Developing a deeper involvement with science: Keith's story

Much research in science education has focused on the conflicts that exist between individuals' ways of knowing the world and science. We have been left without an image of the compatibility or congruency that is necessary for science to occupy a fundamental position in a person's life. In this study we argue that Keith, a Jamaican American pre-service teacher, provides us with such an image. Using narrative, we trace the development of Keith's relationship with science over time and space in order to understand how Keith has constructed an identity through science amid the larger structures and contexts that comprise his life. We believe Keith's stories of practicing science in and out of the classroom illustrate how science, while taking an essential position in his lifeworld, extends and articulates Keith's subjective stances on experience. As part of his lifeworld, Keith finds a sense of value in science that turns it into a discipline that is part of the person he both is and wants to be and the world he wants to shape as a teacher.