. All of these young men were successful academically, and
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 77

verbally adept and apparently eager to speak with me, in class and out.
Jonathan participated in Science Olympiad and planned to be a scientist
or an engineer; his passion for and comfort with science were evident
during both class and interviews. While Sam was himself very competent
in school science, he did not participate in Science Olympiad and did not
evince the powerful draw for science that Jonathan portrayed. Because
they had gone beyond what their high school could offer in mathematics,
both Jonathan and Sam left their high school campus every Thursday after-
noon to attend a calculus course at the nearby university.
Alex, in contrast, was more interested in political science than in the
natural sciences. Through interviews and writing, he informed me that
his interests lay with what he perceived to be the “human” side of things.
Alex publicly identified himself as Christian and was open with me and
others about his fundamentalist beliefs, which he initially cited as a rea-
son not to be a scientist. Despite his stated lack of interest in science and
his belief in the Christian Bible as truth, he was very willing to challenge
his own beliefs, those of his religious colleagues, and those of the scien-
tific enterprise. Particularly during interviews, he advanced sophisticated
questions and arguments addressing the social and historical reasons for
the choices that people make concerning politics, religion, and science.
One morning, Sam, Alex, and Jonathan participated in a group
interview-conversation in which they and I became engaged in a discus-
sion about issues of objectivity in the practice of science. These interview-
conversations were on a volunteer basis—I announced that I would be
available, and students told me that they would plan to come. Consistent
with their status as adolescents, sometimes they showed up and sometimes
they missed appointments. In an interesting twist of fate, all of the boys
came to speak with me on this particular morning.
Before this interview-conversation, Jonathan, Sam, and Alex had
responded to questions intended to bring out their visions of scientific
practice as well as their own perceived ability to practice it. The questions
and their responses are included here so that readers can become familiar
with these boys’ views as they entered into the interview-conversation.
The questions were: What do you think it means to “be a good scientist”?
Do you think that you have the traits of a “good scientist”? Why, why not,
some yes, some no? Sam’s, Jonathan’s, and Alex’s responses to these
questions as asked early in the semester were as follows.

Sam: To be a good scientist you must:

—be analytical
—be scrupulous
78 Connecting Girls and Science

—take good notes on experiments

—have fun while working but stay serious
I have the knowledge (99%-ile on PLAN)1 and the attitude of a
good scientist.

Jonathan: To be a good scientist means to seek truth, order, and

answers. Some of us just learn science in school, but a “good
scientist” poses his/her own questions and “lives” through science.
A good scientist questions his/her surroundings and is always
looking for a better answer. “The Truth is out there!”

Alex: A good scientist must be objective. I don’t believe I am cut out

to be a “good” scientist. I am a Christian and don’t believe a lot of
what I hear in my science classes. Besides that, I am much more
interested in political science and history.

In their written responses, Sam and Jonathan indicate a belief in the

power of scientific methodology as traditionally portrayed. They make
brief mention of social responsibility and personal value systems. They
support an epistemology that views interpretations of nature as coming
ever closer to the truth; Jonathan even sees the truth as “out there”!2 In
this sense, both boys match closely the argument set forth in standards
documents that science possesses a set of values and virtues that scien-
tists practice; that scientists view the world as ordered and knowable;
and that science is progressive, in the sense that its workers, over time,
develop ever closer approximations to accurate representations of the
natural world. Notably, they are also so enmeshed in school, at this time
in their lives, that the “good student” and the “good scientist” overlap
and even merge.
Alex also states a well-known assumption concerning scientific prac-
tice and epistemology: It is “objective.” Alex, however, attests that this trait
of a good scientist would keep him from practicing responsible science,
because he cannot be objective due to his religious faith. Along with Sam
and Jonathan, Alex identifies objectivity as a valued aspect of science, but
removes himself from science in the same stroke. Unlike his male class-
mates, he openly states his own inability to be objective, therefore his
inability to practice what he views as good science. As will become clear
below, Alex and Sam each begin to revamp their conceptions of objectiv-
ity, scientific practice, and their own abilities therein, largely due to this
particular interview-conversation. Jonathan’s reaction is one of at least
temporary retrenchment.
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 79

Questioning the Human Capacity for Objectivity

During the interview-conversation, these three boys and I delved more

deeply into the idea of science as objective. We also touched on other values
and virtues of good scientists, both those that Sam, Jonathan, and Alex
had mentioned in their writing above, and new issues that had come up
since this writing and during this interview-conversation. We began with
my question to Sam about “hard evidence.” In the context of our class-
room study of X-chromosome inactivation (the Lyon Hypothesis), in re-
sponse to the question “Why is this called a hypothesis and not a theory?,”
he had written, “Because it is only a guess and there is no hard evidence
to support it—yet.” Later, when I asked him for an example of hard evi-
dence, he said that an example would be “a computer printout.” I chose
to continue this discussion with Sam, who was the first to arrive in the
empty classroom in which we were meeting; Jonathan arrived shortly
thereafter, then Alex.
When I reiterated the question concerning hard evidence to Sam, he
stated that “hard evidence is something readily accepted by the world. It
can be computer printouts, big big studies, but you said they had those
[many studies] for the Lyon Hypothesis. I’m starting to doubt what hard
evidence really is now. If there is such a thing.” A moment later, he con-
tinued, “Or if there is such thing as hard evidence, but it’s not enough to
make a thesis out of a hypothesis. You need more stuff, and frankly I’m
not sure what that is.” Jonathan entered at this point, and I asked him to
tell us what criteria he used to distinguish a hypothesis from a theory. Sam
directed us back to the hard evidence issue with: “There’s hard evidence
in math but I can’t find any examples of hard evidence for science. Be-
cause in math, it’s either true or it’s not; there’s a difference between black
and white. In science there’s a huge gray area.”
With these epistemological wonderings, Sam came close to what phi-
losophers of science call the “tentativity” of scientific knowledge (Pop-
per, 1959/1992, 1962/1968). This idea is mainstream—at least among
people who write about science, including the standards authors, al-
though not necessarily among practicing scientists themselves. As Sam
recognized, science does require evidence—but “it’s not enough.” He
implicitly regarded science as a social enterprise, noting that this prob-
lematic “stuff” he terms “hard evidence” must be acceptable to a wide
audience or it will not count. He did not hold an image of science as
practiced by isolated individuals gathering facts and building theories
solely from those facts. Instead, he spoke of scientific knowledge as a
“huge gray area”—it is not certain.
80 Connecting Girls and Science

Jonathan took Sam up on these statements, making a stand that sci-

ence indeed does provide “hard evidence.” He asked Sam, “Well, what
about, say, that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen?” I asked, “Do
you have hard evidence of that?” Jonathan responded with “You can sepa-
rate it through electrolysis or whatever, and get the two [hydrogen and
oxygen].” Sam guided us back to the Lyon Hypothesis with: “Well, that’s
true, but with the Lyon Hypothesis nobody’s actually observed the Xs re-
ceding; they’ve seen evidence of the receded Xs, but—” Here I believe that
Sam is getting at the idea of “indirect evidence,” which certainly forms a
great deal of the “stuff” that counts as evidence in science. At least in this
instance, Sam did not believe that this indirect evidence sufficed to trans-
form a hypothesis into a theory.
I never did come to a good understanding of what Jonathan and Sam
meant when they said “hard evidence.” I believe that it is mathematical
or statistical—that is, the common “numbers don’t lie” assumption. It may
also refer to things that one can see directly with one’s own eyes. Possi-
bly, if there were photographs of “the Xs receding,” Sam would think that
the Lyon Hypothesis had the kind of evidence that would make it into a
theory.
Alex entered at this point. I asked him if he could remember his re-
sponse to the question concerning the distinction between a hypothesis
and a theory. He recalled having defined a theory as something that “hadn’t
[been] proven without a shadow of a doubt.” When I asked, “So you would
say that theories are things that are proven beyond a shadow of a doubt?”
he paused, then responded, “No. To have it not [be] a theory and be hard
evidence, then it has to be proven, without a shadow of a doubt. I guess.”
Alex did not make the connection that Sam had between evidence and
theory; however, he also appeared to be thinking that “evidence” is in-
deed something that, at least when it is “hard,” is what makes something
“proven, without a shadow of a doubt.” He represented theory in the
popular sense, as something that is closer to a guess or a supposition than
to an explanatory framework. (Sam and Jonathan entered here, jokingly,
stating that a theory becomes hard evidence, or truth, “after they pay a
lot of money” and “Yeah, [after] they spend billions of dollars in research.”
These comments indicate a comprehension of science as an enterprise that
utilizes vast sums of money.)
Jonathan and Sam took over the discussion again, with Jonathan
claiming that there was plenty of hard evidence in biology: specifically,
molecular genetics, with its “nucleotides,” “codons,” “anticodons,” and
“protein sequences.” Sam responded to this claim with “Well, that’s still
more like chemistry.” When Jonathan said, “I have a hard time seeing
how organic things are any more complex than chemicals,” Sam chal-
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 81

lenged him to “explain the biological process of learning.” Jonathan had

no problem speculating on this issue at length. But I wanted to get Alex
back into the conversation, as well as move the conversation back to
issues connected with objectivity. So I reminded each boy of his writing
in response to the questions (see above); these I read out loud. In re-
sponse to his male classmates’ writing, Alex said, “I feel so stupid! Now
I know how Tammy feels.” (Tammy is a female classmate who regularly
commented on Jonathan’s “smartness” in class.) Laughing ruefully, he
moved as if to leave, which I insisted he not do. I then asked the whole
group, “Why is it important, or possible, or whatever, to be objective in
biology or physics and not important, or possible, or whatever, to be
objective in other subjects?” Alex responded at length with the follow-
ing contemporaneous example:

I was watching the news this morning, with the O. J. Simpson trial.
The genetic—for the DNA, I mean they knew, kind of, they’d
already arrested O. J., so when they took the blood samples they
were looking for his blood. But to be objective, I think, you need to
just do it blindly and just look and see, like in that case, if it was his
or if it wasn’t. It seems like sometimes, if you have this theory, that
you go looking for the information that would prove your theory.
You look for the stuff that would prove your own theory and then
kind of disregard some of the stuff that is a little wishy-washy.

Sam and Jonathan nodded and said “yeah” as Alex explained his example
of deviation from objectivity, in which he connected objectivity to devel-
oping the “truth” solely from “the facts,” unimpeded by an already con-
ceived theory. Jonathan continued with commentary on Alex’s example:

I think what Alex was saying is a perfect example of where people

aren’t following the scientific method. I think that if you were to
do that truly, your theories would come from your research rather
than your research forming and fitting to your theories.

Notably, Jonathan’s belief about how scientific knowledge is devel-

oped was less sophisticated and less contemporary than Sam’s. The stan-
dards, along with the writings of feminists and other philosophers of sci-
ence in the wake of the 1962 publication of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions, argue that facts are chosen or noticed due to extant
theoretical perspectives; evidence, theory, and scientists’ thinking and
communication interact to develop understandings of the world. While
Sam is dissatisfied with evidence as the sole requirement for theory ac-
82 Connecting Girls and Science

ceptance, Jonathan and Alex wanted preconceived ideas—such as O. J.

Simpson’s putative guilt—to be disregarded so that theories can arise a
posteriori from observable facts. Jonathan’s version of “scientific method”
adheres to a traditional school model that puts observation and experi-
ment before theory, in the faith that scientific truth is gained through a
totally unbiased perspective. Jonathan, it appears, does believe that the
“God-trick” is attainable.
Jonathan staunchly held out for the desirability and possibility of
objectivity in science. In his vision, failures of scientific method and its
attendant objectivity do occur—but the method itself, aided by the mecha-
nism of peer review, eventually cleans things up. Jonathan’s discussion
and writing on this topic, while it appeared to clarify his own thinking,
did not indicate a changed mind in this regard, as demonstrated in his late-
semester response to the same questions I had posed earlier (see above).
To the additional question “Have you or your ideas changed at all since
the beginning of the semester? Please explain how and why they have or
have not changed,” Jonathan responded:

A good scientist is always reluctant to accept ideas which do not

base themselves upon “hard evidence” (a concept which seems
very clear to me). The scientist needs to be objective as he [sic]
delves into the unknown. I think that Science [sic] is the intrinsic
ideology by which most of our questions will someday be reason-
ably answered. I would have to say that my idea of what a good
scientist is has stayed relatively stable over the period of one
semester. My concept of science and what the qualities of quality
science are, are basic metaphysical beliefs for me. I understand that
many of my fellow students don’t allow science to play as large of a
role in their lives, so they might be more flexible on this sort of
issue but I think that my impression of what a good scientist is has
been consistent and to think that it has been revolutionized so
quickly would be excessively unthinkable.

During a private, one-on-one interview-conversation with Jonathan,

he told me that he had rejected his Catholic religion’s explanations of the
world, and found great satisfaction in scientific explications of questions
of interest to him. His disillusionment with his religion was exemplified
by the impossibility of finding, within his church community, a satisfac-
tory response to his question: “If the world is so young, how do you ex-
plain dinosaurs?” Jonathan’s writing makes me suspect that he had sub-
stituted one kind of religion for another; his use of the word “ideology”
strengthens this claim. Jonathan also validates my own instinctive pre-
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 83

conception that it would be a challenge to help students work through

well-learned, albeit inappropriate, visions of science in one short semes-
ter. However, as Jonathan himself notes, none of the students in this class
had the commitment to science that Jonathan so passionately conveys.
So was Jonathan a “canary in a coal mine”? Or, instead, was he begin-
ning to feel some threat to his quasi-religious faith in his chosen objectiv-
ist world view and chosen profession? Or was he simply right, and was it
a hard pedagogical fact that a transformation of the magnitude required
in order for Jonathan to seriously question issues concerning hard evidence
and objectivity—his own hallmarks of scientific activity—would have taken
more than the resources of this course allowed?
Sam, unlike Jonathan, was willing to consider the notion that ob-
jectivity might be an impossible dream. Nonetheless, he continued to
yearn for it, even in the midst of his skepticism as to its attainment by
mere humans.

Unfortunately, we’re human. There’s no such thing as a truly

objective human. Humans, whenever they see something, even
though they try their hardest not to, they make opinions about it.
And they want to prove themselves right, because humans don’t
like being wrong. So they look for stuff to prove their own theory
and they disregard anything that says that their theory’s not true;
they just sort of turn a blind eye toward it.

In June, responding to the questions above, Sam summarized this

view. He also identified himself with those who would have trouble being
“objective” as he interpreted objectivity:

[To be a good scientist] one has to be objective. One must not let
one’s personal feelings interfere with one’s project. Sometimes, I’m
not as objective as I’d like to be. I’ve added objectivity to my list of
traits [of a good scientist], because of that one Wednesday morning
session.

Alex, along with Jonathan and Sam, also referenced the “Wednes-
day morning session” (interview-conversation) in his response to the
questions given in June; he moved, however, in a different direction from
either of his classmates. Unlike Jonathan, he has chosen not to reject his
religious faith for science; if anything, it is the reverse.

I first didn’t think me as a “Christian” boy would make a “good

scientist.” After going to the Wednesday morning conferences, I
84 Connecting Girls and Science

realized that the way science is going, more “moral” people have to
go into science to make sure what they are doing is in the good of
all mankind and the entire world.

It is as though Alex is thinking that religion, as the social home of

morality, needs to play a role in keeping science responsible. Concomi-
tantly, he implies that contemporary science is “amoral”; an understand-
ing of science as objective would contradict the possibility of moral stances
in science, because morality is personally and socially variable. Ironically,
especially in the face of Jonathan’s apparent intransigent stand concern-
ing “hard evidence” and the possibility for objectivity, Alex’s outlook looks
more like the skepticism named as a value by the standards authors.

Kidmark A: Summary

Sam, Jonathan, and Alex demonstrated beliefs about science as a social

enterprise that both mesh and clash with those that the standards affirm.
In their attitude toward the usefulness of objectivity in the creation of
scientific knowledge, Sam, Jonathan, Alex, and the standards all recog-
nize emotions and preconceived ideas as dangers to be avoided in the
development of scientific knowledge. All of the boys appeared to believe
that objectivity is a valuable aspect of science, to be adhered to as closely
as possible.
Sam demonstrated that he was beginning to detect that evidence—of
whatever “hardness”—is not all it takes to develop scientific knowledge.
By interrogating the issue of evidence in scientific knowledge development,
he connected with the standards’ philosophical stance that choice of evi-
dence is affected by the theoretical perspective that the scientist adopts.
He also indicated a developing understanding of the idea that scientific
knowledge is tentative. This stance is one adopted by the standards yet
rarely attended to in science classrooms. Alex departed from purely epis-
temological considerations to add morality to the virtues and values that
he believes should be—although, in Alex’s view, are not—intrinsic to the
social enterprise of science.
The issues that both Alex and Sam brought up concerning problems
with objectivity are ones with which feminists also engage. Namely, ob-
jectivity is not simple to attain: Because we are human, we are embedded
in a social framework that disallows the ability to leave ourselves behind
in favor of “the position of no position that provides a view from nowhere”
(Longino, 1993, p. 110). In addition, feminists, particularly Sandra Harding
(1993), have developed a concept of “strong objectivity,” which states that
naming one’s own biases, perspectives, and desires is required in order to
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 85

develop a more useful objective stance. In this argument, personal feel-

ings are unavoidable, and pretending otherwise contributes to an artifi-
cial objectivity that is masked with an impossible impartiality. In addition,
some feminists question whether striving for a disconnected stance toward
the subject of study creates the best and most accurate knowledge about
the world.
Sam, Jonathan, and Alex contribute examples of adolescents’ think-
ing about the requirement that students recognize that science is a social
enterprise. Ironically, Jonathan, the most dedicated scientist of the trio,
held on to a fact-driven epistemology that the standards aim to disperse,
while Alex moved to a place that insists that science concern itself with
moral issues. I think that Alex might take issue with the statement from
Science for All Americans that “whether a scientist chooses to work on re-
search of great potential harm to humanity . . . is considered by many sci-
entists to be a matter of personal ethics, not one of professional ethics”
(AAAS, 1990, p. 12).
These students’ conversation is complex and open-ended. They have
begun to question their own beliefs, inspired by two short writing assign-
ments and one 40-minute discussion. They did not treat practitioners of
science as sacred and unquestionable entities with no everyday human
traits. On the other hand, Jonathan and Sam communicated to me that a
transformation in one’s view of scientific practice and the knowledge it
creates can be difficult, and not necessarily fun. Particularly for Jonathan,
even considering a transformation of this sort is unattractive and time-
consuming. He loved science “the way it is,” and although his conception
of “the way it is” differed from that put forth by the standards, and all the
more so from feminist ideas of what science is and what it could be, he
was well on his way to being a “good scientist” as he viewed that creature.
And then there is Alex. Alex’s case serves as an example of what can
happen with students who think that they cannot participate in science
because it would require the denial of the morality, caring, and subjectiv-
ity that they hold dear. As I relate in the following section, when students
are encouraged to engage with issues around personal engagement in
scientific work, others may join in rethinking their roles in science.

KIDMARK B. EMPATHY: A VIRTUE NOT VALUED IN

THE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE

As the interview-conversations progressed, I pursued my curiosity con-

cerning whether participating students believed that women and men are
differently suited for science, and/or if they conduct science differently.
86 Connecting Girls and Science

Table 3.1. Kidmark A: Science and Intellectual Values

Standards Feminism Kids

Objectivity Strong objectivity Objectivity

Freedom from bias Recognition and Freedom from bias
explication of bias
Curiosity Politically and socially Curiosity
relevant choice of
research questions
Creativity “Scientific method” Step-wise adherence to
critiqued “scientific method”
Logic Logic Logic
Independent thought Thought is socially Ability to develop good
contextualized hypotheses and
experiments
Team work Strong objectivity Scientists sometimes talk
with each other
Accurate record-keeping ——— Accurate record-keeping
Openness Strong objectivity: Openness
perspectives “up
front”
Skepticism Strong objectivity Objectivity
Replicability ——— Replicability
Honesty Strong objectivity through Honesty
explication of bias
Imagination Imagination Imagination
Checking with outsiders Checking with outsiders: Checking with outsiders
see strong objectivity
Communication Communication Communication
Being clever and “Smartness” is socially Being smart
inventive defined, changes with
time and context, and
isn’t usually
associated with
“woman”
Concepts and facts Connectedness between “Having” knowledge
the subject and the
object of study

w
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 87

As they considered the question “Do men and women do science differ-
ently?,” issues of emotion and empathy sprang up as themes in these stu-
dents’ views of the practice of science. The students argued that women
would care more—for themselves and for others—than would men. This
section indicates not only that the girls (and Jonathan) viewed women as
being more feeling than men, but that they excluded feeling from science—
and thus, quite possibly, excluded themselves. Sam and Alex did not com-
ment directly on the issue of empathy (or what I am interpreting as em-
pathy) in scientific practice.
I examined students’ writing based in considerations of themselves
as scientists; in addition, in interview-conversations, the question “Do men
and women do science differently?” was prominent. I realize now that this
question probably pushed students toward an affirmative response. This
is a definite weakness in my research design, and yet, as a teacher, it pro-
vided me with a way to get students talking about something that they
would not otherwise discuss. I wanted them to externalize their assump-
tions about gender and science, and reflect on societal expectations of
women and men and how these affect participation in science.

