Issues in Upper Secondary Science Education: Comparative Perspectives

273 Pages·2014·3.611 MB·English

by  Barend Vlaardingerbroek, Neil Taylor (eds.)

Issues in Upper Secondary
Science Education
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Issues in Upper Secondary
Science Education
Comparative Perspectives
Edited by Barend Vlaardingerbroek and Neil Taylor
issues in upper secondary science education
Copyright © Barend Vlaardingerbroek and Neil Taylor, 2014.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-27595-0
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by
Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England,
company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-44645-2 ISBN 978-1-137-27596-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137275967
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Issues in upper secondary science education : comparative perspectives / edited by
Barend Vlaardingerbroek and Neil Taylor.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Science—Study and teaching (Secondary) I. Vlaardingerbroek, Barend.
Q181.3.I77 2014
507.1'2—dc23 2013038311
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: March 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword vii
Simon McGrath
1 Introduction: The Upper Secondary Tier and
the Place of Science Therein 1
Barend Vlaardingerbroek, Neil Taylor, and Terry Lyons
2 Australia 11
Terry Lyons
3 Brazil 33
Luis Carlos de Menezes and Regina Cândida Ellero Gualtieri
4 Canada: British Columbia 47
Todd M. Milford
5 China: Hong Kong SAR 67
Benny Hin Wai Yung and Kennedy Kam Ho Chan
6 Finland 83
Jari Lavonen and Pasi Reinikainen
7 Hungary 103
András Buda
8 Malaysia 123
Noraini Binti Idris
9 New Zealand 137
Peter Rawlins, Carrol Walkley, and Lone Jorgensen
10 Nigeria 161
Omaze Anthony Afemikhe and Sylvanus Yakubu Imobekhai
11 Pakistan 175
Irshad Hussain
12 Scotland 189
Nicky Souter
vi Contents
13 Sri Lanka 211
Marie Perera
14 Turkey 229
Muammer Çalik
15 The Middle East: Egypt, Lebanon, and
Saudi Arabia 243
Saouma BouJaoude and Ghada Gholam
16 Reflections on Upper Secondary Science
for the Twenty- First Century 261
Barend Vlaardingerbroek and Neil Taylor
Contributors 265
Index 271
Foreword
Simon McGrath
Secondary schooling is coming back onto the global education agenda as the
expansion of primary enrollments in even the poorest countries, the rising
middle classes in developing countries, and the power of the “knowledge
economy” discourse in the minds of policy makers the world over all rein-
force its importance. One of the core subject areas in all these dynamics is
science. Science is particularly iconic, as it retains its close identification with
modernity, with technological progress, and with economic competitiveness.
In this context, this volume on international experiences of science education
is particularly welcome. Moreover, its insistence on focusing specifically on
upperr secondary science is an especial strength. As the editors note, it is at
this level that we see the transition between two ideologies of science educa-
tion: whereas the dominant discourse of science in basic education is one of
science for all, the upper secondary phase marks a shift toward producing
future scientists and technologists. It also marks a zone of transition between
learner- centered and skills-b ased approaches and a strong emphasis on con-
tent. Thus a focus on senior school science provides important insights into
science’s perceived roles in schools and societies.
As well as being a site of an important discursive shift about the pur-
pose of a set of subjects, the senior school science focus also allows explo-
ration of what goes on in the highest- status part of a system where the
positional worth of both subject and school is so powerful in signaling
candidates’ merit to universities. This leads to questions about why many
are enrolling in such programs. In some chapters, there is a sense that
many are being pushed or lured by the prospects of later income and sta-
tus, leading to questions of what effects are likely on motivation.
The book also offers insights into the fluidity of the borderlands of
education. Faced by a growth of enrollments and often radical changes
in teaching, learning, and curricula in both lower secondary and higher
education, the senior secondary level is subject to forces from either side,
while having its own mandate in effecting transitions between levels.
viii Foreword
Several chapters suggest that senior school science’s position at the inter-
face between more progressive lower secondary approaches to science and
higher education’s more traditional modes may play out in this being the
most conservative part of the science education system given the high-
stakes nature of its terminating assessment procedures.
These dynamics are happening globally but always within contexts
that are shaped by contemporary and historical consequences of culture,
politics, and society at the national level. One of the real strengths of the
book is its close grounding in national cases. These forcefully remind us
that the universal challenge of growing while reforming upper second-
ary science is manifest in significantly different ways in jurisdictions as
diverse as Scotland, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. Thus rather than a single
story of what senior school science is, the volume points toward a series of
tensions that play out differently in various settings.
We read, for instance, of concerns that learner-c enteredness under-
mines science performance, but we also read that it may be an important
factor in the Finnish success in PISA. Across the book there is a sense of
widespread political support but great inconsistency in why this is the
case and what are understood as the purposes of senior school science.
Tensions abound regarding the theory– practice balance, while the con-
tinued growth of the science cohort in upper secondary school leads to
a constant replaying of debates regarding “science for all” versus prepara-
tion for elite professions.
The fluid nature of schooling in modern societies and the iconic and
strategic positions of science therein suggest that such debates are likely
to remain intense. Yet there has been far too little academic attention to
this issue. To read a book that brings together authors engaged in such
issues in such a diverse set of locations is a real pleasure and a stimulus to
new thinking.
C 1
HAPTER
Introduction
The Upper Secondary Tier and the Place
of Science Therein
Barend Vlaardingerbroek,
Neil Taylor, and Terry Lyons
Upper Secondary: A Distinctive Tier
Upper secondary schooling arguably predates mass basic educa-
tional provision by centuries. Until well into the nineteenth century, the
sons of the European aristocracy and the wealthier mercantile class, after
completing a period of home schooling by private tutors, were dispatched
to schools that drilled them in all the eminently useful things a young
gentleman needed to know, such as Latin and the Greek classics, in prepa-
ration for university study. In functional terms, upper secondary schooling
could be regarded as having existed well before the term secondary school-
inggentered the educational lexicon.
Mass public schooling took off in the nineteenth century with a prin-
cipal view to instilling the “3 Rs”—r eading, writing, and arithmetic. Until
the early decades of the twentieth century, most Europeans did not prog-
ress beyond primary schooling. Then came the working- class emancipa-
tory movements and the meritocratic notion that education is the key to
success in life for anyone regardless of social class at birth, fuelling a social
demand for postprimary and, subsequently, upper secondary schooling.
The evolution of school systems thus has two historical starting points—
one at the top and one at the bottom of what was to become the formal
schooling pyramid.
Echoes of the “elitist” nature of upper secondary schooling remain in
various education systems today, especially where learners are assigned to