Article

Science Education in Contemporary Education Dialogue

15(2) 1–23
India and Feminist © 2018 Education Dialogue Trust
SAGE Publications
Critiques of Science sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0973184918781212
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ced

Deepika Bansal1

Abstract
The ‘liberal’ feminist perspective on science problematises the presence
of fewer women than men in science and believes that increasing their
number would qualify as social change. On the other hand, ‘radical’
critics of modern science argue that science has been deeply involved
in the creation, strengthening and subversion of gender inequalities.
The liberal strand is much more amenable to direct interventions and
aligns well with current educational reforms. But the fundamental
questions about science and science education that are raised by the
radical strand not just evade agreement, but they also do not lead
easily to direct educational implications. In this article, I show that an
engagement with these perspectives offers us a chance to reflect on
our society, on the place of science in it, and on the role of science
education in mediating between science and society. This reflection
further encourages us to rethink and reorganise science and science
education so that they are more mindful of the gender and other kinds
of power dynamics in our society.

Keywords
Feminist criticisms of science, science education, gender and science,
feminism and science education, feminism and science

1
Department of Education, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India.

Corresponding author:
Deepika Bansal, Department of Education, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India.
E-mail: deebans.88@gmail.com
2 Contemporary Education Dialogue 15(2)

Feminists have articulated different positions on the various gender-

based forms of oppression that have characterised modern scientific
endeavour. Most contemporary societies have taken note of the paltry
numbers of women in science. But feminist critiques of a more funda-
mental order that challenge both the foundation and the edifice of science
have not been heeded much in the educational discourses of these societies.
In this article, I argue that although current educational reforms are
certainly progressive and correspond with an important strand of feminist
perspectives on science, they are not sufficient. Educators and educa-
tionists need to engage with feminist criticisms more effectively to
bring about a change in science and, concomitantly, in society. I begin
by briefly charting the history of feminist thought on science. I then
describe the similarities between current educational reforms and (liberal)
feminist prescriptions for science education. Later, I show that extant
developments are not enough for addressing the issues of gender in
science and underscore the need to engage with feminist appraisals of
science that are cognisant of postcolonial issues and postmodern sensi-
bilities if the ultimate goal is to have a science and a society that is
neither oppressive nor regressive.

Charting the Territory of Feminist Critiques

of Science
Feminist thinking on the sciences has produced an exciting range of
critical ideas and analytic approaches. Feminist writing on the sciences
began to appear in the mid-1970s when scientists who were associated
with the women’s movement began to notice omissions and distortions
related to gender and the female sex in their respective areas of expertise
and study.1 But some historians mark the publication of Carolyn
Merchant’s book The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific
Revolution in 1980 as the origin of feminist science studies as a field of
systematic inquiry after which the contributions became more regular
rather than sporadic (Schiebinger, 2003). Indeed, the overwhelming
predominance of men in science had been acknowledged as an issue
even as early as the fifteenth century by the Italian author Christine de
Pizan (Schiebinger, 1991).2 Nonetheless, Merchant’s book provided an
ecological feminist critique of science of an order that had not existed
earlier. She argued that modern science can be characterised by its espousal
of the mechanistic worldview in which nature, earlier regarded as vital and
Bansal 3

living, was turned into a lifeless machine. This worldview coupled with the
pervasive likening of nature to women fostered an attitude of control and
domination towards both nature and women (from Fehr, 2004).

Women in Science
Most feminist science studies scholars differentiate between women in
science issues, on the one hand, and gender and science issues, on the
other (Hammonds & Subramaniam, 2003; Harding, 1989; Mayberry,
1998). Research on women in science mainly focuses on the problem-
atic of meagre numbers of women science practitioners in the history of
science and their current numbers and status. This is the most popular
(and least controversial) strand of feminist criticisms of the natural
sciences. Studies in India and in other countries document factors pre-
venting women from pursuing science professionally (refer Bal, 2005;
Gupta & Sharma, 2002; Gupta, Kemelgor, Fuchs & Etzkowitz, 2005;
Subrahmanyan, 1998). These studies have established that despite some
local variations, the gender gap in science cuts across diverse cultures. Among
the most common problems that women scientists face are pervasive-
gendered expectations that domestic chores are a woman’s responsibility,
hostile and alienating structures and cultures of scientific institutions,
and exclusion from highly useful social (informal) networks that are
always dominated by men. Some theorists have referred to this as the
triple burden, which induces a ‘surplus of anxiety’ (Gupta et al., 2005,
p. 1383), borne by women scientists, in addition to other factors such as
the pressure to obtain funds, produce results and gain recognition that
afflict men scientists as well.
Feminist historical studies have recovered the roles and contributions
of a significant number of women who were ignored by conventional
histories of science, thereby producing evidence of women’s participa-
tion in the scientific practice, often in the face of stiff resistance.
Investigations into the personal and external circumstances of these
women of science show that family relations and class positions both
enhanced and inhibited their progress in science (Kohlstedt & Longino,
1997; Schiebinger, 1991). Helena Pycior has argued that ‘had Marie
Curie not married Pierre in 1895, she would quite possibly have had no
scientific career of note’ (Pycior, 1993, p. 303). Pierre Curie’s experi-
ence, reputation and good track record as a scientist and as a collaborator
prevented Marie Curie from being lost in obscurity. At the same time,
4 Contemporary Education Dialogue 15(2)

