Risking It: Entering Uneven Socio-scientific Spaces in a Life Sciences Classroom

Abstract

This article advances the rationale for the re-thinking of science education, which is characterized by a shift away from the view of science as being disconnected from social issues, to a view of science as a human activity, which is embedded in social, cultural and political issues. It goes on to detail how a Life Sciences teacher engaged learners to conduct research about HIV and AIDS, a socio-scientific issue, using the contentious construct of gender as a central theme. Ten self appointed learners volunteered to serve as co-researchers, and they were trained to generate and analyze data. This participatory methodology enabled young people to conduct research about other young people, and reduced the power differences between the researcher and the research participants. The learners used visual methodologies and interviews to research HIV and AIDS. The reflexive and dialogical processes, which dominated the research activities, served as the basis for a transformation of praxis. The findings reveal how this participatory methodology enabled learners to encode and decode their worlds, and to understand how the complexity of real human contexts fuels the HIV and AIDS pandemic. A transformation of Life Sciences learners who challenge traditional constructions of gender and develop a sense of activist purpose reveals how learners may become empowered to contribute towards a sustained response to socio-scientific challenges.

Key words:

• socio-cultural science education
• participatory methodology
• humanistic approach
• HIV and AIDS
• gender