Learning that physics is ‘not for me’: Pedagogic work and the cultivation of habitus among advanced level physics students

ABSTRACT

Background

There is widespread agreement that participation in post-compulsory physics needs to be widened and increased, particularly among women and under-represented communities. This paper contributes to understanding of the processes that produce unequal participation, Methods: The paper undertakes a Bourdieusian analysis of longitudinal interview data from 75 interviews conducted with fifteen students, tracked from age 10-18, who studied Advanced level physics in England. Findings: The paper discusses evidence of a physics habitus that was strongly aligned with notions of intelligence/cleverness and masculinity and identifies how young women were particularly disadvantaged by a popular notion of the “effortlessly clever physicist”, which encouraged even highly interested and high attaining young women not to continue further with the subject. We identified three main forms of pedagogic work performed by school physics (attainment-based practices of debarring and gatekeeping; curriculum practices of deferring ‘real’ physics and physics ‘lies’; and interpersonal reinforcement of doxa), which helped cultivate student habitus over time and produce inequitable patterns of participation Contribution: Analyses show that school physics contributes to reproducing inequitable (and low overall) patterns of participation. Implications are discussed for science education policy and practice to support more equitable participation.

Notes

¹ The 61 students who were interviewed came from a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds and self-identified gender and ethnic backgrounds. Twenty-six self-identified as male, 34 as female and one student self-identified as non-binary. Forty-three self-identified as White British [25 female, 17 male, one non-binary], three as Black British [two females, one male], five as White European [three females, two males], six as South Asian British [two females, four males], and four as “mixed” ethnic heritage [three female, one male]).

² One of the young men (Josh) also expressed an explicitly gender stereotypical view, aligning math and science with masculinity: “I think it’s, I believe that it’s, it makes me sound sexist, but it’s true when they say that women are better at English and men are better at Maths. It’s not true for everyone, but in general I seem to think that’s the case” (Josh, age 17/18).

³ Two further young women in the sample started, but did not complete, physics A level.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/L002841/1].