Calls for the improvement of science education in the USA continue unabated, with particular concern for the quality of learning opportunities for students from historically nondominant communities. Despite many and varied efforts, the field continues to struggle to create robust, meaningful forms of science education. We argue that ‘settled expectations’ in schooling function to (a) restrict the content and form of science valued and communicated through science education and (b) locate students, particularly those from nondominant communities, in untenable epistemological positions that work against engagement in meaningful science learning. In this article we examine two episodes with the intention of reimagining the relationship between science learning, classroom teaching, and emerging understandings of grounding concepts in scientific fields – a process we call desettling. Building from the examples, we draw out some key ways in which desettling and reimagining core relations between nature and culture can shift possibilities in learning and development, particularly for nondominant students.

Keywords:
Culture, Expansive learning, Indigenous education, Minorities, Science education
1.
Aikenhead, G.S. (1996). Science education: Border crossing into the subculture of science. Studies in Science Education, 27, 1–52.
2.
Bakhtin, M.M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
3.
Bang, M.E. (2009). Understanding students’ epistemologies: Examining practice and meaning in community contexts (unpublished dissertation). Northwestern University, Evanston.
4.
Bang, M., Curley, L., Kessel, A., Marin, A., & Suzokovich, E. (in press). Muskrat theories, tobacco in the streets, and living Chicago as indigenous lands. Environmental Education Research.
5.
Bang, M., & Medin, D. (2010). Cultural processes in science education: Supporting the navigation of multiple epistemologies. Science Education, 94, 1008–1026.
6.
Bang, M., Medin, D.L., & Atran, S. (2007). Cultural mosaics and mental models of nature. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 13868–13874.
7.
Bang, M., Medin, D., Washinawatok, K., & Chapman, S. (2010). Innovations in culturally based science education through partnerships and community. In M. Khine & I. Saleh (Eds.), New science of learning: Cognition, computers and collaboration in education (pp. 569–592). New York: Springer.
8.
Barnhardt, R., & Kawagley, A.O. (1999). Education indigenous to place: Western science meets indigenous reality. In G. Smith & D. Williams (Eds.), Ecological education in action (pp. 117–140). New York: SUNY Press.
9.
Barnhardt, R., & Kawagley, A.O. (2005). Indigenous knowledge systems and Alaska native ways of knowing. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 36, 8–23.
10.
Barton, A.C., & Tan, E. (2009). Funds of knowledge, discourses and hybrid space. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46, 50–73.
11.
Blackstock, M.D. (2001). Water: A First Nations spiritual and ecological perspective. BC Journal of Ecosystems and Management, 1, 54–66.
12.
Blackstock, M.D. (2002). Water-based ecology: A First Nations’ proposal to repair the definition of a forest ecosystem. BC Journal of Ecosystems and Management, 2, 1–6.
13.
Blackstock, M.D. (2008). Blue ecology and climate change. BC Journal of Ecosystems and Management, 9, 12–16.
14.
Bourdieu, P. (1992). Thinking about limits: Theory, culture, and society. London: Sage.
15.
Brayboy, B.M., & Castagno, A.E. (2008). How might Native science inform ‘informal science learning’? Cultural Studies of Science Education, 3, 731–750.
16.
Cajete, G. (1999). Native science: Natural laws of interdependence. Santa Fe: Clear Light Books.
17.
Cajete, G. (2000). Indigenous science. Santa Fe: Clear Light Books.
18.
Chisholm, P. (2005). How to dominate the oceans with 2,000 genes. Paper delivered at the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences, Irvine.
19.
Cole, M. (1998). Cultural psychology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
20.
Deloria, V. (1979). The metaphysics of modern existence. New York: Harper & Row.
21.
Deloria, V., Deloria, B., Foehner, K., & Scinta, S. (1999). Spirit & reason: The Vine Deloria, Jr. reader. Golden: Fulcrum Publishing.
22.
Doolittle, W. (1995). At the core of the Archaea. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 93, 8797–8799.
23.
Earle, S. (1995). Sea change: A message of the oceans. New York: Fawcett Columbine.
24.
Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding. An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.
25.
Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization. Journal of Education and Work, 14, 133–156.
26.
Fischer, M.M.J. (2003). Emergent forms of life and the anthropological voice. Chapel Hill: Duke University Press.
27.
Gee, J. (1990). Social linguistics and literacies. London: Falmer Press.
