Teacher positioning within the figured world(s) of urban school science

Abstract

Although research has highlighted the challenges of teaching in urban settings, particularly for science teachers, it has paid less attention to the development of science teaching identities in urban settings. This paper situates science teaching identity within societal discourses of science, education, and teaching to explore the ways in which macro-level discourses influence the positions available to science teachers in urban schools. Using questionnaire data from 64 teachers, discourse analysis is used to demonstrate how participants reinscribe or disrupt prominent macro-level discourses, including the elitism of science, accountability, and deficit views of urban areas, and the resulting positions that are created by this negotiation process. The findings include possible positions relative to science, education, and teaching as well as a consideration of differences between elementary and secondary teachers and between beginning and experienced teachers. Although many participants successfully disrupted damaging discourses of science as elite and disconnected, as well as discourses of accountability and the role of standardized testing, they were not able to disrupt deficit discourses that resulted in positioning themselves as outside of their students' worlds, often as saviors. The findings demonstrated the strong influence of deficit discourses on teachers' descriptions of their experiences as science teachers and the need to support teachers in understanding the historical and cultural contexts of urban education to identify and disrupt deficit discourses and create teacher positions based on asset and justice-based views of students, schools, and communities.