THE CULTURAL BORDER CROSSING MODEL

APPLIED TO THE

PHYSICS CLASSROOM

Daniel Doucette

Advisor: Dainuvīte Blūma

27 January 2017

Riga, Latvia

Culture

“an ordered system of meaning and symbols, in terms of which social interaction takes place” (Geertz, 1973: 68)

Applications:

• National (Smith, Dugan, Trompenaars), etc
• School (eg. Gruenert, Whitaker)
• Science / Physics
• ~ subculture of physicists
• problematic (Harding)
• URMs

Could understanding culture empower teachers to�resolve the disorders of physics?

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Border Crossing

Metaphor from Giroux

• Navigation in margins
• Must prepare crossers
• Critically examine power

Categories Costa; Aikenhead

Aligned with Pond, Chini (!!)

“Potential Scientists”

“Other Smart Kids”

“I Don’t Know”

“Outsiders”

“Inside Outsiders”

“I Want to Know”

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Preliminary Testing

Twin tests: school and home (plus parent), 6 questions, n=11

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3. Look at something blue. Why is it blue?

a. It is releasing blue light.

b. When white light hits it, the red and green colours are “eaten” and only blue is reflected.

c. Light carries the colour information to your eyes.

d. It just is blue. It has nothing to do with light.

r = 0.511 < 0.602

ρ = 0.569 < 0.618 … student scores not correlated

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χ² = 25.81 > 3.84 … student and parent scores are not independent

Instrument Development

Topic: Energy

Consulted literature (Hermann-Abell, DeBoer)

8 questions: motion, thermal, gravity, electric, measureable, transfer, transformation/conservation, power generation

4 answers: scientific, vis-viva, flux, qi

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WhatIsMyEnergyType.com (html/css/js)

Validation - doctor, engineer, historian

6th-grade students: results are stable

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A shoe box is sitting in the centre of a table. In which of the following situations is the box's energy increasing?

• The box is lifted and placed on a high shelf.
• A turtle is placed inside the box.
• The box is gently pushed off the edge of the table and falls to the floor.
• A smiley face is drawn on the side of the box.

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Results I

Population: 27 grade 11/12 students at Int'l School of Latvia

Answers grouped: sci @ school, non-sci @ home = OSK, etc

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χ² = 103.3 > 99.6�@ 95% conf

student ID and border-crossing type are not independent, thus border-crossing is a meaningful characterization

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Results II

Probabilistic (“Monte Carlo”) Model

To what extent does border crossing affect student answers?

53% of answers were scientific

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Simulate 100 classes of 28 random students

Compute χ² for each, find best match to actual (Student's t)

Result: c = 17%

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Conclusion

• Border crossing type is a meaningful categorization
• The categorization aligns with teacher obs. / student goals
• Effect size of cultural medium is +/- 17%

Limitations:

• Small sample size (n=27), socioeconomics?
• 17% is an upper bound, many mitigating factors

Next steps:

• Teach to educators - cultural awareness; better teaching
• Investigate value in situ

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Reference List

Aikenhead, G. (1996) Science Education: Border Crossing into the Subculture of Science. Studies in Science Education, 1996, vol. 27, pp. 1-52

Costa, V.B. (1995). When science is "another world": Relationships between worlds of family, friends, school, and science. Science Education, 79(3), 313-333.

Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, New York, USA.

Giroux, H. A. (1992). Border crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education. Routledge, New York, USA.

Gruenert, S., and T. Whitaker. (2015) School Culture Rewired: How to Define, Assess, and Transform it. ASCD: Alexandra, VA.

Harding, S. G. (1998). Is science multicultural?: Postcolonialisms, feminisms, and epistemologies. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, USA.

Hermann-Abell, C. and G. DeBoer. (2014). Teaching and learning of energy in K-12 education. R. F. Chen (Ed.). Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

Pond, J., & Chini, J. (2015). Exploring Student Learning Profiles in Algebra-based Studio Physics: A Person-Centered Approach. Paper presented at Physics Education Research Conference 2015, College Park, MD.

Smith, P. B., Dugan, S., & Trompenaars, F. (1996). National culture and the values of organizational employees a dimensional analysis across 43 nations. Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 27(2), 231-264.

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Thank you!

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Extension

Could this border-crossing model be applied to other subjects, like the social sciences or the humanities?

Maybe.

Situation, cultural coherency of subject.�Reading, math.

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Comparison of Pond/Chini & Costa

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Monte Carlo Results

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Online Quiz “Results”

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