lived histories of science education in modern luxembourg: interactions between global policies,...

REUTER & SCHREIBER - ESERA 2017 - 23-08-2017 - Dublin, Irland

Lived Histories of Science Education in

Modern Luxembourg: Interactions

between Global Policies, National

Curriculum and Local Practices

Robert A.P. REUTER1 & Catherina SCHREIBER2

1Université du Luxembourg 2Universität Wien

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12th Conference of the ESERA:

Research, practice and collaboration in science education

REUTER & SCHREIBER - ESERA 2017 - 23-08-2017 - Dublin, Irland 2

Catherina SCHREIBER:

“Hello from Vienna.”


■ Part of a larger research project: Science Education, Innovation and

Policy in Modern Luxembourg (SciPol:Lux) - PI: Prof. Dr Christina Siry

■ Insights into the policy and curricular reform of science education in

Luxembourg’s primary schools

■ Integrates research in educational sciences (ethnography of lived

practices, interviews with key actors) with research in the history of

education (document analysis)

■ Grounded on the premise that “science education” as a school

discipline is the product of culturally shaped expectations

■ Examines the interface of international and national educational policy

with local educational practice through the lens of primary school

science education in Luxembourg (from 1920 through the present)

Introduction

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■ Contemporary responses to “pressures” of change

are best understood in a longer historical

perspective that provides the important intellectual

distance needed to make specific social and political

contours of the time and place more apparent

(Rudolph, 2001)

■ Looking back to (better) understand the present of

science education and to (help) build a better future

for science education

Introduction

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■ Case study: the introduction of science education as

a new subject into the Luxembourgish primary

school (grades 1-6) curriculum in 1989

■ Key example to study change(s) of educational

processes and how these can be understood from

their historical socio-cultural contexts

■ “Lived histories”: Interactions between Global

Policies, National Curriculum and Local Practices

Introduction

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■ Understand change in schooling through historical perspectives:

■ theory of a “grammar of schooling” (Tyack & Cuban, 1995): changes happen within a larger system of interdependencies

■ curricular negotiations as a “struggle” between interest groups (such as humanists, developmentalists or social meliorists) and different (political) agendas (Kliebard, 1986)

■ Shift away from the dominant teleological thinking of curricular development as a simple history of progress

Introduction

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■ Analysis of historical

documents

■ Semi-structured interviews

with (some) key actors & “eye

witnesses”

Methods

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■Analysis of historical documents

■ Curriculum

■ Teaching materials (official & unofficial),

textbooks

■ Professional journals, newspaper articles

■ Working group reports

■ Formal and informal exchanges

Methods

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■ Semi-structured interviews with

(some) key actors & “eye witnesses”

involved

■ in designing the new science education

curriculum

■ in designing new learning materials

■ in implementing the new curriculum - in schools

and in pre-service teacher training

Methods

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■ Interview questions

■ based on interrogations arising from the

historical analyses

■ lived experiences of schooling in Luxembourg

■ Qs: Personal involvement, myth of origins,

needs for change, process, actions taken,

reactions observed, retrospective evaluation of

the curricular change

Methods

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■ Findings from document analyses and statements voiced

in the interviews are brought together in a nonlinear way

and emerge from our multi-perspective research.

■ Underlying assumptions to the practice of science as a

school discipline come to the forefront through our

incorporation of diverse approaches to researching the

historical development of "science education".

■ In connecting diverse layers, we present a holistic but

multifaceted picture of how a science education

curriculum has been born / evolved from its (national and

international) ancestors.

Methods

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■ Luxembourgish "science education" curriculum was conceived and implemented as a response to a variety of specific national educational needs

■ Covertly in line with international “scientization” policies (e.g. Drori & Meyer, 2009)

■ building on transnational ideas such as the “spiral curriculum”

■ building on the idea that it should be deployed using an “inquiry-oriented approach” to learning and teaching

Results

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■ Tensions/Struggling forces/Grammar of Schooling in action: Curriculum goals are partially “Pedagogical Wishful Thinking” –Fact-Oriented Assessment

■ Co-existing trends / objectives: People involved in the process represent / impersonate different trends / perspectives / interest groups

■ “main teacher” is often not the one doing “science education”

■ What science is? Rational Thinking; Technology-supporting (“Brains as resources” creativity, knowledge society); Love of Nature; Protection/Conservation of Natural Environment and Human Society (Opposition to Nuclear Power); Political Education (be active, be engaged, act upon identified issues, moral values of the “ecological movement”); Systems Thinking

Results

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Objectives

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■ Compensate a “knowledge deficit in children”, lack of experiences of their natural environment (plants, animals, village, etc.)

