Abstract
In this study, we propose a set of concepts for conceptualizing issues of learning science related to globalization, the encounter with the (radically) foreign/strange—as this occurs as part of migration and even as part of the encounter of a learner with the unknown content that science lessons are to impart—from the perspective of the experiencing person and the experience. We take an approach to the question of the foreign/strange that is grounded in philosophies of difference, which have emerged in continental Europe, and which make use of advances in phenomenology, dialectics, and materialism. We draw on ethnographic work in one undergraduate physics course at a Canadian university, where we followed in particular one female Japanese student, who had come to this country for the purpose of getting a degree. As an entry point and as source of empirical materials, we draw on our own auto/ethnographic experience that brings particular advantages to ally pathos to the experience of the foreign/strange, something is happening to (affecting) us that is beyond all experience, understanding, and anticipation. We articulate three phenomenological aspects that pathos (empathy) allows us to understand concerning the experience of the foreign/strange and then provide an exemplary and exemplifying analysis.
Executive summary
세계화 시대의 과학학습: 낯섬의 현상학
현대사회에서 과학학습은 한 사회나 문화의 경계를 넘어 세계화의 형태로 진행되고 있다. 본 논문의 목적은 과학학습의 세계화와 관련된 논점들을 이론화하기 위한 일련의 개념들을 현상학적 관점에서 제시하는 것으로, 학습자가 문화간 이주를 하게 되었을 때 그리고 과학학습의 상황에서 미지의 과학내용과 마주치게 되었을 때 일어나는 사건을학습자의 경험 그 자체의 시각에서 이론화하기 위해 “(온전히) 낯섬” 개념을 도입한다. 낯섬과의 마주침 문제에 접근하기 위해 본 논문은 대륙 유럽에서 발생하였고 현상학, 변증법, 유물론의 발전에 힘입어 성립되어 온 차이의 철학을 그 이론적 토대로 삼는다. 문화서술학적 자료로서 캐나다 대학에서 학위 취득을 위해 학부 물리 학과정을 수강하고 있는 일본인 학생의 사례를 제시하고, 그 논의를 전개하기 위해 저자들의 자전적 경험을 문화기술학적 자료의 출처로서 활용한다. 이를 통해 (온전히) 낯섬의 경험을 기존의 모든 경험, 이해, 기대를 넘어 학습자에게 영향을 미치는 사건, 즉 겪이(파토스, pathos)로 개념화한다. 본 논문에서는 겪이(파토스) 개념을 통해 드러나는 낯섬의 경험을 세 가지 현상학적 측면으로 명료화한다. 첫째, 현상학적 접근에서 볼 때 낯섬의 경험은 감각을 지닌 인간의 몸이 세계를 향해 열려 있고 그로 인해 인식의 지평 밖에 있는 낯섬을 감수(passivity)할 수 있는 가능성을 지니고 있기 때문에 일어난다. 따라서 낯섬을 향해 열려있는 몸을 통해 일어나는 겪이(파토스)는 동시에 그에 대한 응답(response)이 되는 변증법적 관계에 있다. 둘째, 몸의 감수 가능성은 타자와 소통할 수 있는 가능성을 전제로 하기 때문에 겪이(파토스)는 공감(empathy)과 변증법적 관계에 있으며, 따라서 자아의 비동일성에 그 바탕을 두고 있다. 셋째, 비동일성으로서 자아는 공감을 통해 자신의 타자성을 마주치게 되며 몸을 통해 그 자신을 감수하는 관계(conscience)을 겪게 된다. 이것은 낯섬을 해석하는 공동체적 노력의 기초가 된다. 본 논문에서는 도입된개념들을 예시하는 한 방법으로 대화분석의 사례를 제시한다.
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Notes
In this study, we ground ourselves in the work of the German philosopher Bernhard Waldenfels, who has worked for many years on the problematic that is at the heart of our article. In German, the central term is the noun “das Fremde,” which denotes both the foreign and the strange. To reproduce the semantic field of “das Fremde” as much as possible, we use the concept of the “foreign/strange.” We explicitly do not use the concept of the Other to denote the foreign/strange (other), as there are many forms of Other that are not foreign and strange. The Other in this study denotes the generalized other that is concretely realized as a second person (the face) in the encounter.
We frequently make use of the first person not to denote ourselves but the fact that in each case, an experience is “mine” from the perspective of and for a specific person. We thereby eschew a reduction of experience to the third-person perspective, which is the perspective of nobody.
In this episode and the expanded form, the following transcription conventions have been used: ↓—downward jump in pitch; (3.9)—time in seconds; (.)—noticeable pause of less than 0.10 s; ?,;.—punctuation marks are used to indicate characteristics of speech production rather than grammatical units; <<p>in>—(piano) lower than normal speech volume; MAXIMUM—capitalization marks louder than normal speech; e:—colon indicates lengthening of phoneme; = —equal sign marks “latching,” lack of a pause between two speakers; ((hand moves))—double parentheses surround transcribers comments; [—square brackets in consecutive lines indicate the beginning of overlapping speech or action; (?)—question mark in parentheses indicates inaudible utterance(s); the decrease—underlining marks the amount of text that is cotemporaneous with the overlapping action.
Beginning with Franz Brentano (1874/1924), phenomenological philosophers have made thematic the object-oriented nature of intentionality. There cannot be an intention without an object.
The German phenomenological literature makes the distinction between Körper and Leib, both of which are body in English. However, the former term (Körper) refers to the material aspect of the body, its nature as material object, whereas the second term refers to the experiential dimensions of the body, which require the senses. We therefore use the term living body to capture the distinction with the merely material dimensions of the body.
The experience of exploring something by means of touch can be used to illustrate that the intention to learn about some surface involves both agency and radical passivity (Roth 2007a).
We prefer the term transaction over interaction, as the former is consistent with the irreducible nature of social situation. This move has consequences in that such questions of who I am, my identity, is as much the result of a transaction as it is a resource for it. The “me” in this sentence, therefore, is both a condition and a result of the event (transaction).
This formula precisely is captured in the book title Oneself as Another (Ricœur 1992).
Elsewhere Michael describes the experience of how he is confronted with himself and his past actions at the very moment that he is outraged over an action by his fellow teacher (Roth and Boyd 1999).
The term empathy, equivalent to the German Einfühlung, was constructed in the 19th century on the model of sympathy. Etymologically, empathy and sympathy denotes feeling what another feels: empathy (feeling from en, in and pathos) and sympathy (feeling from sym, in and pathos). In this paper, we use the term empathy in the notion of “feeling with and for the other.”
Philosophers call this impossibility to know the results of research radical uncertainty (e.g., Moros 2005).
The term “estrange” denotes “cause to be strange, or a stranger, or as a stranger (to)” (OED 2007). Estrangement and otherness are aspects of human life linked with and in part mediated by emotions, which therefore are concepts explanatory for the experience of the foreign/strange and learning as well.
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Acknowledgments
This research was made possible by a grant (to Roth) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We are grateful to our research participants for their contributions to this project.
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Hwang, S., Roth, WM. Learning science in an era of globalization: a phenomenology of the foreign/strange. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 3, 937–958 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-008-9115-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-008-9115-z