In this article, we conceive of scientific literacy as a property of collective activity rather than individual minds. We think of knowing and learning science as situated in and distributed across social and material aspects of a setting. To support the proposed conception, we provide several detailed cases from our three-year multi-site ethnographic study of science in one community, featuring different types of citizens who walk a creek, interact during an environment-oriented open-house event, discuss water problems, collect data, and have different conceptions of human-environment relations. The case studies show that collectively, much more advanced forms of scientific literacy are produced than any individual (including scientists) could produce. Creating opportunities for scientific literacy to emerge from collective activity, irrespective of whether one or more participants know some basic scientific facts, presents challenges to science educators very different from teaching basic facts and skills to individuals.
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References
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Gerard Fourez , “Scientific and technological literacy as a social practice,”Social Studies of Science27 (1997): 903-936.
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It is now clear to us that such an approach addresses the interests of only a small number of students. See, for example, Wolff-Michael Roth and Stuart H. Lee, “Breaking the spell: science education for a free society,” in Science Education for/as Socio-Political Action, ed. Wolff-Michael Roth and Jacques Désautels (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 65-91.
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See, for example, Michelle K. McGinn and Wolff-Michael Roth, “Towards a new science education: implications of recent research in science and technology studies,”Educational Researcher28, no. 3 (1999): 14-24.
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George E. DeBoer , “Scientific literacy: another look at its historical and contemporary meanings and its relationship to science education reform,”Journal of Research in Science Teaching37 (2000): 582-601.
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See Fourez, “Scientific and technological literacy.”
6.
Angela Barton Calabrese is one of those science educators to whom traditional definitions of science and scientific literacy are not sacred cows. See, for example, Angela Barton Calabrese and Kimberley Yang, “The culture of power and science education: learning from Miguel,”Journal of Research in Science Education37 (2000): 871-889.
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See Matt H. Schneps and Paul M. Sadler, A Private Universe [Video] (Washington, D.C.: Annenberg/CPB, 1987/1992). (Available from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific through Internet distribution %5Bhttp://www.aspsky.org/%5D).
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See Wolff-Michael Roth and Michelle K. McGinn, “Deinstitutionalizing school science: implications of a strong view of situated cognition,”Research in Science Education27 (1997): 497-513.
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For example, Jon D. Miller and Linda Kimmel, “Science and technology: public attitudes and public understanding,” in Science and Engineering Indicators (Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation, 1998).
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See Robert M. Hazen and James Trefil, Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy (New York: Doubleday, 1991).
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and Alberto J. Rodriguez, “Busting open the meritocracy myth: rethinking equity and student achievement in science,”Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering4 (1998): 195-216.
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or Angela Calabrese Barton, Feminist Science Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1998).
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In his seminal article on the measurement of scientific literacy, Jon Miller does not even consider any other unit of analysis than the individual. Jon D. Miller“The measurement of civic scientific literacy,”Public Understanding of Science7 (1998): 203-223.
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Sylvia Scribner , “Thinking in action: some characteristics of practical thought,” in Practical Intelligence: Nature and Origins of Competence in the Everyday World, eds. Robert J. Sternberg and Richard K. Wagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 13-30.
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Sven Sjøberg and Egil Kallerud eds., Science, Technology and Citizenship: The Public Understanding of Science and Technology in Science Education and Research Policy (Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Studies in Research and Higher Education, 1997).
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Stuart H. Lee and Wolff-Michael Roth, “Community Science: What is Essential about this Strange Dialogue?” Paper presented at the conference Taking Nature Seriously: Citizens, Science, and Environment. Eugene, OR (February 2001).
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See Roth and Lee, “Breaking the spell.”
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We are familiar with the notion through the work of Alan Irwin and his writings on citizen participation in technological decision making. See Allan Irwin, Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise, and Sustainable Development (London: Routledge, 1995).
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Edgar Jenkins , “School science, citizenship and the public understanding of science,”International Journal of Science Education21 (1999): 703-710.
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The tenor of our argument is consonant with similar arguments made by, among others, Brian Martin, to radicalize science by involving the community. See, for example, Brian Martin, “The goal of self-managed science: implications for action,”Radical Science Journal10 (1980): 3-17.
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More recent discussions and elaborations of activity theory can be found in Yrjö Engeström, Reijo Miettinen, and Raija-Leena Punamäki, eds. Perspectives on Activity Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
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Jean Lave , “The practice of learning,” in Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context, eds. Seth Chaiklin and Jean Lave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 3-32.
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Ray P. McDermott , “The acquisition of a child by a learning disability,” in Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context, eds. Seth Chaiklin and Jean Lave (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 269-305.
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An analysis in the same spirit showed how “Dolly,” as it emerged from Italian newspaper feature articles, is in fact a (Latourian) hybrid. See Frederico Neresini, “And man descended from the sheep: the public debate on cloning in the Italian press,”Public Understanding of Science9 (2000): 359-382.
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Symptomatically, Miller, “The measurement of scientific literacy,” wants to “set aside [...] arguments” other than those deriving from science.
