Culturally equipped for SSI? How do teachers and students in mono- and multiethnic schools handle work with complex is

1. Culturally equipped for SSI?How do teachers and students in mono- and multiethnic schools handle work with complex issues? Malin Ideland, Malmö University Claes Malmberg, Malmö University Mikael Winberg, Umeå University SISC Science In Social Context www.sisc.se

2. How do teachers and students in mono- and multiethnic schools handle work with SSI concerning: • teachers’ role taking in the classroom; • how the students experience and deal with SSI:s in autonomous group work; • to what degree and how the students use other sources than textbooks and • how the students integrate the work with SSI in “the school discourse”

3. SSI characteristics Problems for immigrant students? Lower use of Swedish mass media Exclusion from society Exclusion from schools’ cultural codes (Banks 2008, Parszyk 1999) Authoritative view on knowledge and difficulties with inquiry-based learning (Lee 2003) Lower grades in science, excluded from scientific discourse (Skolverket 2007, Lee & Luykx 2007, Nyström 2007) • Use of authentic medias • Embedded in society • Decision-making • Critical thinking • Nature of Science

4. Outline • What differences and similarities between multi- and monoethnic student groups are emerging in a quantitative study about students’ experiences of working with SSI? • How can these emerging aspects be understood from a qualitative perspective? • Do answers from questionnaires correspond with observed actions in the classroom?

5. Data collection • SISC-project (Science In Social Context) • School year 6-9 • Quantitative study: Questionnaires pre and post SSI-work, teacher questionnaires (1488 students, 70 school classes, 5 different SSI-tasks) • Qualitative study: Classroom observations, focus group interviews, teacher interviews (6 school classes, 3 different SSI-tasks)

6. Analyse method • Estimation of the degree of ‘multiethnicity’ from the percentage of the students entitled to mother tongue tuition. • Students’ answers on the questionnaire items were related to the proportion of students entitled to mother-tongue tuition in each specific school (Principal Component Analysis – PCA and PLS) • Analysis of field notes from classroom observations (1 monoethnic and 1 multiethnic class) based on aspects that emerged from the PCA

7. Students in multiethnic schools did to a lower degree: • Use internet during the SSI-work • Discuss the task outside school • Find the SSI-task topical and related to their everyday lives

8. And to a higher degree, students in multiethnic classes did: • Find the information too difficult to be useful • Like to work individually • Find the lack of a single correct answer frustrating • Mean that science is about learning facts • Like teacher-led lectures • Mean that they had too many discussions in science class (generally – not in the SSI-work)

9. The students are coming into the classroom, intensely talking to each other. The teacher, Maria, is standing quiet at the teacher’s desk with a decisive smile on her lips. She is waiting until everyone is standing silent at their chairs. -Good Morning. At the whiteboard Maria has written group division, what sources each group should use and how each group shall present the coming project.The groups are either going to read newspapers or watch television. The presentations are either oral or written. -Hahaha. You are going to write, laughs Ali towards another group. The students start to discuss the group division and ask what they are going to do. Maria tells them that they are supposed to do their presentations to other students, but to who is a secret. Maria asks them to note: - There are some things that are very very important. You are going to make presentations the 26th November. Then she introduces the project with a diary of one day’s eating (Field notes, multiethnic school A, November 14 2008).

10. Teachers in the classroom • The aim with SSI-work was hidden • Low transparency and no student involvement • Presentations and/or assessment important • No training in media-use or decisionmaking. • Different views on students capabilities to use authentic media sources, • Group work not motivated • Supervising – coaching roles (difference between the classes) • Focus on science – not on society

11. We are in the computer room. The students at school B have just seen a passage from Morgan Spurlocks documentary “Supersize me”. Now they are going to “search for information about the body”. Three students are taking place at one computer each. Julia is using Google and end up at McDonalds web page. Gabriel and Sandra are also using McDonalds and Burger Kings websites, looking at pictures on hamburgers and nutrition facts for the products. Gabriel says excited: • - Check out the coke. It is quite wholesome. • Julia is in despair: • - I am not getting this. What are we supposed to do? She repeats over and over again. • Where is Anna (the teacher). We are not getting any help. I am going back to the classroom now. • (Field notes, monoethnic school B, 13 Nov 2008).

12. Students in the classroom • No collaborative group work – the task was divided between the groupmembers • In need of instructions • Teacher and text books considered as the only useful sources • Difficulties to use and scrutinize authentic mass medias • Focus on facts

13. Similarities rather than differences between the student groups • It is more important to be a successful student than a good learner and a competent citizen. • Assement forms important. Reproduction rather than production of knowledge. • Joint understanding on what is ”appropriate school knowledge”. This is not the same as democratic action competence in the society. • They trust sources similar to ordinary text books. Authoritative view on knowledge.

14. Conclusion • Public discourse and earlier studies show differences between multi- and monoethnic classrooms pre-conditions for work with SSI • Our quantitative results supports earlier studies to some extent • Our qualitative results show: • the teachers act according to the public discourse on differences between multi- and monoethnic classrooms • but all the students’ actions are more related to a general school discourse on how to become a ”successful student”

15. Discursive collisions • Discourse on differences between students in multiethnic and monoethnic classrooms • Hegemonic school discourse on how to become a successful student • Discourse on how to become a participating citizen SSI-work reveals these discourses and opens up new ways of organizing education where the ideal goes from ”successful students” to ”participating citizens”

16. Thank you for listening! malin.ideland@mah.se claes.malmberg@mah.se www.sisc.se