despite publishing independent and joint papers (with Pierre Curie),

her prominence in the French scientific community and the public recog-
nition she received from international scientists did not equal those of
her husband’s. The father of nuclear physics, Ernest Rutherford, in his
initial publications on radioactivity repeatedly referred to their joint pub-
lications by the singular ‘Curie’ as if there were just one scientist by that
name, and refused to credit Marie Curie for her independent discoveries,
instead citing another male scientist who had discovered the same
phenomenon separately.
Given the prevalence of the gender gap in science, Margaret Rossiter
developed a model to explain the employment status of, and professional
opportunities for, women and other minority groups in science (Rossiter,
1978). She extended Henry Menard’s (1971) model for explaining the
career advancement of scientists in relation to the growth rate of their
discipline to the Menard–Rossiter model to account for the status and
participation of women in science. Based on the percentage of women in
a particular scientific field and the growth rate of that field during 1920–38,
Rossiter noted that married women were a ‘safety valve’ (first fired, last
hired) in the American scientific labour market in the 1930s (ibid., p. 149).
Rapidly growing fields, with a shortage of highly qualified people, would
tolerate women and other minorities, whereas those that were already
crowded and were almost stagnant laid women off, especially married
women, first. Hence, on the one hand, marriage provided these women
opportunities for collaboration and for obtaining fellowships to work with
their partners. On the other hand, marriage rendered them more vulnerable
in formal employment because men with families were understood to
have first claims to any available jobs.
To understand the emergence of this problem, some historians of
science have examined the social and intellectual climate of the institu-
tionalisation of science in modern and early modern Europe using gender
as a category of analysis. Investigations into the professionalisation of
science have shown that what counts as science at a given time and place
is influenced by the gender ideologies of that historical moment. Fields
and occupations such as midwifery and family nutrition were bracketed
from professional science because these were practised largely by women
and were directed at family care and women’s health, both of which were
primarily women’s concerns (Schiebinger, 1991). Professional codes of
conduct in middle-class scientific life in the nineteenth century were
directly borrowed from traditional aristocratic codes of honour for men
prevalent in the Middle Ages. Qualities such as assertiveness, and a will-
ingness and ability to engage in violence, and practices such as smoking,
Bansal 5

drinking and engaging in profanity in male-only circles and clubs,

actively discouraged women from participating in science even when
there were no legal barriers to their entry (Nye, 1997).

Gender and Science

These inquiries into human actors and the contexts of their participation
in science have been accompanied by more general analyses of science
through feminist lens (or lenses). Critiques of such kinds are usually
bracketed as ‘gender and science’ scholarship. They go beyond the num-
ber issue and investigate different aspects of science, such as its culture,
theories, methodology and epistemology as these are understood tradi-
tionally. The insight that unites diverse critiques of this kind is that science
is a social, political and, more specifically, a gendered institution (Wylie,
Okruhlik, Thielen-Wilson & Morton, 1989). Like any other mode of
obtaining knowledge, science or the scientific method bears the marks of
the political, economic, social, intellectual and religious climate in which
it originated. I will now discuss some of these critiques very briefly.
One, feminist scholars have exposed the ways in which gender
ideologies are incorporated and expressed at different stages of the logi-
cal and rational scientific work. Deciding on researchable topics, fram-
ing research questions, selecting research subjects and constructing a
scientific theory are some of the stages in the process of scientific knowl-
edge production in which the values of scientists have been shown to
enter. This has led us to conclude fairly that science is not as objective
and value-neutral as it has been made out to be (Koertge, 1980). Haraway
(1989) provides an often cited example of how the male-dominated field
of primatology in the 1970s provided a skewed account of the roles,
activities and behaviours of animals like baboons and chimpanzees.
She states that this happened as a direct consequence of considering only
male animals as adequate research subjects and focusing on the observa-
tion of just their behaviour in the wilderness. Subsequently, analysis of
the gathered data was carried out in terms of categories that characterise
human societies, leading to the superimposition of gendered roles and
behaviours on animal societies as well.
Two, the language of scientific knowledge production and dissemina-
tion has been examined to employ gendered images and metaphors to
theorise about ostensibly non-gendered subjects. The life sciences have
been a particularly fertile field in providing quite a few significant
6 Contemporary Education Dialogue 15(2)

