Girls, science and epistemology: A societal approach

This study examines the ways in which girls' personal epistemologies are applied and modulated in relationship with scientific disciplinary epistemology in the context of their early science learning. The research takes a societal approach, assuming that both girls' reasoning and scientific disciplinary epistemology are socially constituted, emphasizing the role of gendered discourses, realities and experiences in the construction of girls' subjectivities and disciplinary epistemology.;Initially, three research scientists were interviewed to provide a naturalized understanding of scientific disciplinary epistemology. Subsequently, over the course of spring semester, seven ninth-grade girls from a small middle-class town participated in a series of in-depth interviews about their reasoning in scientific contexts. The focus of the interview analysis is two-fold. Possible points of connection and contention are examined between the ways in which girls deploy their personal epistemologies and scientific disciplinary epistemology. Individual profiles of each girl are also developed, describing patterns and tensions in her reasoning.;This study reveals the intersection between personal and disciplinary epistemology as a productive area for research, and further, shows that examining societal context and personal epistemologies provides new insight into the issues facing girls learning science. Results suggest that there are both significant disjuncts and points of connection between these girls' personal epistemologies and scientific disciplinary epistemology. In particular, the personal understandings of knowledge as perspectival and the role of experience as providing frameworks for thinking which were shown by the girls in this study could be meaningfully used in conjunction with contemporary trends in philosophy of science to enhance understanding of science and scientific disciplinary epistemology.