Using ICTs as a pedagogical resource to facilitate epistemological access in science with teacher education students

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate the kind of knowledge privileged when student teachers use Information Communication Technologies in facilitating learning in science subjects. The assumptions were that future student teachers, through their pedagogic practices, may either reproduce or interrupt educational inequalities. The ability to interrupt inequalities is conditioned by the manner in which these student teachers have been inducted into the field of teacher education and this process includes the ability to manipulate technological resources to facilitate epistemological access. This concept originally coined by Morrow in the 1980s looked at black students seeking entry to university. Since then the concept was used to signify the importance of knowledge in the curriculum. In this study, the exploration of epistemological access goes beyond physical or formal access and includes meaningful access to knowledge. The semantics dimension of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) proposed by Maton was used, with a particular focus on semantic density (SD) as a theoretical framework. Maton argues that semantic density can vary across teaching practices and contexts. The study assumes that student teachers, through their pedagogic practices, may either reproduce or interrupt educational inequalities