The Experiences and Personal Religious Beliefs of Egyptian Science Teachers as a Framework for Understanding the Shaping and Reshaping of their Beliefs and Practices about Science‐Technology‐Society (STS)

Abstract

This research investigates the role of experience in relation to teachers’ beliefs and practices. The study adopted a social‐cultural constructivist perspective using an interpretive approach. The research was guided by teachers’ interpretations of their experiences related to teaching science through Science‐Technology‐Society (STS) issues. These interpretations are re‐interpreted to find meaningful conceptual categories (grounded in the data) from which to build a model to understand the influence of experiences within socio‐Islamic culture on teachers’ beliefs and practices. Data was collected from ten teachers using interviews and observations. The findings of this study suggest that it was mainly teachers’ personal religious beliefs and experiences that shaped their beliefs and practices. The research also led to a model, constructed on the basis of the data analysis, which suggests an explanation of how teachers’ personal religious beliefs and experiences influence their beliefs and practices.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Keith Postlethwaite, Nigel Skinner and Jack Priestley for their helpful and valuable comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments which were helpful in redirecting of the manuscript.

Notes

1. For example, lessons were chosen from Unit 1 (“Environment and its Resources”) in the first preparatory level book, entitled Science and the Future, and from Unit 2 (“Environmental Balance and variation”) in the second preparatory level book, entitled You and Science.

2. The English translations of the Qur’anic verses are based on Ali (2004).