Abstract

In the current US educational world—obsessed with accountability, measurement and testing—allocating responsibility for intellectual activity in school science can be problematic. While science education promotes "hands-on" learning and "lab work" that typically occur in a group context, many curriculum units also require students to represent their experiences as solitary, individual, and private. The data for this paper are drawn from a video ethnography of diverse middle school students experiencing a curriculum unit on Motion and Force. The analysis shows that since the curriculum unit "addresses" the students as individuals but requires them to act in groups, they must learn to systematically erase the role of the group at strategic moments required by the curriculum. The reasons for this situation are linked not only to federal policies, but widespread theories of learning in the field of education.

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