instances of feminist analyses of this sort. Schiebinger (1993) has revealed

how metaphors steeped in androcentrism and heterosexuality found their
way into botanical taxonomy and explanatory models of plant reproduc-
tion that was posited by the celebrated eighteenth-century Swedish bota-
nist Carl Linnaeus. Another popular example is sexual reproduction in
humans wherein the sperm is described as aggressive, competitive and
profligate, and the egg is characterised as passive, reticent and discrimi-
nating (Martin, 1991), which is a clear case of reading the sperm as a
stereotypical man and the egg as a stereotypical woman.
Some feminist critics like Crasnow, Wylie, Bauchspies and Potter
(2015) and Harding (1991) find these analyses of scientific practice
and content methodologically and epistemically conservative. They con-
tend that systematic marginalisation of women and other groups have
resulted in a science that is distinctly male. Crasnow et al. (2015) state
that ‘framework assumptions like ontological commitments, explanatory
repertoire, conventional categories of description and analysis’ have
indeed been affected by the omission and distortion of women’s bodies,
attitudes and views in different aspects of science.
Strengthening this claim, some scholars have argued that the philo-
sophical views of the founding fathers of state-patronised societies of
science had serious consequences not just for women who wanted to
partake in scientific knowledge-making but also for how knowledge and
ways of achieving it were conceptualised (Keller, 1985; Kohlstedt &
Longino, 1997). As the Secretary of the newly founded Royal Society of
London for Improving Natural Knowledge, Henry Oldenburg had
announced in 1662 that the intention of the society was ‘to raise a
Masculine Philosophy … whereby the Mind of Man may be ennobled
with the knowledge of Solid Truths’ (as quoted in Keller, 1985, p. 52).
To this, Joseph Glanville, one of the chief propagandists of the Royal
Society, added that truth cannot be attained when ‘the Affections wear
the breeches and the Female rules’ (ibid., p. 53). Although associating
such views directly to the politics of sexual domination of that time
would be too simplistic, they do indicate that what was then regarded as
feminine was not to become a part of the new definitions of knowledge
and methods of knowledge production (Keller, 1985; Schiebinger, 1991).
The historical association of objectivity, reason and mind with
males, and that of subjectivity, feeling and nature with females, has
also been problematised. Scholars have challenged the pervasive rela-
tions of polarity and hierarchy between different categories that are
used to make sense of the world and to generate knowledge. Categories,
such as mind, body, nature, culture, reason and feelings, have been
Bansal 7

coupled and hierarchised, and these binaries of mind/body, culture/

nature, reason/feeling and transcendental/immanent have been mapped
onto the gender-based binary of male/female (Harding, 1986; Keller,
1985). These configurations of the fundamental categories of thought
emerged and were reified in a particular socio-historical setting. Such
knowledge allows us to appreciate that science, at any given time, has
witnessed a variety of ways of looking at, and thinking about, the
world. Feminist writings on ecological issues have argued that the
consequences of such a division of categories of thought have not only
been the exclusion of women from the practice of science but also the
making of a science that validates only certain kinds of interactions
with nature—interactions that use understanding as a means to manip-
ulate and to dominate (Shiva, 1988). The understanding thus sought
does not arise from a desire to respect but rather to subordinate nature
by knowing its secrets (Keller, 1985).
Going a step further from criticising extant science structures and
institutions, scholars like Helen Longino and Sandra Harding have pro-
posed what an appropriate feminist (re)vision of science should be like.
Their views proceed from an understanding that science is essentially a
human and a social endeavour, in which the values of practising scien-
tists and of their different communities inadvertently become a part of
the science they do. In her analysis, Helen Longino (1987) shows that
the distinction between contextual values (external to the sciences, i.e.,
personal, social, and cultural values) and constitutive values (internal to
the sciences, i.e., values determining the practice and methods of the
sciences) does not explain how even ‘good’ science can be value-laden.
She argues instead that these two kinds of values interact with each
other to produce science that cannot be value-free. Following this, she
suggests that since different scientists are likely to have different values,
beliefs and assumptions, a scientific community composed of practi-
tioners from different social locations would be a good resource for
preventing certain values from attaining dominant status. As a corollary,
such an arrangement must have practitioners from different races, classes
and genders to provide the lens(es) of difference that would help filter
the taken-for-granted assumptions of a particular group (Longino, 1990).
Sandra Harding addresses the concern about producing objective knowl-
edge in science by advocating what she calls ‘strong objectivity’. Striving
for ‘strong objectivity’ in scientific knowledge entails that the subject of
knowledge and the process through which knowledge is produced should
be scrutinised according to the same standards as the object of knowledge.
This requires a strong reflexivity through which contextual elements
8 Contemporary Education Dialogue 15(2)