■ “An engem Plan d'Etude vun 1922, do huet ee ganz kloër gesin, datt d'Kanner déi Saachen wossten, waat d'Natur an d'Déieren betrëfft, well se domadden obgewues sin. Daat as et ob eemol emmer manner gin. Do waren Defiziter, an daat war ee ganz gudd Argument, fir daat an der Schoul mat de Kanner obzeschaffen. Daat war een vun den Haaptzieler.”

■ Start biology education earlier than 7th class, like in France

■ “Et as awer och ganz kloër, datt d'Biologie net réicht ob enger 7e ugeet. Vu klengem un, muss daat obgebaut gin. D'Ausland huet di d'Beispill gin. Den Eveil as et ënner irgend enger Form a Frankräich emmer gin.”

■ Educate children about “protection of nature”

■ Education children about “a way of thinking”, about an attitude towards the environment

Objectives

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■ Structural contexts

■ 1979: introduction of curricular reform commissions. Context: New (socialist-

led) government, secondary school reforms (Lycée Technique, Tronc Commun)

■ Also: long struggle for competency between the ministry and the teacher

unions

■ need for a curricular reform due to increased migration

■ The need for science

■ e.g. Love for the homeland: tradition of “milieu local”

■ Environmental protection

■ Economic needs

■ International pressures

Reaction to national educational needs I

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■ Prevention of social problems (Smeyers & Depaepe) - through the

encounter with the national nature

■ Merges with environmental protection

Reaction to national educational needs II

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Economic needs - individual and national

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Need for environmental protection

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Spiral Curriculum

Six progressing fields of experience

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Spiral Curriculum

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■ Series lectures and seminars between 1982 and 1989: mainly

German models

Spiral Curriculum and German Sachunterricht:

Involvement of experts

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■ intuition through observation (in tradition of

“Anschauungsunterricht”)

■ direct encounter with the environment

■ focus on action (“Handlungsorientierung”)

■ Integration (“Fächerübergreifend”, Inter-, Trans-, Postdisciplinary)

■ Social learning

■ problem oriented learning - problem solving skills

■ learning about learning (Knowing how - method knowledge)

National traditions merged with international reform

projects

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■ Not only fact knowledge, but also about methods - and values

International influences: Evaluation

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Social Learning - Political Dimensions

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■ Examples: civic instruction, traffic education, consumer

education and sex education

Social Learning - Political Dimensions

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■ different institutional instances involved

■ beyond primary education

■ political representatives, unions, ministerial institutions, parents associations, teacher education and subject experts

Perspectives represented

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■ (Basic) scientific (facts) knowledge

■ Understanding the world as a system of interconnected and interdependent things

■ Competencies oriented towards action in real-life

■ Values

■ Natural, social and technical environments

What is science?

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■ The analysed educational reform clearly is a relevant example to understand culturally and historically embedded perspectives of what “science” is, and how this shapes ideals of “science education” as a discipline in school, within a given context and the associated struggling forces.

■ Grammar of Schooling in action: policies vs. practices

■ Tensions between different interest groups / agendas

■ Different definitions of what science is

Discussion & Conclusions

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■ The present “lived history” study will be completed

by other studies (foreseen in the SciPol:Lux research

project) revealing lived “science education”

practices in classrooms.

■ Ethnographic observations will allow to further study

how global policies, national curriculum and local

practices interact, in (often) non-linear ways and

what other dynamics impact local practices in

science education.

Discussion & Conclusions

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THANK YOU

FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

QUESTIONS?

COMMENTS?

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