In Search of Activist Pedagogies in SMTE

• Published in: Canadian journal of science, mathematics and technology education Vol. 12; no. 4; pp. 394 - 408
• Main Authors: Alsop, Steve, Bencze, Larry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01-01-2012; Routledge
• Subjects: Canada; Education; Engineering/Technology Education; Environmental Education; Ethics; Foreign Countries; Mathematics Education; Science Education; Technology Education; Viewpoint/Points de Vue; Canada
• ISSN: 1492-6156; 1942-4051
• DOI: 10.1080/14926156.2012.732256

David Burns and Stephen Norris's (2012) article entitled "Activist Environmental Education and Moral Philosophy" offers a thought-provoking response to the CJSMTE special edition. The authors would like to thank these authors for their supportive and philosophically adroit arguments. Burns and Norris provide an opportunity to continue the conversations, and in this invited response the authors offer some reflections on particular aspects of Burns and Norris's article. The authors are certainly supportive of the broad claims Burns and Norris develop. There is a need for greater attention in the SMTE field to scholarship in morals and ethics of education. Paradoxically, as they argue shortly, this occlusion seems somehow even more pressing within pedagogies that explicitly call into question distributive justice, the good life, an ecological crisis, and their personal and professional agencies and responsibilities. Their response has four themes. It starts with some general comments on activism and science and technology education. In direct reference to Burns and Norris's rejoinder, this is followed by a discussion of the hauntings of value-free imaginaries and reflections on epistemic and pedagogical boundary work associated with particular distinctions of intra- and extra-scientific values. The article then offers some thoughts on politics, morals, ethics, and education, albeit with an emergent ecocentric theme. They conclude with some brief thoughts about Hodson's "levels of curriculum sophistication" and an indication of some future directions of their work. (Contains 6 notes.)