that are a part of most decision-making steps in science are open to critical
evaluation (Harding, 1989). Harding also champions the postcolonial
feminist position and advocates that traditional conceptualisations of
modern science should be dethroned. Instead, each culture should
develop its own system of generating and organising knowledge about
the world and should resist the homogenising tendencies of Western
science (from Bartsch, 1999).

Feminist Science Criticism in India

If science is understood as a universal activity, then feminist appraisals of
it that emerged in advanced Western societies are equally valid in the post-
colonial context of India. The implication of modern science in oppressive
political, social and epistemological practices in India bred mistrust against
it among intellectuals during the 1980s. But the current research literature
in the field of feminist science studies almost invariably adopts and
advocates what Shah and Chadha (2011) call the ‘middle path’. Such a
position is cognisant of the historical origins and spread of science which
have shaped its current practice, and consequently the kinds of exclusions
to which science has lent support. At the same time, according to this
position, science is worth salvaging, and feminist theory and politics are
seen as championing the cause of ‘reconstructing’ science after its now
sufficiently satisfactory deconstruction (Subramaniam, 2009).
Although this attitude to issues of feminism and science in India is
more or less accepted, there are some interesting nuances in the posi-
tions taken by different commentators. On the one hand, practising
women scientists have disavowed the idea that their feminism (or their
gender) affects, in any way, the ways in which they collect and handle
data, but they do recognise that scientific practices ought to be ‘culturally
sensitive’ and that feminist theories and research should be incorporated
at least in those fields of science that deal directly with human subjects
(Chadha, Krishna & Tripathi, 2017; Krishna, 2017; Rao, 2017). On the
other hand, scholars who work in the social sciences and the humanities
after completing advanced training and education in the natural sciences
tend to project a more ‘radical’ image of science. They agree with their
Western and other social-science counterparts that modern science—
and its methods, beliefs and attitudes—is deeply embedded in structures
of misogyny and patriarchy. For them, the social location of a scientist
Bansal 9

is as important a factor as their scientific training in determining how a

scientist conducts their research (Shah & Vellanki, 2015; Subramanian,
2017). Their challenge to the extant dynamics and processes of scien-
tific knowledge production stems from their own experiences in scien-
tific institutions which were invariably characterised by feelings of
distance and separation, and marked by a constant struggle to prove
their worth.
Another characteristic feature of Indian feminist writing on science is
an acknowledgement that both modern science and traditional practice
are embedded in the politics of exclusion and inclusion (Achuthan, 2017;
Krishna, 2017; Mahadevan, 2017). Scholars have pointed out that the
practices of midwifery, soil and water management, and animal hus-
bandry have been performed by women primarily in most parts of India.
These women have accumulated knowledge over the generations from
their experience and their ‘informal’ networks of kinship and village
community (Gopal, 2017; Kelkar, 2017; Ramdas, 2015). But they lament
the fact that modern science and/or scientific knowledge now comes to
them through the conduit of ‘professionals’ and ‘experts’ who are pre-
dominantly men with no prior experience of engaging in such activities,
and who have a condescending attitude towards their female ‘subjects’
and their indigenous knowledge. These writings also direct our attention
to the blind spots of feminist movements and scholarship in India,
wherein concerted calls for addressing issues of gender bias in scientific
institutions and for having ‘women water professionals’ have not been
made (Kulkarni, 2015; Kurup, 2017).
Therefore, the crucial task for both feminist theory and practice is to
grasp and respond to this challenge adequately. Scholars who have
engaged with the issues of gender and science in India have reformulated
theories of science and scientific knowledge that have been developed
by feminist scholars in other societies. Powerful philosophical ideas like
contextual empiricism (proposed by Helen Longino) and feminist stand-
point epistemology (posited by Sandra Harding, among others) have
been rethought keeping in mind other factors that determine a person’s
social location in India such as caste, class, religion, language and region.
The concerns of disability, class, race and ethnicity are more or less
global, and hence figure in these reformulations as well.
Kanchana Mahadevan’s ‘postcolonial reflections’ on Longino’s theory
of contextual empiricism raise some important questions about the validity
of the latter in postcolonial contexts which have traditional local knowl-
edge systems—either thriving or appropriated or erased by the colonial
10 Contemporary Education Dialogue 15(2)