Women and Men Doing Science

The descriptions that students provided of women and men doing science
are significantly different from the sex- and gender-less images implied in
the standards. Students bring in emotion and caring, explicitly speaking
of the women scientists as being more feeling for their subjects, while the
men were more matter-of-fact. All of the students to whom I put this is-
sue implied that women scientists and men scientists would get the job
done equally well. The belief that women scientists and men scientists
would feel differently as a part of their work, however, came through loud
and clear. In general, these students appear to believe that women scien-
tists would feel more strongly; while men scientists also have feelings, these
feelings would not be as powerful, as immediate, or as directly connected
to the situation at hand and the individuals—human or otherwise—in-
volved. I have organized this section along a spectrum of ideas concern-
ing men and women scientists, in an order I perceive as decreasingly ob-
vious in their dichotomization of the sexes in terms of intellect and
emotional capacity.

Ann: Sexism and Science

Elaine: Do you have a brother?

Ann: Yeah.
88 Connecting Girls and Science

Elaine: Do you and he do anything differently? Or think differently

about—
Ann: Oh, yeah. He’s a sexist and thinks women are stupid, and I
say “You’re stupid.”
Elaine: What do you do when he says something like that?
Ann: I just think to myself “What an idiot!”
Elaine: Do you say anything to him?
Ann: I just tell him to shut up and I say “You’re bogue.”
Elaine: How old is he?
Ann: He’s, I think 32.
Elaine: Oh!
Ann: He’s old.
Elaine: I wonder what we could do to help educate him.
Ann: Probably not much.
Elaine: He’s pretty much stuck?
Ann: Yeah.
Elaine: Do you think that he might say that a man scientist and a
woman scientist might do things differently?
Ann: He’d say that a man would be better.
Elaine: And what reasons would he give for a man being better?
Ann: Because he’s a man.
Elaine: That’s it? He’d just stop there?
Ann: Yeah.

During my interview-conversation with Ann, I struggled to find a

context within which to discuss the possible existence of a gender-
connected variety of approaches to science. First I asked her to consider a
situation in which eagles (her choice) were in danger of losing their nest-
ing grounds. Then I tried to take our conversation to mathematics. And
then, as I foundered in my efforts to help her talk about women and men
in science, I asked her if she had any brothers. At this point, Ann made it
very clear that her brother would believe that, as a scientist, “a man would
be better.” His view contradicts her own belief that “nowadays men and
women are equal.” Ann represents her older brother’s beliefs as based in
his own failings; she calls him an “idiot,” implying that it would be a waste
of time to try to teach him different views.
While lacking in depth and complexity, this vision of women and men
as scientists permeates our society. And surely it influences girls and
women as they consider schoolwork or even a life in science: Why even
try if I just don’t have what it takes? By saying “I am not smart enough,”
some girls in this class took themselves out of the running for “good sci-
entist” with one fell blow. For example, both Carolyn and Tammy associ-
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 89

ated “smartness” with being a scientist; informing me that they were not
smart or knowledgeable, they clearly represent themselves as intellectu-
ally unsuited for science. It is obvious that these girls associate “science”
with “smart,” but they did not associate themselves with “smart” or with
“science.” I have included here four telling responses to the questions
“What do you think it means to ‘be a good scientist’? Do you think that
you have the traits of a ‘good scientist’? Why, why not, some yes, some
no?” Note the differences between what the girls say and the responses of
Jonathan, Sam, and Alex.

Carolyn: I think that [being a good scientist] means you think well;
also you make good hypotheses and you know the whole periodic
table of elements. I don’t think I have the traits of a good scientist
because for one I am not smart, for two I don’t make good hypoth-
eses and three, I couldn’t begin to tell you all of the periodic table.

Tammy: I think being a good scientist means that you know what
you’re doing and you use the problem-solving method. They also
have to be smart. I don’t have any traits of a “good scientist.”

Jennifer was more specific, associating her professed lack of smart-

ness with “that subject” (science). Belinda asserted her own smartness
and competence, but still was doubtful of her ability to “have a clue” in
science.

Jennifer: To be a good [scientist] means that you can figure out

formulas and make some kind of treatment for a virus or diseases.
I’m not smart in that subject.

Belinda: To know what you are doing, what’s going on. Sometimes
I really get into some scientific stuff and I really know what I am
talking about. But then other times I don’t have a clue about
what’s going on.

In addition to these girls’ quick ability to denigrate their own intelli-

gence, the kind of obvious sexism expressed by Ann’s brother—so “bogue”
that one just wants to ignore it—operates to keep women out of the prac-
tice of science. There are people (some of them scientists) like Ann’s brother
who think and say that women just don’t have what it takes to be scien-
tists. However, the clarity of this obvious sexism, on the surface, at least,
makes it relatively easy to deal with. Obvious sexism in science is described
in the standards—a place where liberal feminism appears to be welcome,
90 Connecting Girls and Science

although it does not exactly run rampant. Women and Blacks in histori-
cal science are mentioned as “the remarkable few who overcame those
obstacles [and] were even then likely to have their work belittled by the
science establishment” (AAAS, 1990, p. 9). The past tense of this passage
indicates that AAAS believes that sexist and racist barriers to science are
no longer a severe limitation to equal participation by all.

Jonathan: Less Obvious Sexism

Elaine: I’m going to give you a little scenario. Can you think of any
endangered marine species?
Jonathan: How about the manistees?
Elaine: Manatees? Manatees, right? [Manistee is the name of a city
in Jonathan’s and my home state.]
Jonathan: Yeah.
Elaine: So let’s say there’s this massive oil spill. There are a man
and a woman scientist in charge of what’s going on. And the
idea is to get as many of the manatees out of there, safely, as
they can, as quickly as they can. Do you think that the man
and the woman would think of this situation any differently?
This is not a question where I am looking for any answer. I’m
not trying to prejudice you in one way or the other; I am just
honestly curious about what you think.
Jonathan: [pause] I think that they would probably think about it
differently. If the man and the woman were just randomly
chosen. And, I guess, the reason I say that is I’ve been out to
the university and I’ve met, I’ve met some physics people out
at the university that are female and they’re [he laughs] on
top of their stuff. And so I think both genders certainly have
the capabilities. It seems to be throughout history, I guess most
studies that I’ve read, that most men tend to think, tend to
use, to prefer logic more than most females do. I value logic a
lot and I think that should be what’s supplied in the case of
these manatees. I think that if you were to just draw randomly
throughout the population, I don’t think they would both
have the same theory of logic thinking about it. But I think
that if you were to go through and find the best female
scientist in the world and the best male scientist in the world, I
think that both of them would be excellent.

Jonathan said that he did believe that a woman and a man, at least if
they were “randomly chosen,” would address the manatee challenge dif-
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 91

ferently. It sounds as if he is making a generalized claim that men and

women do think differently. And yet, I found the comments about the
women physicist quite puzzling. This is one place where I see Jonathan
making an effort to argue against sexism in science, as he says that the
female physicists he knows are “on top of their stuff,” as though there might
be some question that women physicists would be as competent as their
male colleagues. He follows this with a comment that “both genders have
the same capabilities”—something I would consider, indeed, a nonsexist
belief—then contradicts himself by stating that men “prefer logic more than
most females do.” From here, it is not a very long step for him to connect
logic to science and men to logic. While the best male and female scien-
tists would “both be excellent,” it appears that not just any female scien-
tist would necessarily practice the logical thinking that science requires.
Possibly, Jonathan believed that it still is “the remarkable few” (see AAAS
quote above) women who make the top echelons of scientific success.
When I asked Jonathan what he meant by “logic,” he described a situ-
ation in which both of his parents help him with his handwritten papers.
His mother types them and makes grammatical corrections. Jonathan quoted
her as saying, “We need to put a period here, a comma here; this needs to
be capitalized instead of this.” His father, in the meantime, reads Jonathan’s
papers for larger editorial advice, for example, “This paragraph doesn’t go
to this one, needs a transitional sentence.” Jonathan sums up his example
by saying, “My mother tends to look more at how things appear and how
they come across, how, visually or, emotionally, I guess. Whereas the male
personalities in my life tend to concentrate more on criteria, meeting spe-
cific goals and stuff like that.” On hearing Jonathan’s story about writing
his papers, I was reminded of a paper my own college-age daughter had
written in a history course, in which she had composed a biographical sketch
of the Byzantine Empress Theodora from the empress’s point of view. Her
professor told her, “This is too personal. I want you to be more objective.”
When I shared this with Jonathan, he enthusiastically seized on the word
objective, using it as descriptive of what he was trying to say: “Yeah. Objec-
tive. I tend to value objectiveness more than subjectiveness. That’s a better
way to explain it. That’s what I was thinking about.”
This interview-conversation occurred before our group interview-
conversation with Sam and Alex. On this occasion, therefore, Jonathan
is picking up on the word objective before the more in-depth interview-
conversation we had with the others. It is not clear where he is headed
with this line of thought. I had introduced the word objective; he certainly
chose it as an accurate label for what he was thinking, but he did not come
up with it independently. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to pursue the
issue at this point, and to delve into his perceptions of subjectivity.
92 Connecting Girls and Science

Jonathan has set us on a path that will further indicate that these stu-
dents believed that women and men possess differing psychological traits.
In this, unlike Ann, who said that women and men are simply equal, he
followed the age-old tradition of “complementarianism”—the notion that
women and men are naturally different and complementary in the traits
they portray. In this scheme, men are made for war, women for domes-
ticity; men are hunters, women gatherers; men are intellectual and not
emotional, women emotional and not intellectual (Lerner, 1986; Mer-
chant, 1980; Schiebinger, 1989, 1993).
It is very difficult to imagine a world in which all of these traits or
characteristics would be truly valued, therefore men and women truly
equal, although different. In addition, feminists argue that this dichoto-
mizing of traits is a construction developed by men (Alcoff, 1988). In this
regard, complementarianism has been and continues to be very useful in
maintaining the assignment of devalued traits and less-valued work to
women.
So I explore this territory carefully, because I do not want to contrib-
ute to an intellectual argument that further strengthens the power of sepa-
rating women from men in “naturalized” ways. But the traits that these
students associate with women represent values and virtues that would
benefit science, as well as make science more attractive to people who value
traditionally feminine traits as or more strongly than traditionally mascu-
line traits. And, of course, we cannot teach our students well until we have
some sense of what they are thinking.

Belinda: Complementarianism and Empathy

Belinda: I’m really interested in the medical field, and I wanted to

be a paramedic for a while until I started hearing stories and really
seeing—I mean Rescue 911, there aren’t very many deaths on the
program. And a lot more people die, more than on the program.
And I’ve heard stories; and the thing that they did last Friday
[Belinda is referring to a pre-prom mock-enactment of automobile
crash put on by her school’s chapter of Students Against Drunk
Driving (SADD)]—it was like, I had sort of changed my mind and
wanted to get to a more calm situation where I wouldn’t be so
emotionally involved and so uptight and stressed out all the time.
And I decided to be a phlebotomist, which is somebody who draws
blood. So, I took an interest in that and, it was just like, when they
did that car crash thing, they did the whole—the cars were already
there and the people were in place but the whole thing as if they
were really doing it. And I had to choke back tears. I knew it
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 93

wasn’t real, but I could not handle that. It was so emotionally

overpowering. I have so much of an interest to do that kind of
thing, but yet I know I couldn’t handle it. So I figured, well I want
to stay with the medical stuff and still help people so that’s why I
chose phlebotomy.

Emergency or laboratory medicine, at first glance, may appear too

removed from science to be a context for discussing scientific values. How-
ever, girls tend to make a connection themselves—when asked how they
might use science in their own lives, or the kinds of scientific careers they
might pursue, they overwhelmingly cite the health professions (AAUW,
1992; Gornick, 1990; Rosser, 1992, 1997). I myself began my scientific
education planning to become a medical technician, and then switched
to a biology major. So while Belinda did not view a future for herself in
scientific research, she may be thinking of medical technology as a pro-
fession that requires the practice and knowledge of science. In fact, in the
following transcript excerpt, Belinda explicitly connects science to emer-
gency medicine.
Below, Belinda continually returned to the idea that girls and boys,
and the women and men they grown into, approach emergency situations
differently.

Elaine: Do you think there’s any difference between boys and girls
and the way they approach science and think about science,
what they like?
Belinda: Yes. I think so. Because going back to what I was saying
about being a paramedic or an ET [emergency technician]—
guys are just going to do their job or whatever. I mean it might
cross their mind if they come to some gut-wrenching scene or
something that’s really bad, but they’re not going to sit there
and think about, “Well, I feel so bad for the family, what can I
do to help them?” They’re just there, I think, in general, they
do their job, and they don’t really think about it, past a couple
of days. But I think women tend to mourn—in a sense mourn
for the family and feel bad for them. Because, again, they’re
thinking about well what if it was, what if it was me? You
know, stuff like that.

Belinda appeared convinced that girls and women would be more

affected by the emotional aspects of these tragedies. While she makes no
mention of this emotionality adversely or positively affecting the efficacy
of women’s choices or treatments in emergency situations, she implies that
94 Connecting Girls and Science

it would take a toll on the individual woman’s psychological and emotional

well-being. It appears obvious to me that Belinda is describing empathy—
a quality of identifying with others, within a powerfully emotional frame-
work. She is speculating that she would mourn for people that she doesn’t
even know; she cannot resist the summons to put herself in their place.
She also distinguishes women from men in this regard, as men would not
“really think about it, past a couple of days.”
A scientist might say that here Belinda is speaking of accident victims
as people one is caring for, not people one is studying from a scientific per-
spective. So here Belinda is feeling empathy for objects of care, not objects
of study. Feminists, I believe, would respond that that is exactly the point:
Traditional science separates care from study; a revisioned epistemology
could include them both, and recognize their interactions as enriching
rather than blocking understanding. Belinda’s stance in the next excerpt
could be interpreted as one that is melding the object of care with the object
of study (although that doesn’t make the work any easier for Belinda’s
woman scientist!).

Elaine: Let’s pretend that there’s an epidemic, like cholera.

[Belinda and other sophomores had studied cholera in the
fall.] You’re a woman scientist, an expert in disease control,
and there’s also a man scientist there. How do you think that
you and he might go about solving the problem differently,
approaching the problem differently, or doing the work to help
these people, to get this epidemic under control?
Belinda: You mean from each other?
Elaine: Yes.
Belinda: Okay.
Elaine: If at all.
Belinda: Well, I don’t know. I’m sure on some things we would do
things differently, because we are two different people.
Because, when there are more people you can think of more
things to better yourself and the problem or whatever you’re
dealing with, I think. So, especially when with cholera people
are dying so quickly that, if somebody thought of something,
and you’re just like not talking to them, and you think of it a
month later, and you know and then you come up with, say
he came up with a way to cure it but he wasn’t sure how
exactly to finish the end of his study, and I came up with the
whole thing, to where as if he had told me and maybe I could
have come up with it sooner.
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 95

Elaine: So are you saying—please correct me if I’m wrong here—

that forget about the differences, that maybe the differences
are positive—
Belinda: Umhm.
Elaine:—because we can get together and have different ideas—
Belinda: Umhm.
Elaine: —and put those ideas together to come up with the best
idea.
Belinda: Right.

Belinda implied that difference, per se, would have a positive effect
on the eventual outcome of emergency problem solving, but not neces-
sarily because these differences are identified with male and female. It
appears to be more that because they are different people, separate indi-
viduals, their combined work might result in a more effective eventual
solution to the issue at hand. Here, Belinda demonstrated an understand-
ing of the standards’ observation that scientists communicate regularly,
and that the open sharing of ideas leads to better science. Belinda is like
Sam in her recognition that scientists work together when they’re work-
ing at their best and most responsible. In this case, the responsibility is to
others. This scenario that I provided, where people are dying very quickly
and any selfishness on the scientists’ part would be unconscionable, may
well have influenced Belinda’s interpretation of their work.
However, when given a story more closely related to the one about
which I asked Jonathan to speculate—the manatees endangered by an oil
spill—Belinda returns to a conviction that men and women are different
from one another. By connecting to “scientific studies” to support her ideas
of the differences between men and women, Belinda is drawing on “ex-
perts” to support her argument.

Elaine: How do you think each [the woman scientist and the male
scientist] might go about solving this problem of how to get
the manatees out of there?
Belinda: I think that the woman would probably, it would hit her
more emotionally because, sure guys might think about
animals and protecting them but they’re thinking more out of
the left side of their brain which is the psychological, orderly
type of thing that they do things in a step-by-step procedure,
you know, where the woman tends to think more
emotionally. And if I was in that situation or in anything like
as far as the cholera thing I would just try to get my job done
96 Connecting Girls and Science

and then collapse. That is the kind of person I am. I would

just do my best and just try my best not to think about it and
just totally shut my emotions out of the situation and get the
job done.

Here, Belinda echoes Jonathan’s analysis of this situation: Men are

more “step-by-step,” women are more “emotional.” In her writing at the
end of the year, Belinda wrote, “I think that a good scientist would use
the scientific method whenever he tests things. . . . Sometimes I don’t
remember the whole scientific method, so then I would obviously not
be testing things/completing the procedure properly.” Men, Belinda
speculated, would utilize an orderly methodology, which reflects a vi-
sion of scientific practice as logical and stepwise. She goes so far as to
base her reasoning in this area on the popularized—and repeatedly, in
the past as well as recently, debunked, by feminists and other scientists
(e.g., Fausto-Sterling, 2000)—notion that men and women use differ-
ent parts of their brains to think. This is, to me, an example of girls’ be-
lieving that science disallows the entry of emotion, and that it would be
difficult—for people even less self-reflective than Belinda—to fulfill the
daily responsibilities of a person who must set aside caring aspects of self
to do their work.
Belinda views herself as potentially threatened by emotion. She would
“just try my best not to think about it and just totally shut my emotions
out of the situation and get the job done.” She does not state that emo-
tions should come into the practice of science, or of medicine, but that she
is more emotional, and in order to get the job done she would need to
shut down that part of herself until it was over, and “then collapse.” She
implies that emotion would not be functional in practice or action informed
by science such as disaster management, epidemic relief work, or emer-
gency medicine.
Is Belinda an example of one of those female scientists Jonathan sug-
gested we might draw at random from the total population? Are both she
and Jonathan implying that Belinda, with her powerful empathy for those
in pain and in danger, should hide herself safely away in a medical labo-
ratory, and not mess with the demand for a cool head that science (and
powerful action) demands? Belinda, at least, insisted that it was not ac-
ceptable to keep women out of science because they might be more emo-
tional. When I asked her, “What would you say to people who say women
are too emotional to be scientists?” she responded, “I don’t think that that’s
right, because I’m not a woman’s lib or anything like that, but I still think
that women should be given the equal chance to do that if they want to,
not meaning that they have to go out and work construction, you know.”
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 97

Sexism No Longer Exists

Misti: I think that the best scientists are male AND female. It doesn’t
matter what gender you are, it matters what is in your head!

Misti’s conviction introduces a striking aspect of these girls’ and boys’

attitudes toward women in the sciences: They insist that men and women
are equal, and that it is unlikely that women “nowadays” will be kept out
of careers due to their sex. They also insisted that women and men are
different—different emotionally, and different in their thinking. My con-
viction of this contradiction is supported by the girls’ own words. For ex-
ample, Carolyn (below) said “I think it’s interesting to see the females, how
they think, how their reactions—because they think differently than men”;
and Belinda said that “the woman tends to think more emotionally”; and
Jonathan stated that men “prefer logic more than most females do” (see
above). In addition, the students all describe science as a place where cer-
tain traits dominate, and imply that those traits are not things that women
necessarily possess.

Carolyn: Revisioning Science as More Wholly Human?

Carolyn hinted at a way that we might think of getting beyond the idea
that men and women are different, and equal; or alternatively, different,
but not equal. Before the excerpt cited below, Carolyn had responded to
the question “Can you think of any scientists?” with “The only one I really
remember is Mendel, because [we studied him in genetics].” I then asked
her to think of scientists in entertainment media. The ensuing conversa-
tion is quoted below:

Elaine: What about scientists in movies, cartoons?

Carolyn: I think that most of the scientists in the movies are men,
because I mean the movies that I watch, if there’s a scientist in
there you get in your mind that it’s going to be a male
scientist. Sometimes they surprise you and then they show
you that it’s a woman scientist.
Elaine: Why do you think the people that make the movies do it
that way?
Carolyn: I’m not really sure. I think maybe they think it would be
more interesting to have a male scientist.
Elaine: Do you think it’s more interesting to have a male scientist?
Carolyn: I don’t think so. I think it’s interesting to see the females,
how they think, how their reactions—because they think
98 Connecting Girls and Science

differently than men. I like to see their reactions to certain

stuff.
Elaine: That’s a really interesting thing you just said. That men and
women think differently, or that women scientists think
differently than men. Can you say more about that?
Carolyn: Well, I think that, if they were trying to, if they were
looking at something the men would be more hypothetical,
and I don’t think they would really get into it as much, as the
women would; women would try and pick it apart. I mean not
saying that the men, I’m not trying to be sexist, to say men
wouldn’t—
Elaine: I know.
Carolyn: —but I think the women would be more sensitive to that
aspect of it, then the men would.

I then told Carolyn that she was saying what a lot of people who study
differences between men and women are saying, and that the idea wasn’t
that one was better than the other, but that they were different. I made
this point because I was concerned that Carolyn was thinking that she was
being “sexist.” Then I shared with Carolyn the endangered-species sce-
nario, this time with dolphins (we realized that they weren’t endangered,
but used them because Carolyn chose them), in the oil spill scenario, com-
plete with male and female scientists. Carolyn began to speak before I fin-
ished the question concerning gender differences.