28.
Gibson, J.J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Ann Arbor: Houghton Mifflin.
29.
Goodman, E.J. (2000). Indian tribal sovereignty and water resources: Watersheds, ecosystems and tribal co-management. Journal of Land, Resources, and Environmental Law, 20, 185.
30.
Gutiérrez, K., Morales, P.Z., & Martinez, D.C. (2009). Re-mediating literacy: Culture, difference, and learning for students from nondominant communities. Review of Research in Education, 33, 212–245.
31.
Gutiérrez, K., & Rogoff, B. (2003). Cultural ways of learning: Individual traits or repertoires of practice. Educational Researcher, 32, 19–25.
32.
Hall, R., & Horn, I.S. (2012). Talk and conceptual change at work: Adequate representation and epistemic stance in a comparative analysis of statistical consulting and teacher workgroups. Mind, Culture and Activity, 19, 240–258.
33.
Hall, R., & Nemirovsky, R. (2012). Introduction to the special issue: Modalities of body engagement in mathematical activity and learning. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 21, 207–215.
34.
Hand, V., Penuel, B., & Gutiérrez, K. (2012). (Re)framing educational possibility: Attending to power and equity in shaping access to and within learning opportunities. Human Development, 55, 250–268.
35.
Harding, S. (2010). Postcolonial and feminist philosophies of science and technology: Convergences and dissonances in science, colonialism, and postcoloniality. Post-Colonial Studies, 12, 401–421.
36.
Harris, C.I. (1995). Whiteness as property. In K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K. Thomas (Eds.), Critical race theory (pp. 276–291). New York: New Press.
37.
Heath, S.B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
38.
Heath, S.B. (1986). Good science or bad art? Or both? In D. Baker, J. Clay, & C. Fox (Eds.), Challenging ways of knowing: In English, mathematics and science (pp. 13–18). London: Falmer Press.
39.
Heath, S.B. (1989). Oral and literate traditions among Black Americans living in poverty. American Psychologist, 44, 367–373.
40.
Helmreich, S. (2009). Alien ocean: Anthropological voyages in microbial seas. Berkeley: University of California Press.
41.
Helmreich, S. (2011). What was life? Answers from three limit biologies. Critical Inquiry, 37, 671–696.
42.
Hudicourt-Barnes, J. (2003). The use of argumentation in Haitian Creole science classrooms. Harvard Educational Review, 73, 73–93.
43.
Human Microbiome Project Consortium (2012). A framework for human microbiome research. Nature, 486, 215–221.
44.
Hymes, D. (1996). Ethnography, linguistics, narrative inequality: Toward an understanding of voice. Bristol: Taylor & Francis.
45.
Ingold, T. (2011). Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description. New York: Routledge.
46.
Jean-François, R. (2008). A teacher’s perspective: Using students’ experience to understand science. In A. Rosebery & B. Warren (Eds.), Teaching science to English language learners (pp. 51–56). Arlington: NSTA Press.
47.
Kawagley, O. (1995). A Yupiaq worldview. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press.
48.
Kidman, J., Abrams, E., & McRae, H. (2011). Imaginary subjects: School science, indigenous students, and knowledge-power relations. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 32, 203–220.
49.
Kohn, E. (2007). How dogs dream: Amazonian natures and the politics of transspecies engagement. American Ethnologist, 34, 3–24.
50.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2003). Critical race theory perspectives on the social studies: The profession, policies, and curriculum. Greenwich: Information Age Publishing.
51.
Lawrence Hall of Science (2003). Full option science system (FOSS): Diversity of life. Nashua: Delta Education.
52.
Lee, C.D. (2008). The centrality of culture to the scientific study of learning and development: How an ecological framework in education research facilitates civic responsibility. Educational Researcher, 37, 267–279.
53.
Lee, C.D. (2009). Historical evolution of risk and equity: Interdisciplinary issues and critiques. Review of Research in Education, 33, 63–100.
54.
Lee, C.D., Spencer, M.B., & Harpalani, V. (2003). Every shut eye ain’t sleep: Studying how people live culturally. Educational Researcher, 32, 6–13.
55.
Marker, M. (2006). After the Makah whale hunt. Urban Education, 41, 482–505.
56.
Martin, D. (2009). Researching race in mathematics education. Teachers College Record, 111, 295–338.
57.
