Science Education and the Nature of Nature

Bruno Latour's Ontological Politics

Bibliographic Data

ID8924720
AuthorsTristan Gleason (0000-0002-1885-4683, Moravian University, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume53
Issue6
Pages573-586
Publication date2017-09-25
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducational Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-1946 • E-ISSN: 1532-6993
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00131946.2017.1369083
OpenAlexW2759965856
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited13

This article explores recent developments in the field of science and technology, and the work of Bruno Latour in particular, to problematize the nature of Nature in science education. Although science and technology studies, and the scholarship on science education alike, have become increasingly attentive to the antidemocratic habits of science as a way of knowing, less attention has been directed toward science's ontological commitments, and the politics that follow from a theory of Nature that is uniform, homogenous, and unchanging. Latour suggests that the Nature toward which scientific knowledge is directed serves as a transcendent authority with the potential to circumvent the democratic deliberations of a supposedly subjective social world. Rather than treating Nature as a social construct, Latour explores the methodological and political implications of a reality composed of plural worlds and multiple modes of being, and this article suggests that these theoretical tools offer exciting new possibilities in the field of educational case study research

Construct (python library · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Nature of Science · Pedagogy · Plural · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Science education · Science studies · Social science · Sociology · Sociology of scientific knowledge · Animal and Plant Science Education · Law · Philosophy · Science Education and Pedagogy · Science Education and Perceptions

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub