Performativity and Postmodern Science Education
Alexandro Escudero
Diana FarĂas Camero
Performativity and postmodern science education
The most striking signs of the crisis in science education Generalized negative opinion
Decline in students choosing science
Decline in science PhD students
This situation is uncomfortable for existing educational systems because one of the most cherished values of modern education has been to ensure universal education based on the idea of Progress to empower the human condition through reason, science and technology
Performativity and postmodern science education
II like like school school science science better better than than most most other other subjects subjects
II would would like like to to be be aa scientist scientist
The more advanced a country is, the less its young people are interested in studying science*. * ROSE (the Relevance of Science Education) where young learners at the age of 15 from more than 40 countries have expressed their views on several aspects related to S&T.
Performativity and postmodern science education
1990’s
In the UK and Ireland the number and proportion of young people, respectively, choosing physics or chemistry declined steadily during the 1990s. The problem was equally pronounced in France, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Italy. Among the EU-25 countries, only Greece and the Flemish part of Belgium reported that they did not face a diminishing trend in the number of students choosing to study science in schools*.
* European Commission. (2004). Europe needs More Scientists: Report by the High Level Group on Increasing Human Resources for Science and Technology. Brussels. European Commission.
Performativity and postmodern science education
Proportion of researchers*
8.08 per 1000
United States
5.70 per 1000
Europe 15
9.14 per 1000
Japan
Finland: 13.77 Germany: 6.55 France: 6.55 UK: 5.49
If If students’ students’ attitudes attitudes towards towards school school science science remain remain as as negative negative as as they they currently currently are, are, the the issue issue of of the the supply supply of of scientists, scientists, and and whether whether Europe Europe is is producing producing enough enough of of them, them, will will be be exacerbated exacerbated and and not not diminished diminished * European Commission. (2004). Europe needs More Scientists: Report by the High Level Group on Increasing Human Resources for Science and Technology. Brussels. European Commission.
Performativity and postmodern science education
Some questions will guide this session Has the modern science education failed?
Does modern science education tie new contextual factors in its curriculum?
Is a postmodern scientific education possible?
We are going to review some contemporary categories that describe the present context and later we are going to relate them to contemporary science education
Performativity and postmodern science education
There are different proposals to label the social and cultural context
Anthony Giddens Late modernity
J端rgen Habermas Modernity
Zygmunt Bauman Liquid modernity
J. F. Lyotard Postmodernity
Fredric Jameson Late capitalism
Ulrich Beck Risk society
They all have different opinions about how to analyze the present; although, all of them agree in that industrialized countries have a different situation from second half of the 20th century
Performativity and postmodern science education
We want to suggest that postmodernity is a narrative on the narrative of modernity: postmodernity is a meta-narrative with new contextual factors The fall of the Grand Modern Narratives that promised an ideal world has also debilitated the idea that the school is the way to reach the success
The disintegration of the Modern Person and a new political integration of the identity has entered the school
Cynical relation between power-knowledge without the modern ideal of the integral education in values and aesthetic
New global and multicultural societies demonstrate that the western education systems have many challenges to solve
Questioning of the academic knowledge compared to new ways to learn and establish themselves as an individual
Students “understand� new technologies of communications better than teachers
Performativity and postmodern science education
There are deep critics to the modern education and its “perverse” effects
Michel Foucault Disciplinary institution
Gianni Vattimo Weak thought
Richard Rorty Postphilosophy
Jacques Derrida Deconstruction
Gilles Lipovetsky The new individualism
Jean Baudrillard Hyperreality - simulacra
J. F. Lyotard Collapse of the Grand Narrative
Alain Finkielkraut Modern school, postmodern students
Zygmunt Bauman Ambiguity
1. The education has to be modern, although the students are not modern persons? 2. Or, indeed, because the students are not modern persons… it has to be modern?
Performativity and postmodern science education
The postmodern thought sets the Person in the center of the question New communication technologies Global and multicultural societies
The fall of the Grand Modern Narratives
Questioned Knowledge
The disintegration of the Modern Person
it allows a democratic access to the information
it makes relative the modern institutions and its education system it allows a personal narrative, a sense of freedom it makes relative the academic knowledge and and its relevance for a being it allows the person to overcome the gender, nationality and language categories, to build new politically active persons
Performativity and postmodern science education
Has the modern science education failed? Not yet. According to postmodern thought, current education is a simulation where students and teachers prefer to stay on their institutional roles. It would seem that nowadays it is only possible to educate through simulation. But as time goes by, students believe less in institutions and prefer to live a personal narrative.
Performativity and postmodern science education
Does modern science education tie new contextual factors in its curriculum? No. Science education ignores the items that warmly attract the young people: environmental issues, gender identity, multiculturalism, responsible consumption and pacifism. In the postmodern context the utopias have finished. Science education also ignores the importance of identity in these new students. Science education has not recognize that students are not modern persons anymore. And we need to move to postmodernity.
Performativity and postmodern science education
Is a postmodern scientific education possible? No, theoretically speaking. The postmodern thought has made a strong critic to the normative aspect of the modern education, but there are not relevant postmodern pedagogical proposals because it is a contradiction in the terms. In a postmodern condition where selfreflection is the norm, the science education has not reflected on itself, because it is still convinced of modern science, progress and stability ideas.
Performativity and postmodern science education
A conflicting scenario
Students with postmodern identities
According to postmodern thought, it is not possible to reach a postmodern science education.
Modern science education
Performativity and postmodern science education
What are we working in? In searching some answers about identity and science education out of the educational arena 1. The poststructuralism theory analyzed the modern and postmodern identity. 2. For this thought, IT IS ONLY THROUGH the language (discourse) that identity is built. 3. Poststructuralist thinkers are associated to the postmodern though. 4. Judith Butler demonstrated through Performativity theory that language is not a restrictor element and identity may elaborate it (Queer theory).
Could performativity theory participate in the conflicting scenario Students with postmodern identities / Modern science education?
Performativity and Postmodern Science Education
Alexandro Escudero
aescudna7@alumnes.ub.edu
Diana FarĂas Camero
dmfariasc@unal.edu.co