McLean, S. (2009). Stories and cosmogonies: Imagining creativity beyond ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. Cultural Anthropology, 24, 213–245.
58.
McLean, S. (2011). Black goo: Forceful encounters with matter in Europe’s muddy margins. Cultural Anthropology, 26, 589–619.
59.
Nasir, N.S. (2000). ‘Points ain’t everything’: Emergent goals and average and percent understandings in the play of basketball among African American students. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 31, 283–305.
60.
Nasir, N.S. (2002). Identity, goals, and learning: Mathematics in cultural practice. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 4, 213–247.
61.
Nasir, N., & Hand, V. (2006). Exploring sociocultural perspectives on race, culture, and learning. Review of Educational Research, 76, 449–475.
62.
Nasir, N.S., Rosebery, A.S., Warren, B., & Lee, C.D. (2006). Learning as a cultural process: Achieving equity through diversity. In K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 489–504). New York: Cambridge University Press.
63.
Nasir, N.S., & Saxe, G.B. (2003). Ethnic and academic identities: A cultural practice perspective on emerging tensions and their management in the lives of minority students. Educational Researcher, 32, 14–18.
64.
Nasir, N.S., Snyder, C., Shah, N., Ross, K.M. (2012). Racial storylines and implications for learning. Human Development, 55, 285–301.
65.
National Research Council (2007). Taking science to school: Learning and teaching science in grade K-8. Washington: National Academy Press.
66.
National Research Council (2011). A framework for K-12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington: National Academy Press.
67.
Noguera, P.A. (2008). Creating schools where race does not predict achievement: The role and significance of race in the racial achievement gap. The Journal of Negro Education, 77, 90–103.
68.
Pierotti, R.J. (2010). Indigenous knowledge, ecology, and evolutionary biology. New York: Taylor & Francis.
69.
Raffles, H. (2002). In Amazonia: A natural history. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
70.
Richardson, T. (2011). Navigating the problem of inclusion as enclosure in native culture-based education: Theorizing shadow curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry, 41, 332–349.
71.
Rosebery, A., Ogonowski, M., Di Schino, M., & Warren, B. (2010). ‘The coat traps all your body heat’: Heterogeneity as fundamental to learning. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19, 322–357.
72.
Rosebery, A., & Warren, B. (Eds.) (2008). Teaching science to English language learners. Arlington: NSTA Press.
73.
Smith, L.T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
74.
Sultana, F. (2011). Suffering for water, suffering from water: Emotional geographies of resource access, control and conflict. Geoforum, 42, 163–172.
75.
Tsing, A. (1995). Empowering nature, or: Some gleanings in bee culture. In S. Yanagisako & C. Delaney (Eds.), Naturalizing power: Essays in feminist cultural analysis (pp. 113–143). New York: Routledge.
76.
Warren, B., Ballenger, C., Ogonowski, M., Rosebery, A.S., & Hudicourt-Barnes, J. (2001). Rethinking diversity in learning science: The logic of everyday sense-making. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38, 529–552.
77.
Warren, B., & Rosebery, A. (1996). ‘This question is just too, too easy!’ Perspectives from the classroom on accountability in science. In L. Schauble & R. Glaser (Eds.), Innovations in learning: New environments for education (pp. 97–125). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
78.
Warren, B., & Rosebery, A. (2011). Navigating interculturality: African American male students and the science classroom. Journal of African American Males in Education, 2, 98–115.
79.
Warrior, R.A. (1995). Tribal secrets: Recovering American Indian intellectual traditions. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
80.
Wilson, S. (2009). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
© 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel
2013
Copyright / Drug Dosage / Disclaimer
Copyright: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be translated into other languages, reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, microcopying, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Drug Dosage: The authors and the publisher have exerted every effort to ensure that drug selection and dosage set forth in this text are in accord with current recommendations and practice at the time of publication. However, in view of ongoing research, changes in government regulations, and the constant flow of information relating to drug therapy and drug reactions, the reader is urged to check the package insert for each drug for any changes in indications and dosage and for added warnings and precautions. This is particularly important when the recommended agent is a new and/or infrequently employed drug.
Disclaimer: The statements, opinions and data contained in this publication are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of the publishers and the editor(s). The appearance of advertisements or/and product references in the publication is not a warranty, endorsement, or approval of the products or services advertised or of their effectiveness, quality or safety. The publisher and the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content or advertisements.
You do not currently have access to this content.