III. Girls in Primary School Science Classrooms: Theorizing Beyond Dominant
Discourses of Gender
Cleti Cervoni, Ed.D.
Associate Professor of Education
Coordinator, Graduate Science Education Program
Salem State College
Salem, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
This paper explores the ways girls in contemporary classrooms appropriate gender
through actions, gesture and talk to achieve things in primary school science. It draws on
socio-cultural approaches to show that when everyday classroom practices are viewed
from multiple planes of analysis (Ivinson and Murphy, 2007; Rogoff, 1995, 2003) gender
comes into view in a variety of ways and not only via dominant discourses. In particular,
we show how artifacts, tools, activities, and discourses act as mediational means that
carry gender values into classrooms and set up spaces which give girls and boys
differential access to the socio cultural resources of science. The paper suggests how
teachers can work with gender to open up new spaces in primary science classrooms for
girls; this remains a priority irrespective of the contemporary anxieties around boys’
achievement if girls are to grow up feeling that science is a legitimate arena in which to
participate.