The woman would basically think of the dolphins, how they feel,
how they would feel if they were to put them, to move them
somewhere. I think that they would think about, if they wanted to
be here [or] would they feel bad because it’s not as good as where
they were before. And the men would just be worried about
getting them out of there, and making sure that they were safe.
The women would make sure that they’re safe, but they’d also
think about their feelings.

I was powerfully struck by Carolyn’s earlier statement that “I think

it’s interesting to see the females [as scientists in movies], how they think
. . . because they think differently than men.” Carolyn states that women
and men think differently, and connects this to how women, generally,
“also think about feelings.” In Belinda’s case, her feelings for the people
and manatees with whom she was working would be nearly overwhelm-
ing for the woman scientist or health worker. Carolyn voiced no such
concern here. In addition, Belinda spoke of her own feelings, while
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 99

Carolyn’s woman scientist’s focus is on the feelings of the dolphins. It does

not appear as a reason to stay away from this emergency situation, as came
through strongly in Belinda’s talk.
Carolyn changed her views about herself as a potential scientist over
the course of the semester. I included Carolyn’s writing earlier in this chap-
ter as an instance of a girl thinking that she was not smart enough for
science; I cite it again here, followed by her end-of-semester writing:

(January) I think that [being a good scientist] means you think

well also you make good hypotheses and you know the whole
periodic table of elements. I don’t think I have the traits of a good
scientist because for one I am not smart, for two I don’t make good
hypotheses and three couldn’t being to tell you all of the periodic
table.

(June) In order to be a good scientist you have to know somewhat

of the case you are studying. You also have to have an interest in
science. At the beginning of the semester I really didn’t think I had
the “stuff” to be a scientist yet after having a talk with my genetics
teacher I realized I have a strong interest in science. Maybe my
teacher could get me some info on some of the fields I could
proceed in after high school to pursue a career that is science
oriented.

During my interview-conversation with Carolyn, when I asked her if

she had ever considered a career in science she told me that, no, she wanted
to be a journalist, because her English teacher had told her that she had a
talent for writing. When I asked her whether she had ever utilized her
writing talent in science, she told me about writing a poem in earth sci-
ence; she wasn’t able to recall exactly, but she thought that it was about
plate tectonics. I know that I expressed to her that I thought this was
wonderful. It is possible, I believe, that our discussion about the connec-
tions between writing and science could have influenced Carolyn’s change
of attitude toward herself as a scientist; it may have had little or nothing
to do with my interest in her belief that women scientists would bring
feeling to their work with animals. However, as indicated in the change
from her beginning-of-semester writing about being a good scientist, the
explication of her belief that women would bring more feeling to science
has, at the least, not interfered with her thinking that maybe she could,
after all, become a scientist herself.
By re-visioning herself in relationship to science, whether it was
through writing, empathy, or a simple gain in confidence, Carolyn hints
100 Connecting Girls and Science

at a way that science and science classrooms might be more inclusive of

all human talents, traits, and virtues. She doesn’t come out and say “Sci-
ence should be different and this is how”; nor does she critique the sepa-
ration of human traits into masculine and feminine camps. Therefore she
is not directly getting at the issues of science and gender that I had hoped
to help my students reveal and discuss. Neither, however, did she appear
threatened by a critique of a much-loved subject the way her more suc-
cessful science classmate Jonathan did. On the contrary, she shows a
twinkle of interest that was totally absent in her earlier expression of her-
self as a scientist.

Kidmark B: Summary

Some of the students who contributed to these data separated themselves

from science by saying that they are not smart enough to practice science.
Ann viewed her brother as explicitly supporting this belief—a man would
just be better, period. Jonathan more subtly denies the average woman
the logical acuity to conduct “excellent” science. Carolyn, Tammy, Belinda,

Table 3.2. Kidmark B: Science and Personal Values

Standards Feminism Kids

Hard work Hard work not enough Hard work

(especially if you’re a
woman or person of color)
Patience
Emotion Emotion
Feelings Feelings
Caring Caring
Use of scientific knowledge Personal and political Self-protection
to make personal intention affect knowledge
decisions creation
Politics Other-protection
(particularly in realm
of feelings)
Empathy Empathy
Dynamic
Objectivity
Creating a better world Creating a better world

w
To Be a Good Scientist: Objectivity and Empathy 101

and Jennifer identify themselves as not smart enough, lacking in knowl-

edge, or incapable of properly practicing the “scientific method.” This leaves
little doubt in my mind that these girls are excluding themselves from
science at least in part because they perceive it as beyond their intellec-
tual talents.
Belinda and Carolyn added to the complexity of the relationship—or
lack thereof—between girls and science. They envisioned women as pos-
sessing emotion, something that is not present in traditional representa-
tions of science. They bring in (as does Jonathan, briefly) a conviction that
women are “more feeling” than men. They would not leave these feel-
ings behind in their scientific work. The trait of “empathy” is foremost in
Belinda’s speculations about a woman scientist responsible in life-threat-
ening situations. Her portrayal of empathy and science is one that does
not appear to allow for their compatibility.
Disturbingly, as a group, these girls may have suffered from a double
whammy, thinking, “I can’t do science because I’m not smart enough” and
“I can’t do science because my feelings and caring would get in the way.”
As a feminist science teacher, I welcome feelings and caring to science,
and hope that we can learn to illustrate for our students situations in which
these are indeed scientific strengths rather than liabilities. As a feminist
science teacher, I also deplore the societal norms that have made many
girls, particularly working-class girls, feel that they are not intellectually
capable.
I doubt that the entertainment media will any time soon satisfy
Carolyn’s desire to see women as thoughtful actors in complex situations.
What might we as science teachers do to address this need?
102 Connecting Girls and Science

4
To Be a Good Scientist
Science and Social Responsibility

If the theoretical work [of feminists critiques of science] is to have an impact

beyond reinforcing the views of already committed feminists . . . it must reach
the classroom in accessible form. . . . Committed teachers at all levels must
begin to revise their approaches to teaching the science and any other sub-
jects that draw on scientific research.
—Whatley, 1986, p. 181

It is important for students to understand how science is organized because,

as adults in a democracy, they will be in a position to influence what public
support will be provided for basic and applied science.
—AAAS, 1993, p. 14

As described in the previous chapter, the students involved in my research

addressed the kinds of issues that I would hope would come up in discus-
sion that involved matters of “science as a social enterprise.” While some of
their theories about women and men in the sciences match well with both
standards (e.g., men and women are equal; both can succeed) and feminist
(men and women are equal and both can succeed; men and women are
different) ideas, they are not taking their conceptualizing to places that I
would like it to go. They did not say that caring and empathy could or should
be a valued part of science. They did not make a leap from “men and women
are different” to “science is constructed along masculinist lines and there-
fore excludes the practice of traits that are traditionally considered feminine.”
In terms of objectivity, although they questioned the human and their own
personal ability to be objective, they did not adopt a critical stance toward
science that might help them think not only that science itself is practiced
by people who are no less human than themselves, but that science might
be constructed along ideological lines that no one can follow.

102
To Be a Good Scientist: Science and Social Responsibility 103

I am not surprised that this was the case. After all, my intent during
this semester-long teacher-research project was to explore students’
thinking in order to think more productively about how to help them
develop an informed and powerful understanding of science as a social
enterprise, and what that implies for the participants it welcomes and
the knowledge it produces. I knew that I couldn’t just come out and tell
them; they wouldn’t learn it, and they might well resist it or, more likely,
be confused with my awkward attempts to translate academic feminist
arguments into everyday language. But, I learned. The ideas that I have
gathered under “Kidmark C” manifest promise for curricular choices we
might make to help students understand “science as a social enterprise.”

KIDMARK C. SCIENCE AND SOCIAL VALUES

Kidmark C demonstrates that students themselves constructed a power-

ful critique of “science as a social enterprise” requiring no input from me.
Students made very clear and straightforward statements concerning what
they think the role of science in society should be. In Kidmark C, students
got very close to reimagining science as a human effort that is embedded
in and responsible to people and to the Earth.
The writing samples below come from students’ responses to the ques-
tions I assigned on January 30 and June 1. Please recall that question “C”
was added for the June 1 assignment.

A. What does it mean to “be a good scientist”?

B. Do you have any of the traits of a “good scientist”? Why, why not,
some yes, some no?
C. Have you or your ideas (those that you talked about in A and B)
changed at all since the beginning of the year or of the semester?
Please explain how and why they have or have not changed.

A couple of responses are also drawn from students’ writing as part of their
final exam in biology from the earlier semester. They are in response to
the question:

We spent a few days discussing the concept of stereotypes of

scientists, and how scientists we could imagine could be different
from these stereotypes. Explain your position on this issue. Ap-
proach it however you like—humor is allowed—but take it seri-
ously, nonetheless.
104 Connecting Girls and Science

“A Good Cause”

Nina: I think the number-one thing a good scientist must have is a

good cause. One that needs to be solved for today’s society. Get all
the necessary data and ideas. It’s also important not to harm any
living things or alter their environment in any way to conduct
testing.

Kari: A good scientist is someone who follows the law in every-

thing he/she does but is willing to experiment. A good scientist
goes farther into asking questions than anyone. Most popular good
scientists make an invention or law that is used by certain people
and is used on and on through generations.

Students regularly informed me that they believed that scientists

should do research, as Becky wrote, “for a purpose.” This is distinctly dif-
ferent from a blind search for knowledge that is part of a popular stereo-
typical vision of scientific work. In making this claim, students are mak-
ing a powerful connection between science and society. Whether or not
the development of scientific knowledge is “objective” or denying or wel-
coming of empathy, these students represent science’s role as firmly
grounded in social responsibility.
Nina’s “number-one” consideration does not reflect most contempo-
rary scientific work. It is also notable that she apparently interpreted “good”
as a moral question, while most other students interpreted “good” as suc-
cessful and accurate. Interestingly, her classmate Kari brings both forms
of “good” together in her commentary. Intrigued by Kari’s comment, I
asked her in class the next day what she meant by “law” in this context.
She explained that she meant human law, legal law—not, for example,
the laws of physics. So again, she is bringing in the moral or ethical de-
mands of scientific activity.
I have arranged the following student responses to the questions in
what I see as revealing increasingly “militant” voices in terms of what sci-
ence and scientists “should” do.

Kevin: I think a good scientist helps other people in their work. For
example: A scientist who finds a cure for AIDS or something like that.
They have to be dedicated to their work and try their best at it.

Becky (in January): The nonstereotypical scientist is either a man

or woman. Has normal hair and researches for a purpose, not just
to blow things up.
To Be a Good Scientist: Science and Social Responsibility 105

Becky (in June): Research, good observations, experiments, testing

for certain things, being interested in making the world better.

Alex: I believe science as a whole needs people with morals. The

way science is going, more “moral” people have to go into science
to make sure what they are doing is in the good of all mankind and
the entire world.

Nina: To make advances that benefit people. The good scientist

must not alter their environment in any way to make these ad-
vances though. A good scientist can’t harm or kill anything simply
for the sake of killing it.

Kevin wants the “good scientist” to “be dedicated” and find “cures.”
Becky’s demand is a bit more vague: While she views scientists as some-
times conducting research “just to blow things up,” she hopes that they will
find a different, presumably more constructive “purpose.” Becky wants sci-
entists to be “interested in making the world better”; she isn’t as specific as
Kevin, although she becomes more so in her June writing. Alex, as I have
already discussed, explicitly recommends the entrance of more morality—
at least as defined by his religion—into scientific practice. Nina was the most
clear and implicitly political in her representation of science’s responsibility
to society, particularly in her protective environmental stance.
During the interview-conversation with Jonathan, Sam, and Alex, I had
asked the three boys what they thought about the possibility of a scientist
as someone who “wants to make the world a better place.” In asking this
question, I was drawing on what I had learned from students’ writing, as
exemplified above. Jonathan, our staunch defender of objectivity, said,
“That’s probably one of the fundamental goals of practicing science, to make
things better. I have a hard time seeing any other [reason].” While Jonathan’s
examples of socially responsible science—“genetic engineering” and “bet-
ter ways to make frozen foods”—do not betray the passion of Nina’s, they
do indicate that science is supposed to produce things and ideas that, on some
level at least, benefit humanity. In addition, Jonathan’s comment refuses a
notion of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

“In the Interest of All Humankind”

Kevin, above, expresses his belief that scientists should work to find cures.
He brings in AIDS as an example of something that scientists should aim
to cure. This isn’t surprising, given the prominence of AIDS in the media
and in the high school curriculum. Therefore I made the decision to place
106 Connecting Girls and Science

a question about the role of science in society in the context of medical

research, specifically, deciding what kinds of research should be funded. I
also made this decision because of the common requirement that students
had for scientists, that they work to find cures. The transcript excerpts
below demonstrate both Ann’s and Alex’s thinking in this area, drawn from
the interview-conversations I conducted with each of them.

Ann on Funding for Research

Elaine: Let’s say you had to decide between two research projects
that wanted your money. One of them was to work on finding
a cure for AIDS. And one of them was to work on developing a
faster computer. Which of those would you vote for?
Ann: The AIDS.
Elaine: Why?
Ann: Because many people are dying of it and some people, if they
got a blood transfusion and that’s how the AIDS came in, then
I think they should pick it for that. But if it’s through
sexually—it’s their fault, that it happened. But still I think that
it should be AIDS. Actually, it doesn’t matter. They still need
to be treated because nobody deserves it, actually. Everybody
should be treated.

Out of all the questions and scenarios I put to Ann, this was the one
that inspired the longest response. Her response indicates the kind of
“thinking through” of an idea, with all the self-questioning and eventual
clarity that that entails, in which I wanted students to engage. Most stu-
dents did so during these interview-conversations, and even sometimes
in their writing. On the subject of AIDS, Ann was able to bring enough
knowledge, and enough of her own beliefs, to the question to provide a
reasoned and caring argument for the financial support of AIDS research
as opposed to more technological work of computer development.

Alex on Funding for Research

During an individual interview-conversation with Alex (to which he had

brought his copy of the Christian Bible), I proposed to him a similar sce-
nario. Directly before the scenario, Alex had explained his qualified sup-
port for science:

I’m all for science, as long as it’s kept under control, and not just
let to do whatever they want to. I’d really want to make sure that
To Be a Good Scientist: Science and Social Responsibility 107

it was in the best interest for humans. If it’s in the best interest of
the entire little ecosystem because we’re all related. We can’t kill
everything, because I mean then that would screw up the whole
ecosystem and the food chain would go berserk.

We had been studying contemporary techniques of genetic engineer-

ing in genetics class, along with the ethical issues that this work brings
to the fore. Jonathan had argued in class that he thought that it was fine
to use genetic technology to allow a man or a woman to have a child
“alone.” In addition, Jonathan stated that he had no qualms with intro-
ducing genetic material into the fetus in order to confer on it the traits
that the parents desired. The transcript picks up after my reminder to
Alex of Jonathan’s comments.

Elaine: Let’s say somebody wants to do an experiment with 1,000

babies to see if they can put a gene into them to, make them
all, I don’t know—
Alex: As smart as Jonathan? [We both laugh.]
Elaine: Yes—this is problematic. Because there’s no one single gene
for intelligence. But for hypothetical purposes, what would
you say to that particular case?
Alex: Well, I don’t know. I have this, from what I said earlier, if it’s
in the interest of all humankind, I guess that would be okay.
But I don’t know, I have this feeling right now that I don’t
think that I would like that.
Elaine: Do you think that doing that experiment would be in the
interest of humankind?
Alex: Well, I think it’s kind of like playing God. It’s kind of like
changing the rules and such; I don’t know whether that would
have an effect. I don’t know, I just have this feeling like that I
wouldn’t want that to be done for some reason. I don’t know
why. I have this feeling.

Alex utilized an intriguing combination of science and religion to

make his case that care for the ecosystem and humanitarian interests
should be criteria for deciding what scientific research should be funded.
He brings in his scientific knowledge of the food chain: Because “we’re
all related,” we must make certain that we not “screw up the whole
ecosystem and the food chain would go berserk.” He also states his dis-
comfort with “playing God.” However, even this theological stance is in-
formed by a scientific stance, one that an evolutionary biologist could
identify with: “It’s kind of like changing the rules and such; I don’t know
108 Connecting Girls and Science

whether that would have an effect.” We continued to explore his think-

ing in this area.

Elaine: Say somebody applied to you for money and they said they
wanted to insert genes in people to make them smarter and
somebody’s competing for that money and they say they want
to insert genes in people that will make them not have
hemophilia, people that normally would. Would you—
Alex: Where will I give my money?
Elaine: Yes.
Alex: I probably, well I know I’d probably give my money to the
[pause]—I don’t know. I was, on instinct I was just gong to say
give it to hemophilia. But let me think here. I don’t know, I
don’t like playing God. I think He set up this world the way He
wanted it to—even though Adam and Eve kind of changed
that, but, He set it up where a man and woman leave their
families, get married, have children, in kind of a set order. I
don’t know whether it’s wrong or not because I’m not sure if
when John or someone was writing this they had any idea of
the technology that we would have today.

Alex surprised me—and, I think, himself—by not reflexively saying that

money should be given to researchers who were trying to alleviate the suf-
fering of hemophiliacs. His argument rests on the idea that God set up the
world the way he wanted it; and that we should not mess with that God-
given order. As I mentioned earlier, evolutionary biologists and geneticists
might take a similar stance for a different reason: We don’t know enough
about how evolution works to “mess with it” in order to create humans with
predetermined genetic profiles; it would be foolhardy to attempt to influ-
ence our genetic heritage. However, Alex realized that when the New Tes-
tament was written, its authors had no idea that the future would hold the
problematic technologies of genetic engineering. While I find this humility
and thoughtfulness attractive, it seems to contradict Alex’s stance that moral
issues should be addressed in scientific work. He moves toward a laissez-
faire attitude concerning human suffering, one that might make it difficult
for researchers with “all humankind” in mind to attain funding.
The place of genetic technology in human life presented a moral di-
lemma for Alex. His conflict was between the religious demand that he
should obey God and a humanitarian demand that he help other people.
However, I do not want to leave readers with the impression that Alex
was “anti-science.” I am sure that it was quite the contrary. He demon-
strated so in saying “I’m all for science.” The statements above, as well as
To Be a Good Scientist: Science and Social Responsibility 109

below, exemplify the sophistication and complexity of thought that I be-

lieve standards writers and academic feminists do not attribute to young
people. Alex said,

I don’t believe that we should not mess with anything, because

that’s how we’ve gotten this far as a people and as a society be-
cause we’ve kind of messed with Mother Nature; that’s why we
have certain luxuries. I don’t want anybody go cutting down the
forest looking for some cure for cancer but I mean I don’t want us
to just sit on our duffs and say, “Oh, God will provide a way.” I
know that’s the truth, but there has to be a happy medium. Some
people don’t take faith at all, and then some people take faith to
wild extremes, saying, “We don’t have to do anything, God will
provide.” I mean, God helps those who help themselves.

Most feminists would not look to fundamentalist Christianity to find

a helpmate for their struggles to change the world into a place that val-
ues and respects women. I am not spotlighting Alex’s words so that we
may use them as an exemplar for teaching high school science from a
feminist perspective. In fact, Alex was openly anti-choice; how could I
possibly believe that he could support feminist goals? I did not initially
think that Alex would have anything to say to me that would help me
think about how to address teaching “science as a social enterprise”; in
fact, my assumptions about the rigidity of his faith kept me from think-
ing that he could engage productively in a thoughtful discussion about
science. I thought that he would, for one, reject it out of hand—be one
of those students who learns science for the test, not because they be-
lieve that scientists have created interesting and powerful explanations
of the world. So while I have used Alex’s words here to illustrate the
theme of “science and social responsibility,” what I learned from Alex
was more important than that. I learned that I was prejudiced; that I made
judgments about a student before I got to know him. How could I teach
students to leave their own prejudices behind if I practice my own, every
day, if only in secret, in their science classroom?

