From Normal to Revolutionary Science Education

Abstract

This paper has the explicit aim to raise questions about ourselves, in fact, to question the very ways in which we science educators do business and understand ourselves. Would it come as a surprise if some readers were upset with me for raising such questions? Negative responses to the issues I articulate in this paper are at the very heart of what my chapter is about. How does a community of practice renew itself when at the very moment that those of its members who propose change are often silenced by journal and book reviewers who see their power, which they have gained in the existing community, threatened by new or different ideas? And how can we begin talking about such issues without upsetting those who have different stakes and views? But then, we also need to ask, how can the science education community renew itself if there are gatekeepers who uphold the old order? That is, how can the science education community (of practice) change itself from doing normal science to doing revolutionary science?

Keywords

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Because the reviewers of this chapter made comments such as “Rather high-flown about revolutionary changes which would be necessary. Some relativisation and modesty would be better, but this is a question of personal taste”, or “The theoretical frame does not offer anything new and is not necessary for what is propagated”, I expect other readers to react in a similar way.