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Preservice elementary science teachers’ beliefs and practices influence the kinds of adaptations they make to curricula and the extent to which they are able to enact science lessons in justice-oriented ways. Through this qualitative study, we explored the beliefs and practices of five focal preservice teachers through an analysis of their lesson plans, recorded enactments, and interviews about their science teaching throughout their student teaching experience. We also introduce a framework for expansive sensemaking that integrates beliefs and practices related to four key themes: (1) believing in children’s brilliance, (2) building a collaborative classroom culture, (3) expanding what counts as science, and (4) positioning children as epistemic agents. While teachers varied in their beliefs about and approaches to each of these themes, they demonstrated strengths that illustrate what may be possible for early career teachers, like working to integrate many ways of knowing and being into science lessons, connecting to embodied knowledge, or supporting children to be scientific decision-makers. We discuss implications for teacher preparation programs and for theory development related to justice-oriented teaching in general and expansive sensemaking in particular.
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Tolerance, Dissenting Beliefs, and Cultural Diversity
Abstract Divergent cultural, religious, and ideological beliefs and practices are often challenging to contemplate and difficult to accept when they conflict with an individual’s own convictions and way of life. The recognition that children and adolescents grow up in an increasingly diverse world has led to a general interest in fostering tolerance. In this article, we discuss three central questions on tolerance and related research. First, we consider age‐related patterns of responses toward tolerance of diversity and whether they depend on the type of dissenting beliefs and practices children are asked to tolerate. Second, we focus on how and why children are asked to be tolerant. Third, we discuss the boundaries of tolerance—the reasons and conditions that make tolerance less likely. Overall, we conclude that tolerance and intolerance can occur at all ages and depend on what, how, why, and when individuals are asked to tolerate belief discrepancy and dissenting practices.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1728918
- PAR ID:
- 10453875
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Child Development Perspectives
- Volume:
- 15
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1750-8592
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 51-56
- Size(s):
- p. 51-56
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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