Kidmark C: Summary

These students’ ideas about science and scientists’ responsibility to society

focus on reasons to do science that are not present in the traditional or
standards-based cluster of scientific values and virtues. They open up sci-
ence for the inclusion of traits and actions associated with politics, social
action, and personal conviction. In their descriptions of what makes a “good
110 Connecting Girls and Science

scientist,” the students portray science as inseparable from social and hu-
manitarian concerns—whether or not it can be, it ought not to be.
This chapter depicts an attitude toward science that puts scientific
activity squarely in the social domain. For example, Ann wanted all people
with AIDS to be treated. This issue inspired the longest, most thoughtful
response from Ann that I witnessed the entire semester. What might she
learn about the issues of money and power that permeate medical research,
and the uses to which it is put, if she were given the support and time to
pursue her conviction? As Ann’s science-content mentor, guided by the
standards, I would see this exploration as an opportunity for Ann to ex-
pand her knowledge of epidemiology, statistics, and the genetics of viral
infection. As a feminist, I would like Ann to encounter issues of who is
included in “big big studies” (see Sam, p. 79) and how these choices relate
to issues of gender, race, and class. In addition, as a feminist, I would hope
that Ann’s views of sexuality and responsibility might also be enlarged and
complicated.
Alex used something akin to risk-benefit analysis in making his de-
terminations of what research should be funded. This connects to the stan-
dards’ requirement that students learn to utilize scientific knowledge to
make societal decisions. Alex used science and religion to come to his ten-
tative conclusions. In addition, he did not merely use science to decide
whether it is allowable to have a nuclear power plant in his community
or introduce genetically altered plants into agriculture, examples that might
be found in any fairly up-to-date environmental science textbook. What
he did was use a more instinctive analysis to decide in what kinds of sci-
ence researchers ought to engage.
As Alex’s science teacher, I would like to push him further in this
domain. I would also like to help him think about his understanding that
God had planned the world to accommodate men and women, each sex
keeping to its designated role in earthly life. There are excellent reasons
for forbidding the mixing of religion and science, particularly in the class-
room. However, I still would want Alex to consider alternatives to his bib-
lical representations of men and women in society.
The young adults whose ideas provided the material for the analyses
in this book have now graduated from high school. They have grown up
conscious of a world that includes chemical pollution, threats to Earth’s
ecosystems, epidemics of disease and starvation, and, now, terrorism and
war. They saw, at least when they were sophomores in high school, some
hope in science for the alleviation of these woes and dangers. They also
understood, I believe, that science itself has played a hand in the develop-
ment of these deadly situations. Their views of science and society were
not simplistic, but clear-sighted and imbued with a sense of the responsi-
To Be a Good Scientist: Science and Social Responsibility 111

Table 4.1. Kidmark C: Science and Social Values

Standards Feminism Kids

Responsible work with Responsible work Responsible work

objects of study with/and for with/and for plants,
objects/subjects of animals, humans, and
study the environment
Teamwork Teamwork Teamwork
Use science to protect Use science to protect Use science to protect
oneself oneself? oneself
(e.g., medicine) (Does not work well if (e.g., medicine)
science hasn’t been
developed with “you”
in mind)
Protect others from Use science to protect
science others
(emergency medicine,
disaster relief, children)
Use science to make Protect the environment Use science to protect the
choices from science environment
(e.g., risk/benefit and protect the
analyses concerning environment from
environment) science
Use science to develop
cures
Use science to end world
hunger
w

bility that science owes to the world. Most exciting to me is their power-
ful insistence that science should “do good” for humanity and for the Earth.
They seemed to want science to be a humane, ethical project: science to
make cures; science responsible to humans, animals, and the environment;
science, at the least, to “do no harm.” These ideas deviate drastically from
a version of science that calls for it to seek knowledge for its own sake.

LEARNING FROM STUDENTS ABOUT

SCIENCE AS A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

What did I, as a high school biology teacher, learn from these students about
how to teach science as a social enterprise? First and foremost, I learned
112 Connecting Girls and Science

that students’ thinking was both in concert with the standards and extended
beyond what the standards represent as the virtues and values of scientific
practitioners. I believe that students, therefore, are a richer resource for learn-
ing about science as a social enterprise than are the standards themselves.
The latter tend to look somewhat constrictive when compared with students’
more wide-open and idealistic visions, particularly concerning the role that
science could play in developing a just world. Providing students with con-
texts within which to explore their beliefs about scientific practice may enable
them to learn to challenge the stereotypes of scientific practice that perme-
ate society. They may also, with more time than I provided for the students
in this study, develop ideas that succeed in re-visioning science as an enter-
prise that fulfills their visions for it.
In terms of intellectual understanding of scientific practice, I was pow-
erfully struck by students’ insistence on objectivity and scientific method.
According to the logic of objectivity, if all involved are doing their jobs,
women and men would not do science differently. At the least, if they
followed “the scientific method,” they would all eventually end up in the
same place. One aspect of traditional objectivity is the separation of the
knower from the known, as well as of the knower from himself or herself,
from society, from belief systems, from emotional considerations, and from
desire for knowledge for purposes other than “for its own sake.” This sepa-
ration plays into a portrayal of science as free from social and personal
influences. The standards imply that emotion doesn’t belong in science,
as in “Reasoning can be distorted by strong feelings” (AAAS, 1993, p. 232).
The assumption that emotion can be removed from the practice of science
is one that these students question.
Students in this study note that women would bring “feelings” to sci-
ence, particularly empathy, and concern for vulnerable beings. But, para-
doxically, they still seem to recognize an apparent imperviousness of sci-
ence to emotion. Many girls, as well as boys, may need to leave huge parts,
defining parts, of themselves behind in order to engage with what they
see as an unemotional, asocial, and purely intellectual science. On the other
hand, students such as Jonathan can engage passionately with science.
These are students for whom science provides a powerful explanatory and
widely acceptable world view—possibly even taking the place of cultur-
ally inherited religious customs. This passion may be considered a kind
of emotion—but is it “caring” or “empathy”? The kind of passion that
Jonathan portrays so well is one that is well accepted in science. It is an
intellectual passion, the desire to know and understand the world; it is not
one that concerns itself for or with the “object to be known.” Intellectual
passion, as Jonathan evinces it, is welcome in traditional scientific prac-
To Be a Good Scientist: Science and Social Responsibility 113

tice. A caring passion, an identification with the “object to be known,” is

seen as interfering with objectivity, and has traditionally been spurned by
Western science.
Empathy is not a valued scientific strength. It is not in the standards
documents as a methodological or epistemological or intellectual virtue
(Rose, 1994). In fact, scientific objectivity—as traditionally portrayed—tries
to omit empathy (Birke & Hubbard, 1995). This leaves a lot of girls, and
other people who identify with the traditional trait of caring and feeling
in relationship to others, alienated from science. It also leaves out a whole
chunk of being human, and thus allows the perpetuation of a myth of
objectivity as an attainable and desirable distancing from social life as well
as the objects or subjects under study.
I find Evelyn Fox Keller’s (1985) image of dynamic objectivity (see
p. 132) very attractive in light of what these students have taught me about
their scientific epistemology. This image is one that loses neither the sci-
entist nor that which the scientist is studying. The consideration of empa-
thy as an aspect of knowing provides possibilities for studying our world
in a way that includes and utilizes all of our personality traits, all of our
virtues, and all of our talents. It puts into question the set of values and
virtues that the standards have put forth, a set of traits that is at best par-
tial, at worse inaccurate and exclusionary.
I was also taken with and troubled by students’ separation of male
and female into traditional masculine and feminine camps. I noticed that
they associated traditionally masculine traits with science, and that many
of the girls dissociated themselves from science. All of these things go along
with typical oppressive views of women and of science. All of these things
would be things that I would want to help students address head-on, re-
think, interrogate, and have experience with, using examples from his-
tory, contemporary medicine, and other domains.
These students named the values and virtues of a “good scientist,” both
those present in popular stereotypes and, sometimes, the more progres-
sive, humanitarian scientific norms set forth in standards documents. The
students in this study wanted science to care about people and about so-
ciety; they believed scientists should exercise moral judgment; they won-
dered if women could succeed, as individuals, or if it would be too pain-
ful; they saw women and men as bringing different, although possibly
complementary, values and virtues to science. The rhetoric employed by
the standards’ authors encourages students to recognize the positive val-
ues and virtues that science requires and demonstrates; wants them to see
them and practice them in science and science class; wants them to use
them as a reason to value science itself, and to use the knowledge that
114 Connecting Girls and Science

science has produced to inform their personal and social choices. Students,
however, have values of their own—and they want science and scientists
to satisfy these, not necessarily the other way around.
From the perspective of feminist critique, the choice of questions and
areas of scientific study is itself subjective, as well as influenced by what
areas of inquiry are in vogue with the society and the government that
provide funds for research. These students seem to recognize that that could
be the case—that social pressures and moral norms could influence sci-
ence. I am not sure that they recognize that it is the case. Teaching stu-
dents that science is indeed a part of society, a way of exercising human
intelligence and connection with others and the rest of the world that does
not need to excise feelings and morality, may help some connect rather
than turn away from a subject that they see as unwelcoming to aspects of
their individual and social selves.
 5
Genuine Conversation Through
Studying Bioethics

It is important for students to understand how science is organized because,

as adults in a democracy, they will be in a position to influence what public
support will be provided for basic and applied science.
—AAAS, 1993, p. 14

Dialogue is much more difficult to foster than feminist educators (or the
critical pedagogy fraternity) ever imagined. Perhaps we would do better to
understand dialogue as the goal of pedagogy and not a condition for it.
—Kenway & Modra, 1992, p. 163

In this chapter, I focus on this question: What might whole-group class-

room discussions that foster students’ expressions of their beliefs, experi-
ences, and feelings look and sound like? I look at student talk in a way
different from that in the previous chapters, through the eyes and ears of
the teacher and within the action of the classroom. The analysis focuses
on the first day of a bioethics unit. This lesson is rich in possibility for re-
flecting on the nature of student talk in science class and the role that the
teacher and the topic can play in shaping its quality and range.
I have organized my analysis of student talk in this lesson using the
concept of “genuine conversation.” I define genuine conversation as talk
in which students and teacher exchange ideas as equals, deviating from
the typical discussion structure in which students receive and teachers
deliver information. This chapter is an explication of this mode of talk as
I noticed its appearance, disappearance, and variations during a short seg-
ment of dialogue on the first day of this bioethics unit. Two themes have
arisen the course of this analysis: (1) Genuine conversation allows for a
kind of student talk that is rich and complex, combining students’ beliefs,
knowledge, experiences, and feelings (Knight & Oesterreich, 2000)—but
this kind of rich talk can feel messy and almost chaotic to the teacher; and
(2) the teacher plays a role in encouraging this kind of talk by modeling

115
116 Connecting Girls and Science

uncertainty and sharing personal beliefs and the life experiences that have
helped to shape these beliefs. It is also the topic of bioethics itself that helps
to create a context conducive to genuine conversation.

GENUINE CONVERSATION AND

FEMINIST CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

I choose to use the somewhat awkward phrase “feminist critical pedagogy”

because the pedagogy that I am most intrigued with includes politics, which
are not always present in descriptions of feminist pedagogy. For me, peda-
gogy that is feminist must address issues of gender and power as they
appear (and are hidden) in the classroom and in science. Often feminist
pedagogy is seen as something that recognizes that boys and girls are dif-
ferent, that attempts to develop a comfortable learning environment for
all, and that maybe even introduces the work of women into the curricu-
lum. The critical piece may be left behind. Therefore, in this chapter, I want
to lay out my vision of feminist critical pedagogy, which, for some, may be
contained in the shorter phrase “feminist pedagogy.” Feminist critical
pedagogy includes the explicit discussion and development of political
action. That is not to say that political action is what happened during this
unit; only what I hoped would happen.
Feminist critical pedagogy has roots in two camps: Freirian liberatory
critical pedagogy and feminist consciousness raising practice. The former
centers on the idea that oppression exists, that pedagogy can help students
recognize their own oppression, and, importantly, do something about it.
The latter focuses on combining the personal with the political via indi-
vidual expression of experience in groups conducive to recognizing con-
nections between personal experience and political action. Feminists have
noted that women’s experiences of oppression are not typically addressed
by critical theorists (Gore, 1992, 1993; Weiler, 1988, 1991); therefore it is
necessary to keep the lives of women as the focus when one’s critical peda-
gogy is feminist. The common thread between critical pedagogy and femi-
nist consciousness raising is the centrality of students’ and participants’
experiences and the knowledge that has arisen from such experiences.

Critical Pedagogy

Critical pedagogical philosophy is based in Marxist theory, which utilizes

class as its primary analytical category. Paulo Freire, the founder of criti-
cal pedagogy, developed his theories working with peasants in Brazil under
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 117

a military dictatorship. Due to his political-pedagogical efforts to teach

peasants to read—and, in the process, to recognize their oppression and
fight against it—he spent years in jail, thus certainly “living” his pedagogy.
Freire’s open politicization of pedagogy departs drastically from a model
in which the teacher transmits knowledge to compliant and ignorant learn-
ers. In fact, it is Freire’s term “banking pedagogy” (Freire, 1970/1989) that
describes this one-way movement of knowledge, which has not only been
critiqued from a political perspective, but also put into question by con-
structivist theorists of learning.
Freirian critical pedagogy is premised on the power of students’ talk
and experiences, with an expectation of dangerous political activism. His
vision of liberatory critical pedagogy places knowledge in the hands of the
students, as they learn to “read the word and the world” (Freire, 1970/
1989) through explication and discussion of their own lives. This politi-
cal-epistemological partnership can be a marker of feminist pedagogy as
well (Weiler, 1991).

Feminist Consciousness Raising

Feminist consciousness raising grew out of women’s activism during the

1960s’ Civil Rights movements in the United States. Groups consisting of
women came together around shared goals—goals that involve change in
oppressive political, social, and personal circumstances for women. Con-
sciousness raising groups provide an egalitarian forum for women to share
their own experiences and interpretations of the world with other women.
Out of these sharings grow theory and action (Frye, 1992; Hartsock, 1979;
Weiler, 1991). Pedagogy based in feminist consciousness raising challenges
the power wielded by men in theorizing about women, women’s behav-
iors, and women’s roles.
In science, feminist consciousness raising groups can allow women
to puzzle over our own problematic relationships with mainstream science
(WISE at MSU, 1995). Although personal enlightenment is often a result
of participation in feminist consciousness raising groups, such groups con-
comitantly serve as contexts for reading and study. Ideas external to the
group provide additional frames for the analysis of personal experience.
My own experience in such a group has convinced me of the power of
learning in such situations. It has also supported me in my initial attempts
to teach my own students about the political aspects of scientific knowl-
edge and practice. Theory, experience, values, and feelings come together
to provide the impetus and support for change that feminist conscious-
ness raising engenders.
118 Connecting Girls and Science

Feminist Critical Pedagogy

A central tenet of feminist critical pedagogy is that students are afforded

opportunities to openly explore their experiences, feelings, and perspec-
tives. Students may then be supported in connecting their current think-
ing to new ideas presented by the teacher, the readings and activities, and
each other, thus honoring, but also developing, their own learning and
lives. Feminist critical pedagogy, as I am envisioning it, consists in students’
making theory out of their own experiences, knowledge, and values. Thus
the importance of students’ ideas expands beyond finding out students’
prior knowledge in order to shape their educational experiences, linearly,
from there. Students’ ideas and the words they use to express them be-
come curricular material, as important or more important than any other.
Science assumes a dichotomy between self and knowledge, emotion
and rationality, and the personal and the pedagogical (Hasbach, 1995).
Feminist critical pedagogy aims to dissolve these dichotomies. Part of this
imperative entails questioning the flow of authority from “expert scien-
tist” through “science teacher” to “ignorant science students.” Unlike tra-
ditional science teaching, feminist critical science teaching would explic-
itly base curriculum in students’ experiences, feelings, and knowledge. This
approach does not preclude introducing students to canonical scientific
perspectives and explanatory concepts. However, by participating in dis-
cussion based in personal perspectives, enlarged by listening to others,
students in feminist critical science classrooms would develop theory to
describe and explain their world, rather than uncritically accepting theo-
ries from outside authorities. Thus feminist critical pedagogy recognizes
students as experts in their own lives and as agents in control of their own
learning (Belenky et al., 1986; Maher & Tetreault, 1994).
Both of these streams of radical pedagogical thought put a great deal
of energy into making talk central. Freire’s work with peasants taught them
to speak their way to literal and political literacy. Women in conscious-
ness raising groups speak about their lives and find that they are not alone
in experience and perception and, from there, take political and personal
action. Feminist critical pedagogy deeply values what students bring to the
learning context and attempts to make students’ experiences and feelings
central to the curriculum.
My goal herein is to attend to feminist critical pedagogy’s demand that
students’ experiences, knowledge, and beliefs be welcomed into science
classrooms. Through analysis of one lesson, I have come to see that the
implementation of this demand is challenging for me as a teacher. My aim
remains to support students in learning to be enthusiastic members of a
democracy, capable of political, social, and personal action informed by
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 119

scientific knowledge. I have come to view this goal as parallel with Freire’s
“reading the word and the world,” in that I want to teach in such a man-
ner that students learn the concepts and practices of science, while also
learning the social and political embeddedness of science from feminist
perspectives. This form of scientific literacy demands that I learn to create
classroom contexts in which students’ ideas are front and center—and stay
that way, throughout instruction.

SCIENCE EDUCATION AND

FEMINIST CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

On the face of it, feminist critical pedagogy and standards for science edu-
cation developed by mainstream national groups appear to have little in
common. Feminist critical pedagogy is based in personal experiences, feel-
ings, and perspectives, while by their very nature “standards” are gener-
alized recommendations for teaching practice and content inclusion. Femi-
nist critical pedagogy is concerned with the betterment of the world for
women; standards are concerned with the advancement of science, and
its appreciation, understanding, and practice by nonscientists as well as
potential scientists. Feminist critical pedagogy questions and challenges
claims to authoritative knowledge; the standards claim to represent au-
thoritative knowledge.
One can find support for just about anything in the standards1—just
about anything, but not any form of feminist critical pedagogy as I under-
stand it. There is no explicit mention of science and its relationships to
political and social power; no overt recommendation that students puzzle
over the place of science in a democracy or its role in the oppression of
women; no observable suggestion that teachers and their students chal-
lenge the authority of science, or include their own experiences, feelings,
and perspectives as vital, central foci of the curriculum. Certainly there is
no mention of social revolution, in which, at its heart, feminist critical
pedagogy is grounded. It appears, then, that feminist critical pedagogy and
the national standards for K–12 science teaching remain fundamentally
at odds.
The saving connection between the two is the powerful although
tenuous thread of “science for all.” Feminist critical pedagogy aims to
educate students about the constricting and prejudicial constructions of
gender, race, and class in our society. The standards’ explicit call that all
U.S. students learn to understand and appreciate science is in itself revo-
lutionary. Science has been a bastion of elitism and male supremacist
power. With this new stance that anyone can do science, and that sci-
120 Connecting Girls and Science

ence be presented as an egalitarian, democratic enterprise, typical paradigms

of knowledge, authority, and power are immediately open for debate.
And to return to a theme that permeates contemporary science edu-
cation: Teachers need to know what students are thinking in order to teach
them better. As in all of this book, the goal of hearing students’ ideas is
one that I put in the forefront.

FEMINIST CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND

STUDENT TALK: THE TEACHER’S ROLE

Feminist critical pedagogy has been developed with adult students and par-
ticipants—adults who come together around shared issues, and who have
a common set of experiences and feelings because they come from com-
mon class, race, and gender backgrounds. No such commonality exists in a
high school classroom; neither, of course, does student choice in terms of
school, content, teacher, politics, or action. So, without disregarding this
powerful pedagogy because it seems too removed from the typical science
classroom, how can I explore its power in developing a classroom in which
students can “read the word and the world”—in science class, no less?
I have always thought that student talk is important. In the begin-
ning of my learning to teach, I envisioned impassioned and articulate dis-
cussions carried out by students, inspired by my own well-chosen and
inspiring comments and questions. I saw myself standing off to the side,
with a wise and quiet smile on my face; arms crossed, prepared to insert
brief, powerful insights into the students’ talk and lives. As I struggled to
learn “management”—and I may well have struggled longer than some
because I so valued student talk and feared shutting it down—I recognized
that it wasn’t that easy, smooth, or automatic. While I continued to be-
lieve that part of my role as a teacher was to guide classroom talk, I began
to notice and examine the troublesome distinction between guiding and
controlling. As this chapter indicates, I was encountering a tension between
student freedom and my responsibility to their learning. I knew that some
teachers could skillfully pick up on certain comments and questions, thus
leading students to the conclusions that the teacher desired. I knew that I
wasn’t very good at this; I also knew that when I felt myself trying to do
it I got very nervous, feeling an authoritarianism thinly disguised as re-
sponsibility to the students and to the discipline creeping up on me.
This remains an issue that I am unable to resolve. However, I have come
to believe that genuine conversation2 is a useful context within which stu-
dents can freely and comfortably express themselves around difficult issues.
My role, as a facilitator of students’ expressions of belief, included modeling
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 121

such expressions myself. Entering my teaching of this bioethics unit, I was

solidly cognizant of the fact that I didn’t want students to put down each
other’s ideas; I tried very hard not to do so myself. This, in hindsight, has
brought up a feminist dilemma: When is expressing one’s own thinking and
beliefs honestly called for as a way to support and/or challenge students’
thinking and beliefs? This dilemma may be one endemic to feminist peda-
gogy because it stresses the engagement of the personal and the need to
create curriculum out of students’ lives and knowledge, resulting in a focus
on student-centered, student-created discussion. In fact, I came to the con-
versation examined in this study through the surprise that I felt when I
noticed the curiosity students evinced at my work in the laboratory. This
situation intrigued me also because it reminded me of the discussion among
feminist educational theorists (Beck, 1983; Hasbach, 1995; hooks, 1994;
Rosenthal, 1994, 1995) concerning the role of teacher self-disclosure.

An Instructional Context Becomes a Research Context

The following analysis is based in the beginnings of a genetics unit con-

cerning bioethics. The 10th-grade students in this class had been with me
and with each other since January; this lesson occurred late in May. The
bulk of our semester had been spent studying the mechanisms and results
of human genetic inheritance. (These students are also the focus of the
previous three chapters.) During the springtime unit that provides the focus
of this chapter, we worked with the bioethical and scientific issues around
genetic engineering. Because we had been together for 4 months, I be-
lieved that we were fairly comfortable and relaxed in our learning com-
munity. During this study of biomedical advances and the ethical chal-
lenges they bring forth for individuals and groups, students demonstrated
to me, as never before, their ability to engage with the provocative and
complex issues that arise in the interfaces of genetics, social and personal
expectations, individual choice, and intimate relationships.
This unit consisted of a set of activities initially developed by a univer-
sity3 curriculum concern, and tested and adapted by Barbara Neureither,
an experienced teacher who served as an important mentor for me and other
new science teachers in the school. While my students and I put our own
stamp on it, I utilized this curriculum mostly unchanged. Included in the
materials was a list of controversial statements concerning the present and
future choices that individuals and our society are being required to make
due to the success of molecular biology and its attendant technologies. This
list is referred to as “the survey” in my analysis. “The Hammer Exercise”
also came from this source; it is explained below. In the course of the unit
the students developed the “Personal Reference Sheet” to guide them
122 Connecting Girls and Science

through decisions concerning bioethics; they also worked with case studies
concerning bioethical issues. When we formally left the unit, we commenced
a study of genetic engineering. During this latter unit, I continued to ask
students to refer to ethical considerations in their study of potential creations
and applications allowed by genetic engineering.
This unit of study provided us with a meaningful context within which
to deviate from traditional science teaching and learning. Both because
bioethics itself is a field rife with overlapping concerns—scientific, personal,
moral, legal, and political—and because ethics are considered a matter of
personal choice, we were able to cross the lines that normally separate the
scientific and the personal. Dichotomies were defied or ignored; emotion
and intellect merged; the teacher and the taught become less distinguish-
able. This dichotomy-ditching was particularly notable during the whole-
group discussion segments that I have classified as genuine conversation.
In this chapter, I study only the first day of this bioethics unit. I chose
this lesson because it provides an example of a context that welcomes
students’ beliefs. Chapter 2 was developed from hours of listening to
audio- and videotaped records of student talk; Chapters 3 and 4 arose
largely from work that I did with students outside of class time. I realize
that this kind of in-depth and time-consuming research is difficult for
most full-time practicing teachers to arrange. This chapter, however, is
focused on a few minutes of classroom discussion. Therefore I hope that
it may provide not only a model for instruction that elicits students’ be-
liefs in science class, but as a model of research that might be more at-
tainable for already overworked teachers. In terms of instruction, the
teacher can find out a lot about her students’ beliefs if the proper con-
text and atmosphere are encouraged. In terms of research, one encoun-
ters an infinitude of information, questions, and insights from listening
to a mere 5 minutes of complex classroom talk.
I also chose this first lesson for intensive reflective study because it
was not a comfortable teaching experience. Two reasons for my uneasi-
ness stand out now. First, I did not do as good a job as I would have liked
in supporting students in sharing their ideas. I believe that I was taken
aback by the excitement and intensity that these issues aroused in them;
I was not prepared to support these. Instead I “stuck to my plan,” pushing
forward into an imaginary time where I thought that I would be prepared
for listening to students’ strongly held personal beliefs about controver-
sial issues. Second, as I have come to realize through writing this chapter,
the topic lends itself to an uneasiness that is not easily managed in the
context of traditional science teaching. What I had hoped would be a com-
fortable learning environment for all—including myself!—turned out to
be one that threatened to slip away from my control. The excitement and
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 123

emotion that quickly permeated our apparently not-so-comfortable learn-

ing community dispensed with traditional science content and disallowed
traditional discussion patterns to continue. Now I am glad. Then I was
nervous. I will return to this issue in the summary.

Beginning the Bioethics Unit

The first lesson in this bioethics unit was complex. It involved three dis-
tinct activities, interspersed with discussion, both planned and unplanned.
I have created a timeline (see Figure 5.1) to assist readers in accompany-
ing me as I navigate the rough waters of this lesson. The three main
activities are described below, as we encounter them in sequence. The ac-
tivities were:

1. Rating the statements on the survey: Getting the conversation

about bioethical issues going.
2. The Hammer Exercise: Making decisions about which forms of liv-
ing things it is acceptable for people to kill.
3. Introduction of Personal Reference Sheet: Beginning to develop a
decision-making model for bioethical issues.

Figure 5.1. Timeline for Lesson 1 of Bioethics Unit

0–5 minutes Brief discussion about recent exam
Introduce visitor
Teacher introduces bioethics unit

Lesson Segment A 5–7 minutes What are “values”?

Lesson Segment B 7–23 minutes Clarification of terms on survey

Individually rating survey statements
Discussion of rating survey statements

Lesson Segment C 23–30 minutes The Hammer Exercise

30–36 minutes Whole-group sharing of criteria used to
determine “ratings” for survey
statements
36–55 minutes Introduction of Personal Reference Sheet
Continuation of criteria discussion
55–60 minutes Alex tells me privately this exercise has
got him puzzled; Kari joins in

w
124 Connecting Girls and Science

Please refer to the timeline, which indicates the times and the order
of “Lesson Segments A, B, and C” and the placement of these activities
within the lesson. Each activity under discussion is described below. The
lesson segments that I am using here come from the first day of the bio-
ethics unit. Studying the discussion in more detail, I noticed that I said
things about my own experiences and feelings, particularly my uncertainty
in the face of bioethical decision making. I began to wonder what role my
talk might have played in the students’ eagerness during this lesson to
explicate their own beliefs, in concert with and in opposition to those of
their classmates and teacher. The three subsegments of dialogue under
study represent my comprehension of the role that certain statements and
moves of mine may have played in setting up a context in which students
were free to admit and proclaim uncertainty and disagreement.

Lesson Segment A: Typical Classroom Talk

As part of the introduction to the bioethics unit, the students and I spent
some time clarifying our understanding of the word values. I thought that
it was important to do this because values were the central issue in the
bioethics unit. The following talk takes a common classroom form, as stu-
dents respond to a teacher-initiated question. The students spoke one at a
time as I called on them. I accepted multiple explanations and examples
from students. I also repeated and elaborated on students’ responses,
maintaining my teacherly role as arbiter of ideas. I did not ask students to
expand on their statements, although I tried to get Jonathan to speak in
language his classmates could comprehend. And I did not expect or en-
courage students to interact verbally with each other. I stopped this dis-
cussion and moved on when I felt that a few students had provided defi-
nitions that were close enough to what I was thinking.

Teacher: What are “values”? Misti?

Misti: Something like—I don’t know.
Tammy: Cherish.
Misti: Yeah. Something like that. Something that’s important to you.
Teacher: Okay. Something that’s important to you. Jonathan?
Jonathan: Your metaphysical way that you deal with society.
Alex: Now, seriously.
Teacher: Okay, your metaphysical way you deal with society? Can
you say that differently?
Jonathan: It’s like the concepts, or the things that you base all your
decisions around, that help you make your decisions, that
guide your decisions.
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 125

Teacher: Um, okay, things you base your decisions on—

Jonathan: Yeah.
Teacher: —guide your decisions? Okay. Kari?
Kari: Something you think is worth something to you.
Teacher: Okay. Good. For example, if you value doing your
homework, you’ll spend a lot of time on it. If you value being
outside, you will be outside on a beautiful day. Maybe if you
value both, you’ll go do your homework outside, right? Becky?
Becky: What you believe in?
Teacher: Okay. All right. So.

This interchange about values is one example of typical classroom talk,

even if it involves atypical science content. It definitely had its uses. In
this case, I was able, at least superficially, to assess some of the students’
understanding of the word values before I assigned them activities with
values at the center. I could also satisfy myself that we had achieved a
common comprehension of the word.
Immediately following the language clarification above, I informed
the students that during this unit we were going to be talking about val-
ues. This information is delivered in a “teacher telling” mode.

Teacher: These things we’re going to be talking about—it’s easy in

science to at least pretend that we’re not talking about values. In
this unit, we’re going to explicitly be talking about values. That
doesn’t mean that I’m going to tell you what to value, or that
you’re going to have to argue for certain values. It does mean that
things might, inside, you might feel a bit more emotional, maybe
a little bit more tense than you’re used to feeling. I just want us
to remember that—remember it about ourselves, remember it
about our fellow students, other people in the classroom. We
always try, I know, to listen to each other and to respect each
other’s ideas. These next few days, you might just need to try just
a little bit harder. Just be sensitive to each other; be sensitive to
each others’ beliefs and feelings, especially. Okay? I’m sure we’ll
be fine; we all know each other pretty well, so we should be fine.

I hoped that both of these moves—defining values as a group, and then

informing students of the centrality of values in the new unit—would serve
to lead sensibly into the new unit. I have included both of these here for
two reasons: first, to indicate how we got started on the unit, and second,
to demonstrate two kinds of teacher-mediated talk that are useful, but not
the same as the genuine conversation that emerges later on in the lesson.
126 Connecting Girls and Science

Lesson Segment B: Intimations of Genuine Conversation

Following the work on defining values and contextualizing our upcom-

ing treatment of them, I asked the students to return to a survey that I
had given them the week before. The survey was actually a list of state-
ments concerning applications of genetic engineering and medical tech-
nology, and the bioethical issues that these actual and possible applica-
tions imply. Examples of these statements are:

• Research into genetics should be regulated by federal legislation.

• A fetus should be aborted if by medical tests in the first trimester it
is shown to be severely genetically defective.
• Society will one day mandate the use of scientific knowledge to
produce individuals with certain inherited traits.

Previously, I had asked students to place a simple yes or no next to

each statement to indicate their agreement or lack thereof. For this les-
son, I asked students to place a number from 1 to 5 next to each state-
ment. A 1 indicated “absolutely positively always,” 5 indicated “absolutely
positively never,” and 2, 3, and 4 varying degrees of in between.
This exercise was meant to provide students with an introduction to
some difficult ideas—things, as I put it to them, that they would be decid-
ing about as citizens in a democracy in the not-so-far-away future. Some
of the language in these statements was unfamiliar to the students, and
we spent a fair amount of time in question-and-answer mode, as they
asked me the meaning of words like debilitating and mandate. In this situ-
ation I chose to merely define these words for the students. Unlike the
word values, I suspected that they had little, if any, experience or knowl-
edge of the words and phrases about which they were asking. I have in-
cluded excerpts of this portion of the dialogue to indicate the kinds of
questions the students had, and some examples of the comments that the
statements were inspiring.

Tammy: Number 18.

Teacher: “Research into genetics should be regulated by federal
legislation.”
Tammy: Now is that saying that they have the power to say that
they can’t do something, I mean—
Teacher: This means that federal legislation, meaning laws that
would govern the whole country, would be able to say
whether or not certain scientists or laboratories could research
a particular thing.
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 127

Tammy: Oh!
Teacher: Okay?
Tammy: Umhm.
Misti: Number 1.
Teacher: “A fetus should be aborted if by medical tests in the first
trimester”—that’s the first 3 months of pregnancy, right?
Misti: Yep.
Teacher:—“it is shown to be severely genetically defective.” And
then they explain this by “the child would die before”—“prior”
means before—“before its 4th birthday.”
Misti: And they’d do it on purpose, then; they would kill it.
Teacher: Yes. If you consider abortion killing, then that’s what
they’re saying.
Misti: Okay.
Teacher: Kari?
Kari: Number 15.
Teacher: 15?
Sam: Yeah.
Teacher: “State and/or federal legislation proscribing who is
genetically fit to reproduce should be enacted and enforced.”
That’s saying that the state, or the federal government, could
look at your genetic profile, and say, “Sure, go ahead and
reproduce,” or, “No, you can’t.”
Tammy: That’s like—noooo—that’s like saying you can’t, like
Alex could go to the bathroom or something and Kari has to
go real bad and she can’t go, you know what I mean? [Kari
laughs.]
Teacher: [Laughs.] I think so.
Tammy: It was just a general example.
Teacher: And I know, it sounds really totally bizarre to us, but
people have actually argued for this; certain societies actually
tried to make it happen.
Tammy: Like for diseases and stuff, like if someone has a certain
disease?
Teacher: It could start that way, but then it starts being certain
things like—
Kari: Race?
Teacher: —religion, race, sexual preference.

During this time of term clarification, students were already engag-

ing in declaring their opinions. The survey had turned out to be more in-
spirational in terms of expressions of beliefs and values than I had expected.
128 Connecting Girls and Science

I had not planned for this to happen, not at this point of the lesson. (I had
planned for it to come in after the Hammer Exercise.) So I pushed onward,
even though students appeared ready to take up some politically and so-
cially intriguing issues, including government control of reproduction,
racial prejudice, and abortion.
In retrospect, these are exactly the issues that I had hoped would arise
during this study. They are of the type with which feminist critical teach-
ers concern ourselves. These are issues I wanted students to encounter,
connect to science and to politics, and use to develop a sense of personal
power in terms of their own relationships with science. I erred in believ-
ing that they could keep these feelings bottled up until I said “go”—until
I decided, “Okay, now is the time to express our values.”

Lesson Segment C: Encountering Genuine Conversation

The following dialogue is analyzed in detail because it illustrates aspects

of what I have described as genuine conversation. It also indicates the
struggles that I, as a teacher, engaged in as I attempted to chart a path for
myself and for the students through the complexities of student talk. The
three pieces of the dialogue analyzed are titled “Sharing Uncertainty,”
“Controlling the Flow,” and “Riding the Rapids.” I hope that readers will
tolerate this somewhat poetic imagery in the interest of helping me to
explain the interactive and unpredictable nature of this classroom con-
versation. This language helps me to understand what was happening—
better than language that might be more traditionally logical and distanced
from the situation.

Sharing Uncertainty

One of my goals in teaching this unit was for students to realize that these
issues are not cut-and-dried. Unresolvable complications arise within in-
dividuals as well as within the larger society. As the following dialogue
begins, I have just asked students to address: “What might you say about
yourself and/or other people if they had a lot of ones, fives, or threes?”
We have progressed to threes:

Teacher: What about a person who had a lot of 3s? What do you
think that kind of person—[Students start talking again before
I’m done; more than one person at a time.]
Lily and others: Confused.
Jonathan: Complacent.
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 129

Teacher: I, I have a lot of 3s and I am not complacent. What I am is

uncertain about a lot of these things.
Becky: It depends on the people, on the way that everyone else
thinks?
Teacher: Excuse me [in attention-demanding voice]. Becky?
Becky: A lot of ‘em, I think it depends on the cases. It depends on
how bad—like that one thing talks about how bad that child’s
going to be, whatever the word is.
Teacher: Yes, that seems to be my problem, when I look at
one and say “Well yeah okay, what about this? What about
that?”
Becky: I mean Down syndrome it’s going to still survive. I don’t
even know if that’s the case.
Teacher: Nina?
Nina: Well, I think if you have 3s, it’s that you have been shown
both sides of the story, but it’s still too hard to decide. It’s like a
value judgment, that maybe you’re not ready to make.
Teacher: Do you mean we as like an individual, Nina, or we as a
society?
Nina: I think we as an individual. It’s not that we only see one side.

A distinction between individual values and individual cases arose very

quickly in these students’ talk. Another strand of the conversation began
with Nina’s disagreement that certainty would come with more knowl-
edge. Here, Nina is responding to a statement that Jonathan had made
shortly before. I had asked what the students could say about themselves
if they had all “1s and 5s.” Becky said they thought that meant “we’re all
about the same” and “that we think a lot alike.” Jonathan, on the other
hand, said, “Possibly they haven’t been exposed to different sides of the
story.” It appears that here Nina is connecting Jonathan’s statement with
my own; using her presumption of my knowledge and experience, she
says that “it’s that you have been shown both sides of the story, but it’s
still too hard to decide.” This is one of the many places where students
pick up on each other’s comments. I consider students’ referencing each
other’s ideas and, especially, speaking directly to one another to be a vital
aspect of genuine conversation in the classroom.
Kari then picks up on Nina’s comment, and continues her analysis of
my own uncertainty in the face of the students’ more common certainty
in terms of the survey statements.

Kari: I was going to say when they were saying that you have 3s? I
think it is because you know a lot, so you know more about
130 Connecting Girls and Science

both sides of everything, you know about everything, well you

don’t know everything, you know a lot, and so you—
Teacher: Okay, I—
Kari: —you know there are different ways to do different things.
Teacher: Okay. I don’t—continue what you were saying.
Kari: I’m just saying we have 1s and 5s and stuff, and I just think
that, I just feel certain, because these aren’t really, a lot of
them aren’t really of certain things? It’s a lot of beliefs.
Teacher: I don’t mean to imply that 3s are better than 5s, or that 1s
and 5s are better than 3s.
Kari: I think it’s a lot of our beliefs and what you feel.

Interestingly, Kari moves here from a knowledge-based frame for choice

that she and Nina have attributed to me to one that is based more in “be-
liefs and what you feel.” Tammy extends the conversation to include an
additional aspect of knowledge, one that adds experientially gained belief
to feeling.

Tammy: I’ve got a lot of like 1s down, for some of them, and they
were like the ones where they say they can control whether or
not you [re]produce if you have [certain genes], or whether or
not the baby should be born or aborted or whatever? And I
could have put 3s for those but I have seen both sides of the
story and I just think that it’s not until you’ve seen both sides
of the story (for 3s) and 1s and 5s are just the same. Because
for like Down syndrome, like Becky said, I mean I know a
child with Down syndrome and he’s like, he’s one of the
smartest kids that I know [with emphasis]. I mean his age, and
I don’t see what’s wrong with him. There’s nothing wrong
with him but the way he looks. So I mean, it’s not that you’ve
seen both sides of it.
Teacher: So maybe you’re saying sometimes you have more
information and more experience and it might make you more
certain rather than less certain.
Tammy: Yeah. Yeah.

As well as claiming a certain kind of expertise due to experience,

Tammy disagrees with Jonathan, Nina, and Kari by saying that “it’s not
that you’ve seen both sides of it.” She implies that seeing “both sides of it”
will not necessarily make someone less certain. And, as Nina above, she
refers to another student, Becky. This reference is used to support her own
assertion.
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 131

Becky places the choice in particularity—in the “it depends on the cases”
category. She voices her uncertainty concerning knowledge of Down syn-
drome, while recognizing that there is variation in degrees of disability. She
implicitly denies the possibility of one generalizable rule for all choices, and
yet does not support the idea that uncertainty indicates “complacency” or
even “confusion.” Nina more directly disagrees with Jonathan, supporting
my statement that I have a lot of 3s and yet am not complacent, with “It’s
like a value judgment, that maybe you’re not ready to make,” even if I “have
been shown both sides of the story.” This, to me, implies the understanding
that increased knowledge leads not to surety, but maybe to even more
uncertainty. These statements indicate a placement of choice in uncertainty,
not complacency, and a valuing of the variability of cases (Purdy, 1996;
Rothman, 1989; Wolf, 1996). Kari picks up on the idea of uncertainty, and
carries it into the more typical arena of personal choice in terms of ethics: “I
think it’s a lot of our beliefs and what you feel.”
On the other hand, Tammy responds (apparently mostly to Nina) to
the conversation by insisting that she has had experience, and she is ready
to decide. She picks up on Becky’s Down syndrome example, launching into
a lengthy portrayal of her thought, experience, and potential decision making
in this area. She may be defending herself against what she sees as a cri-
tique of certainty—ironically!—and asserting that experience can indeed lead
to certainty. In her particular case, she is personally acquainted with a Down
syndrome child, and insists that his “case” has convinced her that his life is
worth living: “He’s one of the smartest kids that I know.”
The girls here are demonstrating another aspect of genuine conver-
sation, one that connects it directly to feminist critical pedagogy: They are
combining experience, feelings, and beliefs to make their arguments and
to describe their understanding of the world. It is tempting to say that these
students are “making theory” as they travel among the complex connec-
tions set up by their own as well as each other’s ideas and the abstractions
of the survey statements. I am uncertain, however, whether this is actu-
ally the case. What does seem more evident is that students are using
experiences and feelings to describe and explain their beliefs about these
ethical issues. Occasionally, the conversation takes on a debate-like tone.
Kari sums up this portion of the conversation by placing choice
squarely in the individual or couple. Jonathan is apparently impressed
enough by this line of argument that he decides to publicly “reexamine”
his statement.

Kari: Because a lot of it has to do with like whether they have the
right to do what they want.
Teacher: “They” being whom?
132 Connecting Girls and Science

Kari: Parents.
Teacher: Jonathan?
Jonathan: Yeah, I think I’d like to reexamine my statement.
Teacher: Okay great. Okay. [Laughter.] That’s fine.
Alex: Apology accepted.
Teacher: I’m not sure that he—
Jonathan: I wasn’t apologizing.