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We use pseudonyms throughout this article for place names and individuals other than ourselves. Only the general name for the First Nations people, the WSÁNEC', consisting of several communities, has been maintained.
27.
Stuart H. Lee and Wolff-Michael Roth, “How ditch and drain become a healthy creek: representations, translations and agency during the re/design of a watershed,'Social Studies of Science31 (2001): 315-356.
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Tom's knowledge about salmon was considered adequate for the group because both trout and salmon are fish of the salmonid family and share a number of habitat requirements.
29.
In our analyses, we follow the advice of those who advocate a first-time-through perspective. Thus, the outcome of conversations is not taken as a starting point to analyze its process. Rather, conversations, as all activities, are analyzed (non-teleologically) from the perspective of the participants who do not know what their processes and outcomes will be even a few minutes into the future. See, for example, Harold Garfinkel, Michael Lynch, and Eric Livingston, “The work of a discovering science construed with materials from the optically discovered pulsar,”Philosophy of the Social Sciences11 (1981): 131-158.
30.
We articulated elsewhere the different forms of “hybrid knowledge” that come about when local knowledge comes to frame and inform formal scientific knowledge. See Stuart Lee and Wolff-Michael Roth, “Of traversals and hybrid spaces: science in the community,”Mind, Culture, & Activity. In press.
31.
In activity theory, consumption is not only consumption of the outcomes in and by the community but also the production and reproduction of community itself. On this point see Yrjö Engeström, Learning by Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research (Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit, 1987), particularly Chapter 2.
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Henry Rothstein , Alan Irwin, Steven Yearley, and Elaine McCarthy, “Regulatory science—towards a sociological framework,”Futures29 no. 1 (1997): 17-31.
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See also Alan Irwin, “Constructing the scientific citizen: science and democracy in the biosciences,”Public Understanding of Science10 (2001): 1-18.
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Kevin Woodley , “Senanus residents still wait for water,”Peninsula News Review (December 16, 1998), 1, 5.
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See, for example, Wolff-Michael Roth, Robin McMillan, Brenda Storr, Donna Tait, Janet Riecken, Gail Bradshaw, Lilian Leivas Pozzer, and Trudy Pauluth Penner, “Accessing safe drinking water: a citizen perspective on the role of science in a contentious issue,” manuscript submitted. In other public hearings, such as when one company wanted to install a giant microwave tower, scientists used similar discourses that residents experienced as disempowering but which they countered through public actions such as road blockades. There are other reports that show that scientists often attempt to “bludgeon” the public. See, for example, Nick Brown and Mike Michael, “Switching between science and culture in transpecies transplantation,”Science, Technology, & Human Values26 (2001): 3-22.
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Kevin P. Paul , The Care-Takers (Sidney, BC: Institute of the Ocean Sciences, 1995), 2-3.
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Dave Elliott Sr ., Saltwater People, ed. Janet Poth (Central Saanich, BC: School District No. 63, 1983), 17.
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Judy Reimche , “Group is a bridge over troubled waters,”Peninsula News Review, (December 16, 1998), 9.
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Diamond Jenness , “The Saanich Indians of Vancouver Island. (Manuscript [No. VII-G-8M] in Canadian Ethnology Service Archives, National Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, 1938).
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British Columbia Ministry of Environment , Lands and Parks, Saanich Inlet Study Report on First Nations Consultation (Victoria, BC: Author, 1995).
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Earl Claxton , The Saanich Year (Brentwood Bay, BC: Saanich Indian School Board, 1993), 27.
43.
Elliott , Saltwater People, p. 18.
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relevant activity. See Wolff-Michael Roth, “Taking Science Education beyond Schooling,”Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education. In press.
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Randall Collins , Conflict Sociology: Toward an Explanatory Science (New York: Academic Press, 1974).
46.
In the 1970s, the Swedish government had organized “study circles” as a form of involving the public in the debate about the policy on nuclear issues that it was in the process of shaping. See Dorothy Nelkin, Technological Decisions and Democracy: European Experiments in Public Participation (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1977); Rowe and Frewer, “Public participation methods,” discuss other forms of public participation that involve conversational activity, including public hearing, negotiated rule making, consensus conference, citizens' jury/panel, citizen/public advisory committee, and focus group.
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Sheldon Ungar , “Knowledge, ignorance and the popular culture: climate change versus the ozone hole,”Public Understanding of Science9 (2000): 297-312.
48.
Irwin and Wynne, Misunderstanding Science.
49.
Although he did not theorize citizen participation in the way we do, Irwin describes how citizens are constructed in the process of participating in public deliberations of science-related issues. See Irwin, “Constructing the scientific citizen.”
50.
Steinar Kvale , “Examinations reexamined: certification of students or certification of knowledge,” in Understanding Practice: Perspectives on activity and context, eds. Seth Chaiklin and Jean Lave (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 215-240.
51.
Fourez , Scientific and technological literacy.”
52.
For a similar argument see Lave, “The practice of learning.”
53.
This student, as everyone else in the community, drew on available resources to get the study done. Although it would be more appropriate to look at the activity system as a whole that produced these results, we attribute them to the student for brevity's sake.
