The (re)production of insecurities: an ethnographic study of the gendered science classroom in upper secondary school

<p>The purpose of this article is to go beyond the well-established fact that many science classrooms seem to be gendered in ways that favour masculinity and explore in depth how disciplinary norms work with gender norms in specific teacher-student interactions. Through micro-investigations of how power and knowledge interact, we propose a lens to understand how normalisation/exclusion function in the everyday activities in the science classroom. The article draws on feminist, poststructuralist theory and a Foucauldian power-perspective to produce and combine two levels of analysis, a micro-level of moment-to-moment interactions and a structural level of normative hierarchies that frame and influence the daily interactions between students and the teacher. The findings are based on a 3-year ethnographic study investigating the science learning environment at three non-compulsory upper secondary schools in Denmark. The empirical material consists of extensive observations in physics, chemistry and technology classrooms, interviews with observed students, and involved teachers. The theoretically informed analysis demonstrates firstly how teacher-student interactions both can mitigate and intensify gendered practices in the science classroom and secondly how the disciplinary and gendered norms in various ways are co-constructed in the classroom by both the students and the teachers rendering young women less likely to feel that they belong in science. The article ends with a discussion of the need for a gender reflexive teaching practice. The discussion is based on a critique of the pedagogical practices that the analysis shows create unequal opportunities for the students to be recognised as legitimate participants in the science classroom despite the teachers’ good intentions.</p>