This segment of dialogue demonstrates a very unusual occurrence:

Jonathan, our resident science expert, changing his mind, apparently due
to reactions that he was getting from his classmates, and me, to his state-
ment that those people who were uncertain were “complacent” and his
comment that people with 1s and 5s hadn’t seen both sides of the issue.
In this context of uncertainty and personal belief, Jonathan’s usually un-
questioned scientific pronouncements did not go unremarked. This kind
of disagreement and discussion was something that I had hoped to make
happen throughout my science teaching; here, it happens without my
urging, but possibly aided by my honest example. Whether my “sharing”
my disagreement with Jonathan, along with my own uncertainty concern-
ing these ethical issues, “freed” these students to speak is almost moot.
What is clear is that I did not “shut them up” with my statement.
By making myself into an “unknower” rather than a “knower” or a
science expert, by making my own ambivalence plain, I may have nudged
the authority of science off to the side enough so that its silencing power
was temporarily removed. I modeled the behavior that I wanted students
to engage in throughout this unit—that is, recognizing that uncertainty,
contradiction, and “mind changing” indicated not ignorance or lack of con-
viction, but intelligent thoughtfulness in the face of complex and trouble-
some ideas. The girls’ adamant and energetic responses to Jonathan’s and
my statements illustrates one of the kinds of talk that I hoped students would
practice. This is particularly notable to me because it was unusual: Jonathan
was our recognized “science expert” and, to my recollection, was never
challenged when he made statements of a purely scientific nature. In this
context, his female classmates refuse to let his statement go unnoticed; in-
stead, they disagree and forcefully describe the logic of their disagreement.
This segment of classroom dialogue demonstrates that this talk is still
teacher mediated, as I call on students and occasionally clarify and rephrase
students’ statements. Nonetheless, I am not evaluating students’ comments
in terms of scientific accuracy. This would have been inappropriate, in any
case, because the students were expressing experience-based knowledge;
knowledge that I wanted to value without critique. However, I do not want
to make my role in this discussion the most important one. I believe the
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 133

topic itself allowed for powerful disagreement and the externalization of

these students’ personal stances.
Much of the discussion during this first lesson was unbidden by the
teacher. During Lesson Segments B and C, in which students were to rate
their agreement with statements on the survey and then decide whether
it was okay to kill certain organisms for research purposes, I had intended
that students would work individually and quietly. In responding to their
questions about unfamiliar words and phrases, I meant to be merely sup-
porting them in this planned task. I had not intended that this activity
would be a context for discussing the ideas and controversial choices them-
selves that the exercises were meant to introduce. I wanted students to
wait until later in the lesson to share their ideas. So I moved on, even
though they were saying very interesting things and engaging in the kind
of discussion that I had hoped would happen during this unit.

Controlling the Flow

The second example indicates my control over the pace of the lesson and
the direction the discussion is “allowed” to take. While again I utilized a
piece of my life outside of school, it was more as a criticism of the stu-
dents—a mild scolding—than it was genuine conversational fare. This made
me feel artificial, and distant from the students. I was beginning to acknowl-
edge, at least to myself, the tension between controlling the direction of
students’ work and wanting them to be free to express their ideas. It fol-
lows directly on Jonathan’s statement that he has altered his belief that
people with 3s are “complacent.”

Teacher: [In response to some talk from students, suggesting we go

outside.] That would be an idea. But I have a different idea.
And since I’m the boss we’re going to go with my idea. Hang
on to your survey, of course. We’re going to do another
exercise, to help you think about this kind of thing. Get out a
fresh piece of paper please. And number it 1 through 23.
Misti: I have an idea, Ms. Howes.
Teacher: Uh-huh.
Misti: Can we go outside? [Laughter.]
Sam: We need recess.
Teacher: Yes. I agree. Well, you guys, I planted trees yesterday at
Emerson; I didn’t see any of you there. [I am referring to a
project at a local elementary school; I was involved in helping to
plan and plant an “Outdoor Classroom”; high school students
were encouraged to help out for Honors Society points.]
134 Connecting Girls and Science

Sam: That’s when it was!

Becky: You said it was, like, yesterday.
Teacher: It was; it was also this past weekend.
Sam: If you had reminded us, Friday—
Teacher: I know, I know, my fault. I’ll take responsibility for that
one. There will be other times. But if you get a chance, walk
over there. Just go walk through there. It’s really getting sort
of nice. Emerson, the elementary school?
Becky: Yes, they have a cool playground.
Teacher: Well, it is going to be even cooler now.

I have not found places where I can positively say that sharing an
experience or belief of my own shut students up. However, here is a place
where I certainly used my power to make things stick to my plan. I even
diminished Becky’s statement about the “coolness” of the Emerson play-
ground. It would have fit my teaching philosophy and my gut respect for
students as thinking, responsible, sensible beings if I had at least—at least—
given them the floor, found out what they were thinking, maybe even
gone with their plan about going outside, as far as the constraints of pub-
lic schooling would allow. I also believe that my comments concerning
Emerson could have been meant (or perceived) as a jab at the students
for daring to challenge my plan. Although not overt, it allows me to main-
tain my “boss” status. Nonetheless, it is possible that my insistence on
controlling the flow of this lesson opened up opportunities for students to
continue discussion of this challenging topic. Despite my inner equivoca-
tion, I wanted this student talk to be under my control, or at least within
my planned structure; I wanted them to talk about what I wanted them
to talk about, when I wanted them to talk about it, and, of course, in my
prissy New England brought-up way, one at a time.
Distancing myself from the students here, I cut off the development
of genuine conversation. Genuine conversation does not have a planned
destination; science teaching typically does. I had not recognized that at
this point in my learning about teaching. Now I am wondering: Does the
very fact that we want students to learn particular content deny them the
opportunity to engage verbally with each other, their teacher, and chal-
lenging ideas in science?

Riding the Rapids

The upcoming activity, the “Hammer Exercise,” was meant to get stu-
dents thinking about their beliefs concerning the uses of living organ-
isms in scientific research and connected technologies. The students
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 135

would decide what it was okay for me to “kill,” and what it was not okay
for me to “kill.” The list that I constructed for this activity is reproduced
in Figure 5.2. It progresses from very simple life forms—that is, if one
even considers viruses “alive”—to humans. This mimics a ladder form
of evolution. I was uncomfortable with this hierarchy, because it is sci-
entifically inaccurate and because it implies that humans are at the “top”
of evolutionary “progress.” But the exercise was constructed with a fo-
cus different from evolutionary accuracy, one that would progress from
life forms that students would probably find unattractive or inconsequen-
tial, gradually moving to life forms that they would consider beautiful,
valuable, and even relationally important (e.g., cats and dogs, which
many of them had as pets).
The last subsegment under study here was the piece that first got me
intrigued with the larger segment of dialogue. I made what was for me an
offhand, unplanned comment. As we were moving into the Hammer Ex-
ercise, which required that I pretend to kill living organisms, I said, “What
I’m going to do—and this is really hard for me to even say, because one of
the reasons I left the laboratory, was I didn’t like killing things.” As I was
transcribing the audiotape from this class session, I was struck by the stu-
dents’ insistence that I “tell them more.” Rather than “controlling the flow,”
I begin to “ride the rapids” of this lesson, as students resisted my pressure
to continue (at least with the alacrity I desired) with my plan. Instead, they
insisted that I explain my offhand statement about “killing things.”

Figure 5.2. The Hammer Exercise List

1. virus 13. crow
2. bacterium 14. wolf
3. maggots (fly larvae) 15. bluebird
4. mosquito 16. kitten
5. moth 17. cat
6. dragonfly 18. dog
7. crab grass 19. chimpanzee
8. mouse 20. fertilized human egg cell (zygote)
9. butterfly 21. human embryo (0–3 months)
10. daisy 22. human fetus (3–9 months)
11. pig 23. adult human
12. cow
w
136 Connecting Girls and Science

Teacher: Okay. One through 23; again, this is for your personal use.
What I’m going to do—and this is really hard for me to even
say, because one of the reasons I left the laboratory, was I
didn’t like killing things. But what—
Misti: You worked in a laboratory?
Teacher: Yes. But what I’m going to do is pretend to kill some living
organisms. All right?
Tammy: Wait.
Teacher: Tammy?
Tammy: You killed things for, like experiments?
Teacher: Uh-huh.
Tammy: What did you do, like you killed them?
Becky: What did you kill?
Teacher: Frogs, and uncounted millions of bacteria. Nothing worse
than that.
Misti: Well, bacteria don’t really count, do they?
Tammy: No.
Becky: Aren’t they alive, though?
Tammy: They’re alive. [Lots of overlapping talk in here.]
Teacher: Okay, this is how this game works. [I’m talking over
students; somebody shushes them.] I’m going to name a living
thing, and then I want you to write down the name of the
living thing, and write whether or not it is okay for me to go
ahead and kill it. Whether you say it is okay or not, I’m going
to do it [in a mean determined voice]. All right?

I had a continuum in mind myself, proceeding from what it is “okay”

to kill to what it is not “okay” to kill, and for what reasons. I think that I
may have indicated my scale to the students when they asked me what I
killed and I responded “Frogs, and uncounted millions of bacteria. Noth-
ing worse than that.” The comment “Nothing worse than that” may have
been a way of sharing my (unconscious) belief that there is a hierarchy of
killing that puts bacteria at the bottom—and anything else, possibly, is
“worse” to kill. As I was embarking on an activity in which students them-
selves would encounter such a hierarchy in their own beliefs, I may have
“contaminated” their reaction to the assignment by making this comment,
spur-of-the-moment as it was. This is a feature of genuine conversation.
Why were the students so insistent that I expand on my comment?
This is a place where I said something about myself; unplanned, it just made
sense to say it. As in genuine conversation, it was honest. As in feminist
critical pedagogy, it combined experience with feeling, and with science
itself. Here I introduced the concept of myself as a killer, albeit one who
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 137

has sworn off killing. The drama of this idea may have been intriguing to
the students. More pertinent, I believe, is the observation that this was
not just some random fact about my biography, but one that fit in with
the discussion at hand. In reality, in the laboratory, I had “killed living
things.” Here, as their teacher, I was going to pretend to “kill living things.”
So perhaps there was a connection between my laboratory life and this
playacting activity. Or, maybe, I showed students that I myself was not
comfortable with killing—even when it was “just bacteria.” Here, in terms
of feminist critical pedagogy, I was sharing both an experience and my feel-
ings about that experience. I was also implicitly critiquing, from a feminist
perspective, the assumption that it is all right to kill living things “for the
good of science.” I was unintentionally modeling what I wanted the stu-
dents to be able to do with the upcoming activity.
My “sharing” also allowed a digression into a more traditional stu-
dent question/teacher response discourse concerning bacteria—good ones
and bad ones—ironically inspired by what to me was an unrelated topic,
that of bioethics. Students and I explored their understanding of living
things, as they probed my knowledge in this area. I was, in turn, surprised
and gratified that they recalled the questions of life that they had studied
in the fall, some of them with me, in biology. This connection between
traditional content and my work in the laboratory was not one that I had
ever considered likely. What an odd time for my experience in the labo-
ratory to come in handy!

Tammy: What kind of bacteria?

Teacher: That’s a good question. Let’s say, Tammy—in this case, it
doesn’t make any difference, because I’m just going to take a
single bacterium. And you, you know, even the good ones,
they’re in your body all the time. If I just take one out and kill
it you’ll still have plenty.
Misti: Can bacteria be good?
Teacher: Yes. Yes.
Misti: How? In what way?
Becky: Kill it.
Teacher: You have E. coli, in your digestive system, that help you
break down food. And for example if you get strep throat, and
you take you an antibiotic, which means something that kills
bacteria, you kill a lot of those bacteria and you can get
diarrhea. And then you eat yogurt, which replaces those
bacteria. So yes, there are definitely good bacteria.
Kari: Is it okay if I have a question mark there? Like maybe?
Teacher: No. You’ve got to say yes or no. No uncertainty.
138 Connecting Girls and Science

At least three things are going on in the previous excerpt: talk about
bacteria, deciding whether it is all right to kill a single bacterium, and clari-
fying the assignment. Understandably, students here are attempting to
connect this “killing activity” with the previous “survey” activity in which
there were shades of gray and uncertainty was allowed, even encouraged.
Making this transition between games with different rules was probably
not facilitated by my own switch from modeling uncertainty to being a
strict, unfeeling executioner. Also, the idea that I, as a scientist, really did
kill in my daily work as a laboratory scientist provided a “real-life” example
(although a rather tame one) of the bioethical issues with which students
were beginning to grapple. Is it any wonder that the idea of “killing inno-
cent creatures” was the one with which at least three students—Tammy
and Misti and Becky—were able to make some relevant connection?
As I noted previously, I found the reaction from the girls to my off-
hand reference to my laboratory research experience quite puzzling. As
do many teachers, particularly if they have come from other scientific
enterprises into science teaching, I often, consciously, included my ex-
periences in the laboratory at what I imagined were appropriate times.
For example, during my teaching of genetic engineering techniques, I
used my laboratory research experience, working with real DNA and real
cells and real chromosome mapping questions, to enliven the step-by-
step, decontextualized protocol that I wanted the students to learn. In
this effort, I was certainly sharing my experience and even my interests.
But the soul and heart of my daily life in the laboratory were difficult to
portray to high school students. And so I ended up leaving these out,
instead portraying science as usual: a thing of mysterious, behind-closed-
doors activity, doors labeled with radioactivity signs denying entry to
regular people and personal values. Science remained special; I may have
celebrated the push of curiosity, and thus appealed to students already
intrigued by science. Nonetheless, even though my experience was cut-
ting-edge—at the vanguard of molecular biology, the new darling of
science, father of cloning—it really was not, at its core, any different from
any portrayal of science that students had ever seen. And it would not
bring me closer to them, but ensure my distance as a scientific foreigner
in their school lives.
I had always pushed my work in biological research as important, for
example, to prospective employers, yet here is the only place I recall stu-
dents reacting at all to my comments. In contrast to teaching about re-
combinant DNA—where I attempted to use my practical experience in this
area to “bring it alive”—these offhand comments about disliking killing
are the ones that not only naturally fit in, but intrigued the students—
much more so, for example, than trying to explain the workings of mo-
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 139

lecular biology techniques to students. Although my experience was first

hand, how could I expect them to tie into it when they had no vision of
the minuscule amounts of volume, the carefully calibrated micrometer
pipettes, the pumping of electrical current through gel to make little stripes
seen only under UV light or through radioactive treatments? It makes sense
that the vision of their teacher as a killer—both in the reality of the labo-
ratory, and fictitiously, through this exercise—is much more enlighten-
ing and entertaining than that of their teacher as a technician.
Disclosing myself as an evil killing scientist as opposed to the uncriti-
cal celebrator of science as fun, I did something fundamentally different
from indicating curiosity and experience as doors into scientific activity.
This was a different kind of disclosure, as well, from that which I have
encountered in the feminist literature: It wasn’t about my sexuality; it
wasn’t about my personal relationships; it wasn’t even directly about my
feminist politics. It was mere honesty; not meant to persuade, not meant
to indoctrinate, but simply to express my own feelings and, possibly, to
put myself back into a community that loved life and deplored killing. It
was this love of life, after all, that had drawn me to biology in the first place.
Thus, it may be, I connected with some of my students in a way that I
never could by describing my laboratory experiences in conventional
celebratory ways. I deserted the stance as all-knowing scientist, instead
adopting that of a person puzzled by issues concerning the use of living
organisms for the “good of science.”
Normally I was so concerned that my students appreciate science that
I shied away from criticizing its practitioners. Here I explicitly stated my
own dissatisfaction with one of the practices of biological researchers: kill-
ing other living things to study the natural world. This is an example of
participation in genuine conversation, as my statement brings a bit of my
authentic self, specifically my disagreements with research practices, into
contact with my students.
During the portion of dialogue analyzed above, I didn’t ask for any
elaboration or justifications; I didn’t say, “Would anyone like to tell us what
reasons or criteria you used for rating the survey statements?” In fact, the
plan was that students would just write down their criteria, privately. But
they vocalized their ideas anyway, resulting in a lesson that was exactly
the opposite of “it was like pulling teeth.” In this dialogue, I myself talked
about my beliefs and experiences in a way that deviated from a scientific
statement of fact or practice. Initially, I expressed uncertainty; later, I gave
as a reason for leaving laboratory work my discomfort with killing living
things for scientific purposes. Is it possible that this “modeling” played some
role in the students’ willingness, and ability, to think and express their
beliefs around bioethical issues?
140 Connecting Girls and Science

THE UNEASINESS OF GENUINE CONVERSATION

This chapter examined the role sharing of a teacher’s beliefs and experi-
ences could play in encouraging students to speak their minds. I wanted
students to feel that it was fine to express their feelings and beliefs about
life, death, abortion, medical intervention, and human disability. As their
science teacher, of course, I always wanted them to be comfortable let-
ting me and their classmates know what they were thinking. However, I
believed that the emotional issues we were going to encounter might make
this particularly challenging. I especially urged students to be careful not
to denigrate their classmates’ beliefs and values.
As a feminist critical teacher, I wanted students to talk, for three ba-
sic reasons: I believe that talking is vital to good learning, because students
achieve deeper understanding by describing, explaining, and making con-
nections between their lives and scientific concepts; I want them to ex-
press their opinions, as a political choice; and, I want to learn what they
are thinking in order to teach them the science better. These ideas over-
lap, particularly in the sense of connecting self to content. Throughout this
unit, especially when students were saying exceptionally interesting things,
with lots of people talking at once, I am reminded of Karen Gallas’s (1995)
hypothesis that when students are making a conceptual breakthrough,
they get very excited, which often results in lots of students talking at the
same time. Unfortunately, this is usually considered disruptive behavior—
we continue, even in this enlightened time, to think that children should
be seen and not heard.
In this context of bioethics teaching, a dilemma develops from the
existence of two equally important demands that arise when my teaching
plans forefront students’ values and beliefs in science. The first is that the
classroom environment be such that students feel welcome to express their
thinking and feelings around sensitive, controversial issues of personal,
social, and political importance. The second is that I, as a feminist critical
teacher researcher, express my own values and beliefs concerning issues
under study. My initial concern in this area was that students would con-
sider my ideas the “correct ones,” then fear to express their own if they
differed from mine. I believe now that this is a lesser issue, at least in the
context of bioethics, where students seemed to be holding to some form
of “everyone is entitled to her own opinion.” While students seemed to
regard my “opinion” as more knowledgeable, possibly more sophisticated
than their own, they didn’t seem to view it as the final word (as they might
have if it were going to be “on the test”). A different issue, therefore, has
arisen for me. It still lies in the intersection of students’ expression of be-
lief and a comfortable learning community. I now wonder not only if this
Genuine Conversation Through Studying Bioethics 141

comfort is possible, but if it is desirable. Comfort may lead too easily to the
cutting off of uncomfortable talk—and uncomfortable talk is necessary for
powerful learning.
Genuine conversation is uncomfortable, messy, and exciting. It con-
tains personal experience, values, dreams, imagination, and factual knowl-
edge—to name a few—all at once. It is fluid, as participants notice and
react to others’ ideas. It can be painfully unpredictable, especially in a class-
room context where the teacher wants things to run smoothly, even if it
means forcing dissension underground. For the teacher, it can seem cha-
otic, as she attempts to pull students’ ideas together into some cohesive
whole. In these aspects, the frustrations of students’ expressions of expe-
rience, feelings, and beliefs appear something to be avoided rather than
welcomed. But genuine conversation in the classroom can be very pow-
erful, powerful enough that I want to learn to accept the inevitable un-
easiness that it engenders. Learning to live with this uneasiness, and with
the ambiguity in terms of students’ learning that accompanies it, is required
if genuine conversation is to become a part of one’s teaching. It is also an
opportunity to teach students that science, as life itself, is not cut-and-dried,
even though it appears that way in textbooks, scientific publications, and
its popular representations.
This study has made me profoundly wonder about my role as a femi-
nist critical teacher in a science classroom. How could we make this kind of
talk happen more often and effectively with traditional science content? Can
we? Or does science itself deny the relativity and personal experiential
knowledge that feminist critical pedagogy requires? On a more pragmatic
line: How would this classroom have been different if we had begun the
year with this kind of talk? Could we have carried genuine conversation
into our studies of meiosis and deviation and protein synthesis? The feeling
of genuine conversation does not translate well into classroom comfort, and
we need to create spaces where discomfort is acceptable, if progress toward
respect for students and their thinking is going to be made.
In describing genuine conversation as I have explored it here, I in-
clude, first, fluidity and unpredictability. The most powerful contributions
to conversation are inspired by the verbal action of the conversation in
real time. Participants pick up on one another’s comments to use as sup-
port and evidence, and question their own or someone else’s argument;
they combine experience, feelings, and beliefs to describe and develop their
understanding of the world. Participants also offer experiences, feelings,
beliefs, and knowledge that come from all aspects of their lives, not just
school-based learning. The teacher, who may be used to pre-planned dis-
cussion questions and lecture, may especially struggle to join in this kind
of classroom conversation.
142 Connecting Girls and Science

However, the teacher can create classroom conditions which serve to

nurture genuine conversation, among which is an intriguing context for
all participants. Bioethics, as I have demonstrated here, certainly fits this
requirement. The most challenging demand on the teacher, I believe, is
to strive for minimal manipulation of the flow of the conversation. This
may be inspired by a teaching approach focusing on the students’ beliefs,
experiences, and feelings. As the teacher convinces the students that she
values their ideas, students may become willing to share and to learn more
about their own, their teacher’s, and their classmates’ beliefs, experiences,
and feelings.
In summary, genuine conversation works best when participants are
willing to accept that uneasiness rather than comfort may be what they
predominantly feel. In addition, as all learn that they will be attended to
and respected, even if (or especially if) other participants disagree, a tol-
erance for ambiguity and lack of closure may develop—and this is certainly
a powerful skill for people in a democracy to possess.
 6
Listening as Pedagogy and Research

In this book I have argued for listening as pedagogy and research. Listen-
ing, like many traditional feminine habits many of us have been taught
well to employ, may be considered a passive and uninspired way of going
about learning about the world. But real listening is a complicated, en-
ergy-utilizing, and active process. This is especially true because as teach-
ers, we are trained to speak, both from experiences in school and from
our learning to plan and guide lessons and students’ learning along pre-
destined paths. We exhort our students to listen and learn. But we rarely
develop learning contexts that support our own listening and learning
about our students.
Keeping one’s own silence in order to hear others takes energy. En-
ergy for purposes in addition to self-control enters into this listening effort.
Classroom contexts with students’ words at their center are challenging
to design—and twice as challenging to implement. Neither students nor
teachers in most present-day schools are accustomed to situations in which
students speak more than the teacher (or the textbook), unless it is under
constrained circumstances. Students are encouraged to speak in classrooms
informed by constructivist theories of learning—through presentations,
during group work, and in response to teacher questions. But when this
talk begins to wander outside of content boundaries, it is guided back to
the content, ignored, or cut off. I do not deny the desirability of focusing
students’ talk around the subject at hand. What I would like to do, more
often, is to create contexts where students’ talk is not controlled, but sup-
ported in wandering, in crossing or ignoring boundaries between content
and daily life, between fact and feeling, and between rational and empathic
modes of learning about and acting in the world.
In order to move toward this complex goal, one of the many things
that we need to attend to is what students themselves think about science
as a social enterprise. My efforts to teach science in ways that allow stu-
dents to recognize its socially embedded status have been intermittent and
unsatisfyingly teacher-centered. Most successful and exciting have been
those episodes in which I have tried to stay out of the way, supporting

143
144 Connecting Girls and Science

students in expressing their own beliefs, feelings, and understandings of

science as a social enterprise. And yet, I hesitate to make any recommen-
dations concerning what teachers should do in order to help students al-
ter these beliefs, feelings, and understandings.

