Wm. Roth et T. Alexander, THE INTERACTION OF STUDENTS SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS DISCOURSES - 2 CASE-STUDIES, International journal of science education, 19(2), 1997, pp. 125-146
When students come to school they often bring understandings which act
ively interfere with the curriculum offered by the formal educational
setting. Although the discourses of science and religion have often be
en incommensurable at the institutional level, religious discourse has
rarely been studied as a potential interference with the learning of
scientific discourse at the individual level. In a two-year study with
23 students we identified different interpretive repertoires on which
pupils draw to talk in sometimes contradictory ways about controversi
al issues such as abortion, euthanasia and the origins of humankind. T
hese contradictions may interfere with students' science learning. We
illustrate in detail two students' scientific and religious discourses
.