The Scientist in Fiction Elizabeth Delaney
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The Scientist in Fiction How Do Primary School Children Engage with Fictional Representations of Science and Scientists? Elizabeth Delaney A thesis submitted to the University of Huddersfield in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Huddersfield June 2018 Copyright statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns any copyright in it (the "Copyright") and she has given The University of Huddersfield the right to use such copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts, may be made only in accordance with the regulations of the University Library. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of any patents, designs, trademarks and any and all other intellectual property rights except for the Copyright (the "Intellectual Property Rights") and any reproductions of copyright works, for example graphs and tables ("Reproductions"), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property Rights and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property Rights and/or Reproductions. 2 "Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact." Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996) 3 Abstract Although for decades attempts have been made to persuade young people toward careers in science, there still exists a global shortage of science and engineering graduates. As there is growing evidence to suggest that young children's early childhood experiences can influence career choices, this research explores how primary school children's engagement with fictional representations of science and scientists may be shaping their perceptions of the same. In this regard, the research seeks to frame interventions, using stories, to encourage more positive impressions of a life in science. The qualitative methodology draws upon reader response theory wherein the reader is positioned as the maker of meaning for any text; and also upon the associated theory of interpretive communities which acknowledges that the ways in which the reader comes to create/recreate meaning are drawn from the interpretive communities to which she or he belongs. The research engaged 46 primary school children, 9-10 years of age, from two Year 5 cohorts, over two years, in a school in the North of England. By writing, reading, sharing and discussing their own and others' stories about science and scientists, the children were encouraged via two unstructured and four semi-structured group interviews to share their thoughts and ideas about their own and others' fictional scientists, and about how they felt those ideas related to real scientists in the real world. The children's words were transcribed, thematically coded and analysed, and emerging themes further explored. The children felt that 'being a scientist' presents a lonely and unhappy landscape, devoid of friends or family, as one's life remains dedicated to the pursuit of doing good in the world at the expense of one's own happiness. They felt, too, that 'doing science' for a living is a lot of work, dangerous and can even kill you and, although the children felt that it isn't particularly intellectually difficult work, it is still something that 'other people', smarter or more maths-oriented people, do. Primary school children do not think about putting science and scientists into stories – and they are never asked to do so. When asked, specifically, to write a story within which at least one character has to be a scientist, the aesthetic as opposed to efferent stance with which the children re/create their texts, precipitates unique de/reconstructions and re/creations of meaning with respect to not only what it might mean to do fantastic fictional science and be a fantastic fictional scientist but with respect to what it might mean to do real science and be a real scientist, too. When asked to share their stories about science and scientists, the children, by calling into being texts re/created by others as well as themselves, re/create and re/generate – both as authors and as readers from within their own unique interpretive communities – fresh cascades of fluid meaning about both fictional and real science and scientists. If we wish to persuade more young people toward careers in science and engineering, we could harness this phenomenon: in encouraging children to re/generate cascades of de/reconstructions and re/creations of meaning about science and scientists, the identity that is 'scientist' will come to be de/reconstructed many times, as will the identity of the child herself or himself in 4 association with the same; and if ideas about one's life design begin in childhood, any interventions developed in order to encourage young people toward a life in science might best be employed, therefore, at primary school. Hence, the first intervention is a reflection of the research itself, wherein, using their own unique aesthetic transactional stance, children are given the opportunity – that is, they are specifically asked – to create, share and discuss their own and others' stories about science and scientists. The children, thereby, will call into being myriad cascades of fresh, unique, fluid meaning about doing fictional and real science and about being fictional and real scientists – meaning that, otherwise, would never occur. The second intervention – requested, in part, by the children themselves – engages both an aesthetic and an efferent transactional stance simultaneously. As long as fictional (literary) stories about science and scientists are rare, more are needed. These stories, however, besides being aesthetically pleasing should also embrace an efferent informational stance; that is, the children felt that if fictional stories about science and scientists incorporated some real science, they might be more inclined to engage with the same and might re/consider the idea of being a real scientist doing real science in the real world. In both these interventions, because the children clearly understood the fictional evil or mad scientist to be a story trope, the Scientist in Fiction – the character that is the evil or mad scientist – should remain as she or he already is as their raisons d'être lie entirely in the making of the type of fun or funny, exciting and entertaining stories that the children are interested in reading. 5 Table of Contents Abstract 4 List of Figures 12 Chapter 1 – Context and Aims of the Research 13 Introduction 13 Social and Political Context 16 Highlighting the Concern about Science Education 16 Shortage of STEM Graduates and Technicians 17 Earlier in the STEM pipeline: GCSE and A Level Candidates 18 Earlier Still in the STEM Pipeline: Primary School Science 19 The 'Leaky' Pipeline – or Gender Filter 22 Lifespan Career Development of Children 26 Discovering The Gap in Knowledge 27 A Means of Engagement 29 Consolidating the Means of Engagement 32 Children's Own Imaginations 32 Reading and the Plasticity of the Brain 32 Pilot Project 33 Science and Scientists in Municipal Children's Fiction 35 The Gap in Knowledge 36 Bridging the Gap 40 An Original Contribution to Knowledge 41 Conclusion 43 The Aims of the Research 43 Chapter 2 – Reality, Fiction and the Text 46 Introduction 46 Fiction and Reality 47 The Construction of the Real and the Fictional Scientist 49 The Construction of the Scientist Within the Theoretical Framework 49 6 The Scientist in Fiction 50 The Image of the Fictional Scientist 50 The Image of the Real Scientist 51 The Persistent Perception 52 High School Students 53 Elementary/Primary School Students 54 Children's Fiction and the Text 56 The Text 58 The Text As In Itself It Really Is 58 The Death of the Author 59 The Reader as Maker of Meaning 61 Conclusion 62 Looking to Reader Response Theory 63 Chapter 3 – Theoretical Framework 65 Introduction 65 Reader Response Theory 66 Interpretive Communities 70 Children as Readers within the Theoretical Framework 71 The Development of the Child Within the Theoretical Framework 73 Classic Theories of Cognitive Development and the Theoretical Framework 75 Nature versus Nurture: Are Scientists Born or Made? 77 Conclusion 81 Chapter 4 – Methodology 82 Introduction 82 Ontological and Epistemological Position of the Research 83 Children's Awareness of Their Own Ontological Position 86 Methodological Coherence 88 Data Collection – a Qualitative Approach 88 Data Analysis – an Interpretative Approach 90 Thematic Analysis 92 7 Foundational Thematic Analysis 92 An Inductive Approach 94 Conclusion 94 Chapter 5 – Method 96 Introduction 96 The Participants 96 Cohort 2011 97 Cohort 2012 97 Ethics 98 Children's Well-Being and Safety 98 Parent, Guardian or Carer Consent 100 Deception and Subterfuge 101 Children's Consent 102 Mindfulness 103 Data Collection 104 Unstructured and Semi-Structured Group Interviews 105 Development of the Research Instrument 107 The Drafting and Standard of the Literature 113 Thematic Coding and Analysis 115 The Coding and Analysis of the Data 115 Respecting the Text 117 Deductive (Theory-Driven) Top Down Analysis 118 Inductive (Data-Driven) Bottom Up Analysis 124 Validity,