TEACHING AND LISTENING

My temporary conclusion in terms of teaching students about science as a

social enterprise, with all of the attendant political, social, and epistemo-
logical implications, is that listening to students is a necessary first and
continuing step. I advocate this listening not in order to change students’
beliefs about science, but to value their images and give them the oppor-
tunity to expand their visions.

Connecting Girls and Science:

Choosing Content Based in Women’s Lives

Pregnancy, prenatal testing, and medical ethics fit well with calls for con-
nection between science and students’ lives, interests, and knowledge.
These curricula can allow students’ life outside-of-school to come in to the
science classroom. Allowing authentic life experiences into the classroom
means allowing politics, feelings, love, fear, bodies, and sexuality to enter
the classroom as well. These are subjective matters, which, especially those
connected to the body, are considered private—in our society, at least—
until we travel into issues concerning reproduction.1
I was aware of the delicacy of these and related issues during my teach-
ing. Therefore my language appears to me, the feminist critical researcher,
to be unduly indirect. On the other hand, as a feminist critical teacher, I
recognize and value the teacher’s efforts to leave room for all of her stu-
dents’ beliefs. I do not believe that the tension that arises when a teacher
and her students’ bring more complete selves into the classroom will go
away with experience, be it individual or communal. On the contrary,
feminist critical pedagogy presupposes and anticipates the common dis-
harmony between traditional disciplinary content and students’ beliefs and
interests. Accompanied by a sensitivity to context and learners, and the
aspiration for a better world for women, this unavoidable discordance
provides feminist critical pedagogy with much of its critical power.
Nonetheless, I was troubled that these young women were so power-
fully demonstrating their passion for the protection of the helpless fetus,
for a being that they see as human. They appear to be borderline judg-
mental of people who decide to abort when presented with evidence that
Listening as Pedagogy and Research 145

the fetus is genetically “damaged.” However, the traditionally feminine

trait of caring is one that I want to celebrate in science. I believe that femi-
nists do not make this point strongly enough, possibly because we fear the
likely possibility that it will reinforce women’s already constricted posi-
tion as nurturers. Or maybe we just aren’t heard when we avow: Caring
is good. Standing up for the integrity of living things could improve life
for all, as well as the place of women and other living things in the scien-
tific enterprise. We’ve tried objectivist science and standards. What might
happen if we stressed empathy with, instead of separation from, the world
we strive to understand through scientific exploration?
Science has traditionally excluded empathy and connection, and sci-
ence teaching tends to follow suit in modeling scientific activity. There-
fore it is not surprising that the standards documents mention neither
caring nor empathy in their descriptions of scientific practice. Caring is not
considered scientific, nor is it valued as an intellectual virtue. In pursuing
democratic goals, however—of which “science for all” is certainly one—
caring is a necessary “habit of mind.” And as Deborah Meier (1995) states,
it is one that we should actively teach in schools.

Caring and compassion are not soft, mushy goals. They are part of the hard
core of subjects we are responsible for teaching. Informed and skillful care is
learned. Caring is as much cognitive as affective. The capacity to see the world
as others might is central to unsentimental compassion and at the root of
both intellectual skepticism and empathy. . . . Such empathetic qualities are
precisely the habits of mind that require deliberate cultivation—that is,
schooling. If such habits are central to democratic life, our schools must
become places that cultivate, consciously and rigorously, these moral and
intellectual fundamentals. (p. 63)

No more than is listening, empathy is not passive. It requires knowl-

edge, sensitivity, and understanding. And in feminist studies in re-visioning
science, empathy is beginning to take its place as an intellectual virtue—
as a way to learn about the world.
During our studies of prenatal testing, I was struck by the connec-
tions that girls were making between the content and their experiences
outside of school. The classroom discussions and group-work talk that
formed the basis of that chapter indicated their eagerness to share stories
about pregnancy, childbirth, and children that were atypical of science
classroom talk. While I was teaching this unit, I felt unable to help girls
connect directly to the science at hand. But as a result of this research, of
listening attentively to what girls were saying instead of focusing on what
I wanted them to be saying, I learned that some of them possessed a great
deal of knowledge about pregnancy, childbirth, and children. The context
146 Connecting Girls and Science

of prenatal testing, as content, allowed them to bring this knowledge into

the classroom. This, alone, is an adequate reason to choose content that
connects to women’s lives. I am left with this question: How might our
thinking about focusing on students’ real-life experiences look different if
we make these experiences and this knowledge, rather than “the science,”
the center of the curriculum?

Interview-conversations and Learning About

Science as a Social Enterprise

Traditional academic science is abstractly cold and unemotional; it artifi-

cially leaves out the hearts and souls of the people and societies who cre-
ate knowledge. Thus it attempts to approach the epitome of objective ra-
tional thought by explicitly denying the subject—the person doing the
research; the person learning about the world; the person explaining what
he or she has learned about the world. In the context of bioethics, it be-
comes increasingly difficult and undesirable to maintain this separation.
The interview-conversations that I conducted with the students in this
study were successful, and provocative, in getting them thinking about
science as a social enterprise. They explored scientific epistemology, ques-
tioning claims to objectivity and suggesting alternative ways that scien-
tists might go about their work. How could one translate the context and
the content of interview-conversations into classroom practice? In a regular
classroom, one teacher is responsible for the learning of many students at
once. This makes it very difficult to conduct conversations that temporarily
leave traditional science content behind. It was not difficult to keep
everyone’s attention and to value everyone’s words in one-on-one or
small-group interview-conversations, where spontaneity and attention to
each person’s thinking were central. But this kind of talk threatens to dis-
rupt typical classroom discourse, where the ratio of students to teacher is
so much greater. The harmony of teaching and research was maintained
during interview-conversations; I cannot say how this participation struc-
ture might be made effective in a whole-class discussion.
However, the questions that I posed during interview-conversations
were bolstered by those to which I asked students to respond in writing
during regular classroom time. In turn, students’ written responses informed
the questions that I asked during interview-conversations. In addition, my
learning from my students during interview-conversations informed the
questions and activities I designed for all of my students. Given the con-
straints of class size and the limited time we have with students to conduct
interview-conversations as a regular part of our teaching, perhaps they are
impracticable. But the specific questions—or the scenarios that I chose for
Listening as Pedagogy and Research 147

interview-conversations—could be utilized in whole-classroom situations.

Students could conduct interview-conversations with each other; the teacher
wouldn’t always have to be leading the group. Alternatively or in addition,
students could report their learning, their comments, and their questions
to their peers, stimulating a whole-class discussion around the issues that
arose in small-group interview-conversations.
However, I would not want to give up the time that I had with stu-
dents in one-on-one or small-group interview-conversations. As a teacher,
I learned more from them concerning learning and teaching about science
as a social enterprise than I believe I ever could have in the rush of class-
room life. I also learned more about what it means to genuinely value
students’ thinking—and in the end, grew to respect students’ ideas about
science more deeply and thoroughly. This learning may not translate di-
rectly into the design of classroom activities. It has, nonetheless, changed
me so that I will redouble my efforts to construct situations in which stu-
dents’ ideas about science are central and play a larger role in my devel-
opment of curriculum.

Genuine Conversation and the Unpredictability

of Student Talk

There are many reasons that genuine conversation as I have defined it here
is not common in high school science classrooms. Traditional and even
most present-day science educators are primarily concerned with teach-
ing descriptive, explanatory, predictive, and design-directed theories of
modern science. For me, as a high school teacher, simply making the time
for the study of something outside of an already full curriculum involved
seriously wondering: Is this important enough to do even though we have
so much to cover before the end of the year?
One thing I have learned from this research is that students always
have plenty of important things to say. Students do not always talk about
what we want them to talk about, nor do they always say what we want
them to say—in terms of either length or content. But when given engag-
ing and intriguing contexts and opportunities to make complex connec-
tions to their own experiences and passionate beliefs, these students re-
late to me and each other the feelings, experiences, and reasoning that
grounded their beliefs concerning bioethical issues.
As teachers who work hard to make listening a part of their practice
are well aware, we don’t always hear what we want to hear. Students’
comments about classroom work can be devastating, especially when they
are negative and refer to something that the teacher spent a week design-
ing to be intriguing for these particular students. Students’ talk in the realm
148 Connecting Girls and Science

of content understanding can be confusing; in its midst and in its wake,

we wonder what could be the best instructional path for each student’s
learning. In the context of genuine conversation, especially around con-
troversial issues, the students are bound to say things that run up against
the teacher’s own deep beliefs and political convictions. Students’ ideas
and beliefs are not always safe for the teacher or conducive to curricular
progress, or, in fact, supportive of classroom community building.
This reality is not very comfortable, and it possibly provides another
explanation for why this kind of talk doesn’t happen as much as it might
in high school science classrooms. In science teaching, one can hide be-
hind the exciting conceptual content; one can take the stance of objective
knower; one can insist that exams and experiments and that next chapter
are really what matters—genuine conversation is too time-consuming and
unpredictable to let happen regularly. The structure of the high school day,
week, and year leaves little time for the wandering and the confusion that
can arise from attending to the undercurrents of students’ lives and ideas.
Connections between genuine conversation rooted in students’ ideas
and the ideas in the standards documents are elusive. Assuming a demo-
cratic stance, mainstream educators, including those in science, recognize
that new technologies spawned by science become active in society and
inspire debate as to their uses and controls. This being the case, students
need practice in applying scientific knowledge to informed, respectful
debate. As the AAAS (1990) states, “Effective oral and written communi-
cation is so important in every facet of life that teachers of every subject
and at every level should place a high priority on it for all students” (p. 189).
However, the mainstream goal is one that is set out as clearly subject
matter–oriented or, occasionally, as one that connects scientific knowl-
edge to making personal and social decisions. In other words, the conver-
sation is meant to produce accurate subject matter knowledge and/or pro-
vide practice in decision making that utilizes scientific knowledge in
narrowly limited ways.
The feminist critical goal is somewhat different. We seek to develop
theory and action from shared experience and feelings. Nonetheless,
coupled with an insistence that students be aware of the potential for
current and future technologies to affect themselves, society, and the
physical environment, contexts within which students can speak about
challenging issues brought to us by science and technology are certainly
ways for students to “apply ideas in novel situations” (AAAS, 1990, p. 187).
Therefore, both the standards and feminist critical pedagogy value class-
room conversation. But the goals are different. The standards present con-
versation as a “tool” for learning. The same is certainly true of feminist
critical educators. However, we take conversation as a good and an end in
Listening as Pedagogy and Research 149

itself. The recommendation of Jane Kenway and Helen Modra (1992) that
serves as the opening epigraph for Chapter 5 bears repeating: “Perhaps we
would do better to understand dialogue as the goal of pedagogy and not a
condition for it” (p. 163).
Feminist scholarship gives us the theoretical, political, and moral back-
ing for listening to students. Feminist research in education demonstrates
the value—the necessity—of these efforts (Barbieri, 1995; Fine, 1988, 1992;
Fine & Macpherson, 1993; Gilligan et al., 1990; WISE at MSU, 1995).
However, there is little, if any, research in the feminist literature concerning
critiques of science as a social enterprise that addresses or includes adoles-
cents’ ideas in this area. I think that we should start listening more atten-
tively to hear what our “kids” have to contribute to scientific critique.

WELCOMING UNCERTAINTY

Listening more attentively has required from me that I go beyond learning

to live with uncertainty to valuing this state. When a teacher encourages
students to say what they believe—in interview-conversations, in their
writing, or during whole-classroom discussions—discomfort is bound to arise.
The contexts that I have studied in this book allowed students to express
ideas that were not always compatible with my own. These also required
(at least from a feminist perspective) that I share my beliefs with my stu-
dents. Teaching myself to expect the conflicts in belief that arose during these
units was prerequisite to my being able to teach my students to do so.
Discomfort and uncertainty can be productive. How can we help
teachers—and students—accept, value, and employ discomfort and un-
certainty, typically the bane of a “well-functioning” classroom? This is
where science teaching can explore possibilities for students’ social growth.
This is where I think the full, genuine power of feminist pedagogy lies.
Merely providing students with a context for talking is not a panacea for
scientific illiteracy or a magic wand for teaching the politics of science. But
at the very least, feminist pedagogy provides the teacher with a powerful
context for making discomfort and uncertainty functional for both teach-
ing and research.
Talking is central to human communication; communication is what
keeps us together as social beings; as social beings, after Vygotsky, we know
that talking is how we learn. In schools, ironically, students are allowed to
speak only at tightly prescribed and predictable times. Their speech is con-
trolled not only in time, but in content. Teachers demean classtime talk
that dares to deviate from the predetermined topic as “bird walks” or “tan-
gential,” with comments like “That’s a very interesting question, but what
150 Connecting Girls and Science

does it have to do with the issue at hand?” Therefore, in terms of vitality,

learning and living in schools are in big trouble—because talking by stu-
dents is rare, sporadic, and often shut down prematurely (Gallas, 1995;
Lemke, 1990). Lost in the rush of institutionalized learning, both teachers
and students are cheated of powerful learning and living together. I want
us to pull our adult selves out of a sarcastic and hurtful conception of ado-
lescents as in need of control and socialization; to see that they are already
socialized; that they know how to speak, when given the chance; that they
want to learn, when given the chance; that they are alive, not “lumps on
a log” or “walking hormones.”

NOTES ON MY EXPERIENCE OF TEACHER RESEARCH

Because I came from a biological science background, my entrance into

educational research was one fraught with denial. I indignantly refused
to believe that people could be understood “scientifically”—at least, in ways
that I, the superior scientist, thought of as scientific. This conviction was
soon set aside by a larger one that came on me like a tidal wave: Science
itself could not be trusted as methodologically straightforward and there-
fore a path to truth. Still, I feared that the self-focus of teacher research
would be unsettling to my sense of self-esteem and efficacy as a high school
science teacher. I was right here, of course, and I continued to flail about,
searching for a “method” and a “focus” that would fit me and still keep
me comfortably detached, so that I wouldn’t get stuck in a cycle of self-
punishing introspection.
My way out of this came gradually, as my method of analysis con-
sisted of transcribing carefully. I thought as I did this; my thinking came
particularly from my feminist consciousness, but was also informed by
teaching, teacher educator, and standards-based sensibilities and knowl-
edge. As I transcribed, I thought; as I thought, I wrote. I was surprised. I
pondered. I puzzled. I checked my ideas against the data, reaching dead-
ends, experiencing insightful moments, and struggling with complications
and missed opportunities. What else could research possibly be?
The demands of teacher research are sometimes contradictory (Wil-
son, 1995; Wong, 1995) and hard on one’s ego (Heaton, 2000). Sometimes,
as a researcher, I berate myself (gently, because I know what it is like to
be a teacher) for such lapses as not labeling tapes, not encouraging enough
students to participate in interview-conversations, not making copies of
the proper written assignments for the segment under study. This occa-
sional rigor sloppiness adds a certain authenticity to this type of teacher
research. Teaching itself is not neat and tidy; it cannot be squeezed into
Listening as Pedagogy and Research 151

equations or boxed into charts. And teaching itself is endlessly fascinat-

ing; there is no need to create artificial experimental situations in order to
conduct artificial research, when the real stuff is in the heads and hearts,
and words and actions, of the teachers and students themselves.
One hopes that records of various sorts (in my case, audiotapes, video-
tapes, and copies of student work) would make an accurate enough ac-
count of happenings and words that transpired during the periods of study.
But I had certain immovable constraints on my time and technology;
moreover, respect for students and their learning took precedence over
my own scholarly success. The parallel with teaching is striking—one never
knows enough about students’ learning. One never has enough time.
Most of all, for me, teacher research has come to mean, to paraphrase
Vivian Paley (1986), “listening to what the students say,” marveling at their
fascinating contributions to the world. I cannot say enough about this
pedagogical benefit of teacher research. Next time, I promised myself, I
will listen more closely in the moment. I will not let constraints of cur-
riculum and restraints of school on the intellect fetter my students’ minds.
Without the form my inquiry has taken—one of intent listening—I am
unsure that I would have arrived at this commitment to a “listening peda-
gogy.” This is not to say that I have come anywhere near evading the con-
straints of schooling, even as a professor at a graduate school of educa-
tion. A commitment is not necessarily ever fully enacted. And yet listening
to students of all ages is a continuing research and teaching commitment
on which I center my professional work. The exploration of our students’
images of science, as well as our own, are central to any effort that claims
to make science education welcoming to all students.
My efforts to teach science in ways that allow students to recognize
its socially embedded status have mainly been unsatisfyingly teacher-
centered and intermittent. Most successful and exciting have been those
episodes in which I have tried to stay out of the way, supporting students
in expressing their own beliefs, feelings, and understandings of science as
a social enterprise. This is still true of my pedagogy in science teacher edu-
cation. My temporary conclusion, in terms of teaching students about sci-
ence as a social enterprise, with all of the attendant political, social, and
epistemological implications, is that listening to students is a necessary first
step, and an excursion that must continue throughout the semester, and
throughout our teaching lives. This is not in order to change students’ be-
liefs about science, but to value their images and give them the opportu-
nity to expand their visions.
Teacher research itself is an enterprise suffused with uncertainty.
Teaching is difficult work, and one can rarely make amends for the peda-
gogical mistakes that reflecting on one’s practice are bound to reveal. But
152 Connecting Girls and Science

one can learn so much from so little. In this study, I have focused on a few
interview-conversations, two writing assignments, and two days of class-
room discussion. So if I were to give advice to teachers embarking on study-
ing their own practice or, more pertinently, their own students, it would
be to start small. Work with what you have. Do not let the demands of
scientific and/or university researchers get in the way of your listening to
and learning from your students in your classroom via your plans and your
decisions. At the same time, try to let go every once in a while. Set aside
your plans and just listen to the students.
 Notes

Chapter 1

1. I would like to thank Marcia Fetters for her example, which greatly shaped
my development of these questions.

Chapter 2

1. Carol Gilligan and others have, more recently, made boys the focus of
their studies, utilizing the argument that all human beings are gendered, and that
we need to learn more about boys as well as girls in order to make changes in
oppressive gender systems. As a friend of mine noted, not without bitterness, “We
spend a decade studying girls. And then decide, ‘Okay, that’s enough, let’s get
back to the boys!’” (Paula Lane, personal communication, March 2000).
2. Even this statement is problematic. As Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000) has
demonstrated, biological sex is more of a spectrum than a dualism.
3. We had no computers in this classroom; also, even though it was such a
short time ago, Internet capabilities and students’ familiarity thereof were well-
nigh nonexistent.
4. Tests that indicate the sex of the embryo or fetus are important because
some inherited conditions are sex-linked (e.g., muscular dystrophy, color blind-
ness), meaning that males have a higher chance of carrying them than do females.
Therefore, doctors and prospective parents gain information concerning the
chances that the embryo or fetus will possess a sex-linked genetic condition.

Chapter 3

1. PLAN is a standardized test available to high school sophomores. It is a

pre-ACT exam, on which Sam, according to his self-report, did better than 99%
of the other U.S. students who took this test.
2. I was unaware at the time that “The truth is out there” comes from the
popular television show “The X-Files,” which is about paranormal phenomena.
Of the two main characters, the female agent (Agent Sculley) is insistent on solv-
ing mysteries through science, while the male (Agent Mulder) focuses on expla-
nations beyond the rational.

