A Vision for Science Education by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2004-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

Understanding gender differences in science education

Peter Fensham's contribution

Léonie Rennie

DOI: 10.4324/9780203006436-12

In 1986, I made my first presentation to the American Education Research Association (AERA) held in San Francisco. Apart from the excitement of visiting the USA for the first time, and the wonderment that people were having ‘earthquake parties’ to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of the 18 April 1906 earthquake that virtually destroyed the city, I have two abiding memories. One is bumping into Peter Fensham as he hurried to the Mosconi Center to present his keynote address at AERA on ‘Science for All’. He hardly knew me, and I was both surprised and pleased to have this friendly Australian take the time to stop and greet me. The other memory is giving my first paper at a large international conference. It reported research with colleagues Lesley Parker and Pauline Hutchinson using teacher in-service to promote gender-inclusive teaching about electricity to Year 5 students (Rennie et al., 1985). Findings of importance in the climate of that time were that in the experimental group girls participated in, and performed as well in, the activities as did boys. Further, the effectiveness of children doing activities in groups depended more on how comfortable the children were working with each other than on whether the groups were of the same sex or not (Rennie and Parker, 1987). Boys and girls could work very well together, provided that they were used to doing so. Despite my nervousness I managed to get through the paper without stumbling over too many words. However, I soon discovered that although my presentation was well practised, I wasn’t well prepared for the question which followed! ‘Why did you focus on learning science through doing activities?’ called out a voice, ‘What’s so special about doing activities?’ I was nonplussed. It had not occurred to me that anyone could question the importance of’doing’ in science at school. I simply had no answer and stood there speechless, wondering what on earth I could say. Fortunately, I didn’t have to say anything, because another voice from the audience said, ‘Well, that’s a silly question!’ and went on to explain why. No doubt Peter Fensham does not remember saving me from embarrassment that day, but I shall always be grateful.

These personal anecdotes say two important things about Peter Fensham. First, like any real scientist, he is observant and he thinks about what he sees, hears, and reads. He takes notice of everything, people, research, what ideas are current, and he knows what ideas will come next. This is why he was one of the first male science educators to realise the importance of gender as a source of inequality in science (and mathematics) education. Second, he is not afraid to ‘tell it like it is’. Few people will tell another person that their question is silly and then explain why in a logical, reasoned way, rather than simply provide an alternative opinion. Fensham’s contribution to the issue of gender in science education was topical in the

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