genetic engineering education and citizenship in tunisia

GENETIC ENGINEERING EDUCATION AND
CITIZENSHIP IN TUNISIA
Wided OUESLATI1, Laurence SIMONNEAUX 2 Atf AZZOUNA 1
1
Institut Supérieur de l’Education et de la Formation Continue, Tunis
2
ENFA Toulouse
Abstract: This study focuses on a particularly "hot" scientific topic, genetic engineering.
This cross- cutting science technology is rolling continuously. It is situated in the crossroads
of three big fields of research: the STS, the SSI and the QSSV. Its uncertain implications
give rise to heated discussions on the research, media and society level. This is why
special attention should be given to ways of putting into practice didactic strategies
appropriate to this type of knowledge. Considering the teacher’s role in the educational
process and the management of the relation knowledge-student, we focus on Tunisian
professors' practices in authentic class situations. Through the analysis of the classes and that
of the exchanges between teachers and students we try to determine if the subject matter and
the way it is taught would allow for the development of the personality and the education of
the Tunisian students’ as a citizen. However we succeeded to show that the management of
the knowledge to be taught by the observed professors doesn’t promote this type of
education and isn’t in adequacy with the nature of this scientific topic.
Keywords: genetic engineering- Tunisian professors’ practices- authentic class situationscitizenship
THEORETICAL APPROACH
The teacher has a major role in the teaching/training process. He determines the relationship
between the student and knowledge. He organizes the contents of the course and follows the
appropriate didactic strategies. This makes his task complex and delicate especially when it
deals with a yet unfinished knowledge and social topics such as genetic engineering.
However, in this process, the shifts cannot be excluded, the teacher being a complex person
with emotions and representations rooted in his individual and social history. He is present in
the didactic situation with his own ideology and his private representations (Joshua & Dupin,
1993).This could have an effect on his way of acting in the classroom, on the processing of
the contents to be taught, on his way of interacting with the pupils and thus on their
performances. In this regard, the science didactic research showed that the teacher’s influence
on the pupils’ performances is more important than that of the textbooks or teaching strategies
(Welch, 1969 quoted by Simonneaux, 2005).
Moreover, the intellectual tools for constructing knowledge are acquired through verbal
exchanges. The language plays an important mediating role in the learning process and the
teacher occupies a major position in the organization, the management and the dynamics of
the interaction in the classroom. In this perspective, several studies have been directed
towards the analysis of the dialogue between teacher and student, in the didactic situation.
Rogalski (2006) shows that the piloting of the class is essentially made through the speech of
the teacher ; Sarrazy (2001) underlines the role of the didactic interactions of the professor in
the process of teaching and the functions which they assure the advancement of the
knowledge.; Mortimer and Scott ( 2003 ) show that the students’ learning process is
influenced by the structure of the speech in class ; others provide that the outline and the
contents of the interactions allow to report and to differentiate the practices of the teachers
(Dunkhin and Biddle, on 1974; Altet and al ., 1996, quoted by Clanet, 2005) …
Consequently, we decided to study the didactic practices of Tunisian teachers through their
verbal interactions with the students and their contents processing of the knowledge to be
taught. We speak of didactic practices as far as they aim directly at the genetic engineering
teaching / learning. Our main research question is the following:
Do the proposed contents, their management by the professors, the structure of the
joint action between the professors and the students, and the communicative
approach(s) adopted by the teachers, contribute to the education of future citizens?
METHODOLOGY
We observed and audio recorded eight natural science teachers in real situations while
teaching genetic engineering in the final year of the high school. The recordings were entirely
transcribed.
We opted for a multi-referenced analysis in details, as far as the crossing of the various
approaches could enlighten us more on the didactic practices of the teachers and the real
curriculum in class. Our analysis contains three levels:
The macroscopic level: cutting the corpus in steps to follow the
dynamics of the teaching process, to reflect different themes as they
progress and to develop an overall frame of the lesson.
The mesoscopic level: cutting the steps in didactic games to
determine a synopsis for every session of the course. The various
realized “games” are described to compare the contents processing by
various teachers.
The microscopic level: it contains three steps:
*First, determining the structure of the joint-action (professors-students) by analyzing the
management of the chrono, meso and topo geneses by the teachers (Sensevy, 2007;
Schubauer-Leoni & al. 2007).
*Then, characterizing every didactic “game” by using the quadruplet: definition, regulation,
devolution, institution knowledge (Brousseau, 1986);
*Finally, analyzing the games according to the communicative approach which is particularly
centered on the discursive practices of the teacher (Scott and Mortimer, on 2003).
We limit ourselves, in this presentation, to the méso and microscopic levels. We study the
contents processing of the knowledge to teach as well as the data obtained from the three
analytical approaches quoted above.
We postulate that this type of analysis would favor a complementarity between the various
approaches and would allow to report the way according to which the observed teachers
manage the development of the teaching/learning process and interact with their pupils.
RESULTS
The results obtained are:
*In the mesoscopic level
1. The genetic engineering applications are not handled by all the teachers.
2. The ones that are mostly brought up are those with medical purpose. They are perceived
only according to their positive aspects.
3. The observed teachers handle neither the social stakes of the genetic engineering
knowledge, nor its limits, nor the repercussions of its applications.
*In the microscopic level
1- Determining the structure of the joint action (teacher-student) shows that the management
of chrono, meso and topogeneses is operated by the teacher. He positions himself as a
regulator of knowledge. He holds a position based on the development of scientific
knowledge and advanced didactic time.
2- Characterizing the games according to the quadruplet of Brousseau (1986) shows that the
tasks are rarely defined and never devolved to the students. Besides, the teacher is the one to
regulate the knowledge construction.
3- The communicative approach confirms the results obtained from both previous analyses. It
reveals certain constants in the management of the knowledge by the teachers:
- Dominance of the exchange patterns from types (Question-Answer) and (Question-AnswerEvaluation) piloted only by the teacher. He is the only one to initiate questions.
- Dominance of an authoritative pseudo interactive or non interactive model, where the
teachers position themselves as administrators of the activities. They students are not involved
in the knowledge construction. This does not prepare them for citizenship. These teachers
focus on the development of the scientific knowledge and even if they are sometimes
interacting, these interactions are pseudo interactions to advance the didactic time.
- The dialogical model is almost absent.
CONCLUSIONS
Finally, we can conclude that the contents proposed by the teachers become integrated into a
descriptive approach of the genetic engineering techniques, disregarding its multiple
applications and social implications of this QSSV.
The dominance of the authoritarian approaches (interactive or not interactive) observed at the
teachers end, as well as the carriage they adopt don’t involve the student in the teaching /
learning process.
We think that discussions held in class about QSSV could increase the interaction between the
teacher and the students. This would help moving away from authoritative/non-interactive
postures towards a communicative model more emancipated, responding to a
dialogical/interactive approach and taking into account the diversity of the students' ideas and
their conflicting points of view. Feeling involved in the process of building the knowledge the
students will be more motivated to address and discuss issues of broad scientific interest.
Thus we could contribute to the education of capable and informed future-citizens: “to
develop a clear opinion regarding these questions, to be able to make choices in terms of
prevention, action… and to be able to discuss them.” (Simonneaux, 2010, p. )
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