153
154 Notes

Chapter 5

1. As Michael W. Apple (1992) states in his critique of the national stan-

dards for mathematics education, standards documents “must have a penumbra
of vagueness so that powerful groups or individuals who would otherwise dis-
agree can fit under the umbrella” (p. 413).
2. See Christopher M. Clark (1997) for a thorough discussion of “authentic
conversation.” My description of genuine conversation has much in common with
his of authentic conversation. I have no doubt that my conversations with him
over the last 8 years, and particularly during the time this chapter was written,
have greatly informed my own description (although I did not read his until after
I wrote this chapter!).
3. Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Chapter 6

1. See Michelle Fine (1988) for a searing account of how female sexuality
has been banished from schooling.
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 Index

NAMES

Alcoff, L., 28, 92 Fausto-Sterling, A., 18, Lampert, M., 30

American Association for 22, 26, 43, 71, 96 Lather, P., 31
the Advancement of Fine, M., 3, 17, 149 Lemke, J. L., 49, 150
Science (AAAS), 6, 8–9, Finkbeiner, A. K., 18 Lennon, K., 32
11, 23, 40–41, 42, 69, Finkel, E., 24, 29 Lerner, G., 43, 92
72, 73, 75, 85, 90, 91, Firestone, S., 22 Lewontin, R. C., 72
102, 112, 115, 148 Fonow, M. M., 3 Longino, Helen, 27, 69,
American Association of Freire, Paulo, 17, 116–17, 70, 84
University Women 118, 119 Lorber, J., 22, 23, 44
(AAUW), 22, 25, 46, 93 Frye, M., 117 Lyle, S., 1
Atwater, M., 4
Gallas, Karen, 5, 140, Macpherson, P., 17, 149
Ball, D. L., 6, 30, 33 150 Maher, F. A., 12, 17, 18,
Barbieri, M., 25, 67, 149 Gilligan, Carol, 24, 25, 19, 20–22, 24, 118
Beck, E. T., 121 43, 45, 50, 66, 67, 149 Mason, C. L., 42
Belenky, M. F., 24, 43, Glenn Commission, 40 Meier, Deborah, 5, 145
50, 66, 118 Gore, Jennifer, 12, 16, Merchant, C., 43, 92
Benchmarks for Science 17, 116 Modra, Helen, 115, 149
Literacy (AAAS), 8, 75 Gornick, V., 93
Biological Sciences Gould, S. J., 26, 32, 72 National Research
Curriculum Study, 48 Griffin, S., 4, 70, 71 Council (NRC), 8, 9,
Birke, L., 22, 113 Griffiths, M., 32 11, 23, 72, 73, 74
Bleier, R., 18, 22, 26, 70, Grosz, E., 27 National Science Education
71 Grumet, M. R., 22 Standards (NRC), 8–9
Brickhouse, N., 42, 46, 47 Neureither, Barbara, 121
Bronowski, J., 72 Haraway, Donna, 70
Bruner, Jerome, 39 Harding, Sandra, 18, 22, Oesterreich, H., 115
27, 28, 32, 70, 84 Olesen, V., 32
Calabrese Barton, Angela, Hartsock, N., 16, 25, 117 Oyler, C., 17
4, 12, 16, 20, 29 Hasbach, C., 118, 121
Cazden, C., 49 Heaton, R. M., 150 Paley, Vivian, 75, 151
Cherryholmes, C.H., 29 hooks, b., 12, 61, 63, Palmer, C. T., 26
Cochran-Smith, M., 1 121 Piaget, Jean, 12
Code, L., 27 Hubbard, R., 11, 18, 22, Plumwood, V., 43, 71
Cohee, G., 16 71, 113 Pollitt, K., 22, 44
Cook, J. A., 3 Popper, Karl, 29, 79
Kahle, J. B., 42 Purdy, L. M., 61, 131
Daly, M., 22, 43 Keller, Evelyn Fox, 4, 11,
Dewey, J., 17, 39–40 18, 22, 26, 27, 30, 32, Reinharz, S., 31
DiQuinzio, P., 43 70, 71, 72, 113 Rodriguez, A., 4
Doell, Ruth, 19 Kenway, Jane, 115, 149 Ropers-Huilman, B., 12
Driver, R., 14 King, Y., 43, 71 Rorty, Richard, 27
Knight, M., 115 Rose, H., 113
Eisenhart, M. A., 24, 29 Kuhn, Thomas, 8, 29, 81 Rosebery, A. S., 21
Elam, D., 28 Kurth, L. A., 70 Rosenthal, B., 12, 121

163
164 Index

Rosser, S. V., 11, 18, 23, Shor, I., 17 van Manen, M., 17
25, 46, 47, 66, 70, 93 Shrewsbury, C. M., 17 Vygotsky, Lev, 12–13, 149
Rothman, Barbara, 63, Shulman, B. J., 31
131 Smith, D. E., 32 Weiler, K., 19, 22, 30,
Roy, P. A., 17 Smith, E. L., 70 116–17
Roychoudberry, A., 66 Stage, E. K., 42 Whatley, M. H., 102
Rubin, G., 43 Strum, S., 26 Whitford, M., 32
Wilson, S. M., 30, 150
Sadker, David, 22, 25, 46 Tavris, C., 18, 26, 71 Wolf, S. M., 131
Sadker, Myra, 22, 25, 46 Tetreault, M. K. Wollstonecraft, M., 22
Sarason, S. B., 21 Thompson, 12, 17, 18, Women in Science
Schen, M., 17 19, 20–22, 24, 118 Education Group at
Schiebinger, L., 4, 22, 26, Thorne, B., 22, 25 MSU (WISE at MSU),
32, 43, 49, 70, 92 Thornhill, R., 26 11, 117, 149
Schwab, J. J., 39 Tong, R., 23, 61, 62 Wong, E. D., 30, 150

SUBJECTS

Abortion, 62–63, 64, 66, 126, 127, Emergency situations, 92–96, 101
128, 144–45 Emotions, 112, 117, 118, 122–23, 137,
Alex (student), 63–64, 76–85, 87, 89, 139, 140, 141, 144. See also Empathy;
105, 106–9, 110, 124, 132 Objectivity
Ann (student), 87–90, 92, 100, 106 Empathy, 9, 25, 56, 69, 71–72, 76, 85–
101, 102, 104, 112, 113, 145
Becky (student), 55–57, 60–61, 104, Epistemology. See Knowledge
105, 125, 129, 130, 131, 134, 136, Essentialism, 44–46, 66
137, 138 Ethics, 85, 104, 107, 111. See also
Belinda (student), 54, 55, 89, 92–97, 98– Bioethics
99, 100–101 Evidence, 79, 80–82, 83, 84
Bioethics, 48, 49, 144, 146. See Also
Bioethics, studying Feminine traits, 25, 27, 71, 92, 113
Bioethics, studying, 9, 39; and Feminism: and Howes’s teacher-research
connections, 128, 131, 138; and commitments, 2–4, 5; methodology and
context, 121–23; and feminist epistemology of, 31–33; as perspective,
pedagogy, 121–23, 128, 131, 136, 137; 31; theory of, 22–30. See also type of
and student talk, 123–41; and teacher feminism or specific person or topic
as “killer,” 133–39; and teacher Feminist critical pedagogy. See Feminist
research, 39; and typical classroom pedagogy
conversation, 124–25 Feminist pedagogy: characteristics of, 144,
Boys: interview-conversation with, 76– 148; and connections, 59, 118, 131; and
85; and studying prenatal testing, 49, convergence of science education reform
50, 52, 63–64. See also Alex; Jonathan; and feminism, 14, 15–22, 23, 26, 29–30,
Sam 31; and Howes’s aim, 3, 5, 118–19; and
knowledge, 14, 116, 118, 119, 120; and
Carolyn (student), 52–53, 54, 55, 62, 63, learning, 116, 118; and listening to
88–89, 97–101 students, 17, 67, 118, 120, 144, 148–
Childbirth, 43–44, 50, 51–57, 68 49; and modeling, 120–21; overview
Complementarianism, 92–97, 113 about, 15–22; and power, 116, 120, 128;
Consciousness raising, feminist, 3, 16, and “science for all,” 5, 119–20; and
116, 117, 118 standards, 119, 148–49; strands of, 16; as
Critical pedagogies, 16, 17, 31, 116– student centered, 16, 116, 118, 119, 121;
17 and student talk, 116–19, 120–40, 141;
and studying bioethics, 121–23, 128,
Difference feminism, 9, 23, 24–26, 27, 131, 136, 137
42, 43–46, 47, 51, 66–67 Fetus, 50, 51–57, 60–64, 126, 127, 144–45
Index 165

Gender: and convergence of science Kari (student), 58, 104, 125, 127, 129–30,
education reform and feminism, 19, 22, 131–32, 137
23–26, 29, 31; and empathy, 85–101; as Karl (student), 63–64
neutral, 23–24; and psychosocial Kevin (student), 104, 105
dichotomies, 71, 92; and sex, 25–26; as Kidmark A (objectivity), 75–85, 86
socially constructed, 24–26. See also Kidmark B (empathy), 76, 85, 87–101
Sexism Kidmark C (science and social
Genetics: and convergence of science responsibility), 76, 103–11
education reform and feminism, 13, 21– Knowledge: and convergence of science
22; and genetic engineering, 105, 107, education reform and feminism, 11, 13,
108, 121, 122, 126, 127, 138–39; and 14–15, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26, 28, 29, 30,
science as social enterprise, 74; and 31–33, 40; creation and development
student talk, 126–27; and studying of, 4, 7, 8, 13, 17, 21, 30, 32, 74, 81, 84,
bioethics, 126–27; and studying 85, 104; and critical pedagogy, 117;
prenatal testing, 46–50, 68; and teacher empathy as aspect of, 113; and ethics,
research, 36–38 111; and feminist pedagogy, 14, 116,
Genuine conversation: and classroom 118, 119, 120; hierarchy of, 14; and
environment, 140–42; controlling flow listening to students, 30, 144, 146, 148;
of, 133–34; cutting off, 134; definition/ and objectivity, 78, 79, 84, 85; purposes
characteristics of, 115–16; encounter- of, 105, 111, 112; and “science for all,”
ing, 128–34; and feminist pedagogy, 4; and science as social enterprise, 70,
116–19, 120–21, 131, 140; group 72, 74, 75, 78, 79, 81, 84, 85, 94, 112,
discussion as, 122; intimations of, 113–14, 146; and science and social
126–28; and listening to students, 147– responsibility, 104, 105, 111; as social
48; and riding the rapids, 134–40; construct, 40; and student talk, 129,
uneasiness of, 140–42; unpredictability 130, 141; and studying bioethics, 129,
of, 128–34, 147–48 130; and teacher research, 3, 31–33,
Group discussions, 5, 9, 10, 34, 36, 38, 150; and teacher-student relationship,
115, 122, 145, 147, 149, 152 16; as tentative, 17, 84
Group work, 34, 38, 143, 145
Language, 12–13, 64–66, 144
Hammer Exercise, 121, 123, 128, 134–37 Learning: constructivist theories of, 1, 5,
8, 12–13, 31, 32, 38, 46, 75, 117, 143;
Interview-conversations: and convergence and convergence of science education
of science education reform and femin- reform and feminism, 12–13, 31, 32,
ism, 10, 20, 34–35; and empathy, 69, 38; and feminist pedagogy, 116, 118;
76, 85, 87–101; and Howes’s teacher- and language, 12–13; Piaget’s concept
research commitments, 5; and listening of, 12; and science as social enterprise,
to students, 146–47, 149; and objectivity, 111–14; and student talk, 140, 141,
69, 76–85; and science and social 149; from students, 111–14; and
responsibility, 76, 105, 106; and teacher teacher research, 38
research, 34–35, 152. See also specific Liberal feminism, 23–24, 27, 89–90
student Liberatory critical pedagogy, 116–17
Lily (student), 55–57, 65, 128
Jennifer (student), 89, 101 Linda (student), 58–59, 65
Jessy (student), 58–59 Listening to students: and connections,
Jonathan (student): and 67, 144–46; and convergence of science
complementarianism, 95, 96; and education reform and feminism, 13, 30,
empathy, 87, 89, 91, 95, 96, 97, 100, 31, 33–39; and empathy, 145; and
101; and objectivity, 76–85, 90–92; feminism/feminist pedagogy, 5, 17,
and science as social enterprise, 76–85, 67, 118, 120, 144, 148–49; models for,
87, 89, 91, 95, 96, 97, 100, 101, 112– 66–68; and objectivity, 30, 145, 146;
13; and science and social responsi- overview about, 9–10; as pedagogy,
bility, 105, 107; and studying bioethics, 30, 143–52; and questions, 146; and
124–25, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133; “science for all,” 5, 145; and science as
and studying prenatal testing, 63– social enterprise, 75, 143–44, 146–47;
64 and standards, 145; and student talk,
166 Index

Listening to students (continued) pedagogy, 117; and feminist pedagogy,

122, 147–48; and studying bioethics, 116, 119; and listening to students, 30,
144, 146; and studying prenatal testing, 144, 149; and science and social
47, 49, 50, 66–68, 144, 145–46; and responsibility, 105, 109; and student
teacher research, 2, 5, 6, 9–10, 30, 31, talk, 128, 140; and studying bioethics,
33–39, 143–52; and uncertainty/ 128; and teacher research, 31
unpredictability, 147–48, 149–50. See Poststructural feminism, 23, 28–29
also Interview-conversations Power, 116, 120, 128, 134
Lyon Hypothesis, 79, 80 Pregnancy, 43–44, 50, 51–57, 68, 144
Prenatal testing, studying: aims/objectives
Masculine traits, 25, 27, 71, 92, 113 for studying, 49–50, 57; and alienation,
Methodology: of feminism, 31–33. 51–57; and boys, 49, 50, 52, 63–64; and
See Also Scientific method connections, 42, 46, 47–48, 50–66, 68,
Misti (student): and science as social 145–46; and difference feminism, 9,
enterprise, 97; and studying bioethics, 42, 43–44, 47, 51; and genetics, 46–
124, 127, 133, 136, 137, 138; and 50, 68; and group discussions, 36; and
studying prenatal testing, 51, 54, 55, language, 64–66; and listening to
58, 59, 60, 61, 65 students, 47, 50, 66–68, 144, 145–46;
Modeling, 53, 66–68, 115–16, 120–21, overview about, 9, 38, 42; and pain and
132, 137, 139 safety, 60–64; and privilege and
Moral issues, 25, 84, 85, 104, 105, 108–9, essentialism, 44–46; and reproductive
113, 114, 145, 149 control, 63–64; and stories, 53, 57–60,
68; and student presentations, 55–57,
Nicole (student), 54, 55 58-59, 62, 63, 64–65; and teacher
Nina (student), 55–57, 61, 104, 105, 129, research, 38. See also Abortion;
130, 131 Childbirth; Fetus
Presentations, student, 5, 34, 38, 49, 55–
Objectivity: boys’ views about, 76–85; 57, 58–59, 62, 63, 64–65, 143
and connections, 15, 69, 72; and Privilege, 44–46
convergence of science education
reform and feminism, 11, 27–28, 30; Religion, 77, 82, 83–84, 105, 107–9, 110,
“dynamic,” 27, 72, 113; and evidence, 112
79, 80–82, 83, 84; and knowledge, 78, Reproductive control, 63–64, 128, 144
79, 84, 85; and listening to students, Research: feminist, 30, 31; scientific, 30,
30, 145, 146; meaning of, 70; and 104, 105, 106–9, 110, 114, 126–27,
moral issues, 84, 85; myth of, 113; 133–39. See also Teacher research
overview about, 9; pure, 15; question-
ing human capacity for, 79–84; and Sam (student), 63–64, 76–85, 87, 89, 105,
religion, 77, 82, 83–84; and science as 110, 133–34
social enterprise, 9, 69, 70–71, 72, 76– Science: authority of, 119, 132; connecting
85, 91, 112, 113, 146; and science and girls and, 43–44; demystifying of, 20,
social responsibility, 84, 102, 104; and 40, 74; exclusionary practices of, 11, 28,
scientific method, 78, 81, 82; and 41, 46–47, 70, 72, 73, 87, 90, 101; goals
standards, 78, 84, 85; “strong,” 84–85; of practicing, 105; images of, 13, 70,
and theory, 81–82; traditional 73; as more wholly human, 97–100;
conception of, 28, 70–71, 72, 112, 113 stereotypes of practice of, 112; tradi-
tional, 94, 101, 112–13. See also specific
Pedagogy: “banking,” 117; listening to topic
students as, 9–10, 30, 143–52; and “Science for all,” 2, 4–5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 22,
standards, 9; and teacher research, 6. 23, 29–30, 40–41, 46, 119–20, 145
See also Critical pedagogies; Feminist Science for All Americans (AAAS), 8, 40–41,
pedagogy 73, 85
People of color, 11, 70, 72, 73, 90 Science as social enterprise: and bioethics,
Politics: and convergence of science 146; and complementarianism, 92–97,
education reform and feminism, 21, 113; and connections, 69, 72, 73, 95–
23, 29, 30, 31, 40; and critical 96, 98, 114; and convergence of science
Index 167

education reform and feminism, 19, 22, teacher-mediated, 125, 132–33; and
30, 41; definition of, 2; and feminism, teachers’ role, 120–40; traditional, 143;
69–72, 73, 75, 84–85, 86, 89–90, 94, 96, typical classroom, 124–25; and
100, 114; and knowledge, 84, 85, 94, uncertainty, 115–16, 124, 137, 138,
113–14, 146; and listening to students, 149–50; unpredictability of, 128–34,
111–14, 143–44, 146–47; and morality, 141, 147–48. See also Genuine
85, 113, 114; overview about, 9; and conversation; Group discussion
religion, 77, 82, 83–84, 109, 112; and Students: as consumers or producers, 14;
scientific method, 112, 113; and sexism, excitement of, 140; as experts, 118;
69–70, 71, 75, 76, 87–92, 97, 113; and frustrations of, 141; as knowledge-
standards, 9, 72, 73, 74, 75, 78, 81, 84, makers, 13; learning from, 111–14; as
85, 86, 87, 89–90, 95, 100, 112, 113; “making theory,” 131; respect for, 147,
and teacher research, 2, 7, 151; 151; and teacher research, 1, 33, 36–39;
teaching of, 74–75, 109; and values, 78, and what they bring to study of natural
84, 100, 112, 113, 114. See also phenomena, 73–74. See also Listening to
Empathy; Objectivity students; Student talk; specific student or
Science and social responsibility, 9, 76, topic
84, 102, 103–11
Scientific method, 27, 30, 39, 78, 81, 82, Tammy (student): and objectivity and
96, 101, 112, 113, 150 empathy, 81, 88–89, 100–101; and
Scientists: characteristics of good, 77–78; studying bioethics, 124, 126–27, 130,
in movies or cartoons, 97–98, 101; and 131, 136, 137, 138; and studying
science as social enterprise, 77–78, 85, prenatal testing, 51, 52, 54–55, 58, 59,
95, 97–98, 101; stereotypes of, 35, 40, 60, 61, 65
69, 104, 113; values of, 113–14; as Teacher research: aims/goals of, 13, 31,
working together, 95 103; ambiguities in, 6, 150, 151–52;
Sex, 25–26, 28 authenticity of, 150; benefits of, 1;
Sexism, 3–4, 22, 23, 26, 69–70, 71, 75, contexts for, 5; and the course, 36–39;
76, 87–101, 102, 113 doing, 6–7; and feminism, 2, 6–7, 30–
“Smartness,” 89, 100–101 39; and Howes’s commitments, 2–5;
Social class, 20, 28, 70, 73, 101, 116–17 implications of, 10; methodology for,
Standards/standards documents: and 32, 150–52; notes on, 50–52; question
empathy, 87, 89–90, 95, 100, 145; and for, 1–2; and role of teacher, 33–34; and
feminism/feminist pedagogy, 8, 9, 14– science education reform, 2, 6, 30–39;
15, 89–90, 95, 119, 148–49; and and values, 31–32. See also specific topic
listening to students, 67, 145, 148–49; Theory, 3, 22–30, 79, 80, 81–82, 118, 131,
and objectivity, 78, 81, 84, 85, 86; 148
overview about, 7, 8–9; and science as
social enterprise, 9, 72, 73, 74, 75, 78, Uncertainty, 115–16, 124, 128–33, 137,
81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89–90, 95, 100, 112, 138, 139, 149–50, 151–52
113; and science and social responsibility,
102, 110, 111; silences in, 8, 11, 13–14, Values: and complementarianism, 92; and
90; and studying prenatal testing, 46, 60; convergence of science education
and teacher research, 7, 10, 150 reform and feminism, 22, 29, 31–32,
Stories, 53, 57–60, 68 40; and objectivity, 84; and science as
Student talk: and connections, 128, 131, social enterprise, 78, 84, 86, 100, 112,
138, 140; and critical pedagogy, 116– 113, 114; and science and social
17; and emotions, 122–23, 141; and responsibility, 103–9; and standards, 8;
feminist pedagogy, 116–19, 120–40, and student talk, 124–25, 129; and
141; and knowledge, 141; and learning, studying bioethics, 124–25, 129; and
141, 149; and listening to students, 122, teacher research, 31–32
147–48; and models, 137; reasons for
desiring, 140; and studying bioethics, Writing and drawing, 5, 10, 34, 35, 146,
123–25; and teacher research, 122; as 149, 152
About the Author

Elaine V. Howes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Math-

ematics, Science, and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia Univer-
sity. Her previous work in laboratory research science and high-school
teaching led to a fascination with the visions of students, teachers, scien-
tists, and feminists regarding scientific practices and knowledge in con-
temporary society. In her current research and teaching, she continues to
attend to her own students’ ideas about science and to strive to make con-
nections between these and critiques of science as well as canonical sci-
entific concepts. This effort has expanded beyond her own classrooms to
include practicing teachers and the children with whom they work, par-
ticularly in urban settings in which children are developing literacy in two
languages as well as learning science. She received her Ph.D. in Curricu-
lum, Teaching, and Educational Policy from Michigan State University in
East Lansing, Michigan.

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