Abstracts - Earli

Enculturation and the apparent incompatibility of religion and the theory of evolutionMariska Schilders, Fontys University of Professional Education, NetherlandsKerst Boersma, Centre for Science and Mathematics Education, NetherlandsPeter Sloep, Fontys University of Professional Education, NetherlandsEvolution is one of the central and structuring themes in biology yet some students are reluctant toaccept the notion of evolution because they feel it contradicts their religious beliefs. Enculturationin the culture of biology as represented in education could cause conflicts, since the concept ofevolution has different meanings in a daily life culture and in the culture of biological education orresearch. Therefore, a learning and teaching strategy was developed to facilitate students andteachers to discuss in meaningful and productive ways their knowledge on evolution in their dailylives and within the culture of the biology classroom. Design research was used to develop andexamine the learning and teaching strategy. The first version of the strategy was developed on thebasis of a review of literature and an empirical preliminary investigation. Learning and teachingmaterials were developed in close cooperation with teachers. These materials were tested indifferent classrooms. The findings of this first cycle of developing and testing leads to a revisionof the learning and teaching strategy that will be retested in a second and third cycle; etc.Empirical findings from a preliminary investigation on the first learning and teaching strategyindicate that it is important to explain the different positions towards evolution and religion, inorder to show the variety of opinions present in our society. Besides, it appears important toexplain the difference between scientific arguments, religious argument, and non-scientificarguments, in order to teach students that religious arguments are not used in the scientific culturebut only in their daily life. To address their daily life culture it seems necessary that studentsexplore and substantiate their own philosophies towards evolution and religion; to that end theyneed to learn to use scientific and (when present) non-scientific arguments to justify their positionChanges in the meaning of mathematical correctness during the enculturation of graduatestudents in physics: conflicts and tensionsMario Natiello, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Lund University, SwedenHernan Solari, Departamento de Fisica, Facultad de Ciencias Exact, ArgentinaThe starting point of our research is the detection of a small but relevant and alarming, frequencyof reviewed works published in high standard journals of physics that present "evident" (basic) andinvalidating mathematical mistakes. Such mistakes go unnoticed by referees and even worse; theseworks are subsequently quoted as correct results by other practitioners. We interpret this as anindication that problems arise along the enculturation of science students and in the way some subcommunitiesof physicists use mathematics. By "evident" we mean that science students areinstructed in the use of simple metacognitive tests to detect such basic errors. Our thesis is thatduring enculturation of science students, the notion of what is mathematically correct, and what isnot, is adapted to the practice within a local group, effectively producing blind spots andcontradicting earlier learning in mathematics. The implementation goes in part through a hiddencurriculum: The "official view" of what is mathematically correct remains essentially unmodified,but "in practice" different criteria become dominant. This process, which does not stay completelyunnoticed by the students, is a source of conflict since the social condition of the graduate studentsin the scientific culture makes critical-independent thinking a high-risk policy. We explored thefeatures of this process by asking a small group or (anonymous) Ph D students in science andengineering all over the world. Unexpectedly, the study reveals that, with respect to correctness,the enculturation process is facilitated by "early authoritarism" (truth descends from authority) ingraduate courses. We show some evidence of attempts by "local" groups (focalised sub-– 162 –