encounter (Mahadevan, 2017). Understanding Longino as saying that

the ‘local is feminist and emancipatory’ (ibid., p. 15), Mahadevan con-
tends that complexities and hierarchies of local knowledge actually
betray this notion. Arguing in the context of the misuse of prenatal diag-
nosis technology in India, she affirms that all that is local and traditional
is not always progressive. Although she appreciates Longino’s move to
replace the individual inquirer by a community of inquirers, Mahadevan
also cautions that in order for different voices to exist in science, local
values and practices should be filtered through, and subjected to, the
feminist critique.
Asha Achuthan (2017) explores the possibilities for feminist stand-
point epistemology in India against the background of her experiences
as a medical practitioner and as a researcher interacting with a group of
‘traditional birth attendants’ or dais in rural West Bengal. She acknowl-
edges that modern knowledge systems do not accommodate the perspec-
tives offered by women’s lives and proposes that a feminist standpoint
epistemology could begin to remedy this situation. Bringing the two
stalwarts of feminist theories on science—Donna Haraway and Sandra
Harding—together, she argues that a feminist standpoint is ‘a transient
possession’ which is always in a state of flux, both overlapping with,
and staying separate from, standpoints that other communities of expe-
rience accord to their members. Experience, in Achuthan’s account,
assumes paramount significance in bringing the two sides of any binary
together so that they can move towards a common (universal) under-
standing and knowledge while being aware of their different registers
and positions.
The issues of gender and science are also slowly being addressed in
the field of education. Raveendran and Chunawala (2015) carried out
feminist analyses of secondary school biology textbooks in India that
were published after the implementation of the National Curriculum
Framework (NCF) 2005. They found that the textbook chapters pro-
moted androcentric values, reflected the masculine–positivist–reduc-
tionist discourse on science, and supported technological choices that
pose a risk to the woman’s body. Other scholars have experimented
with teaching feminist approaches to science to diverse groups of
students. Shah and Chadha (2011) introduced a course on feminist
science studies in a social-science research institution and report promising
results, with some students showing sustained interest in the field.
Ravindran (2015) discusses the complexities involved in making medi-
cal professionals, and medical education in general, gender-sensitive.
Bansal 11

Given ample evidence of pervasive gender biases in medical textbooks

and in approaches to teaching medicine, such an experiment could not
have come at a more opportune moment. Mina Swaminathan’s (2015)
attempt to sensitise practising scientists to gender issues met with
resistance, akin to the concerns raised by feminist scholars in American
research institutions as well (Baker, Shulman & Tobin, 2001; Kinsman,
2001). Such studies reaffirm that vast and deep differences in the lan-
guages and cultures of the natural sciences and the social sciences act
as an impenetrable wall between the two domains of knowledge that
thwarts all efforts to bring them into meaningful conversations with
each other.
The insights offered by these feminist perspectives and the interven-
tions they have inspired thus far pave the way towards a better science
and a better society. But as these insights and experiments also testify,
both the projects—of improving science and of improving society—are
contingent on a much improved system of education, particularly that of
science education. We can readily note some positive measures that have
been taken. Institutions at both the school and higher education levels are
showing interest in promoting girls’ education and their participation in
science. The Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, 2013 of
the Government of India mentions ‘gender-parity’ as one of its goals.
Funding agencies like the University Grants Commission and the
Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India have
instituted special fellowships and grants for women science students and
women scientists. At the level of school education, there seems to be a
common belief that providing an ideal constructivist science classroom
should do the trick. But I believe that such measures can take us only so
far. The issue is more fundamental than just getting girls and students
from other marginalised groups to excel in a field dominated by persons
who have occupied socially advantageous positions historically. What
science education needs is a more thorough engagement with feminist
critiques to bring about any meaningful change that is reflected in not
just who is doing science but also in how science is done and what sci-
ence is. In the following section, I will show that current educational
reforms that have been promoted as part of efforts aimed at making
learning child-centred are certainly a step in the right direction. I shall do
so by indicating the similarities they share with other feminist-inspired
curricular reforms. I will argue that such efforts are not enough, how-
ever, and that we need to fashion a science education that weaves into its
very fabric feminist theories about science as well.
12 Contemporary Education Dialogue 15(2)

Feminist Critiques of Science and

Science Education
As discussed above, feminists have expressed a variety of views on
science. These range from calls for an outright transformation to
expressions of strong faith in the current methods of science; the spec-
trum of feminist approaches is rich, and widely debated. There is ample
evidence now that scientists and the larger scientific community carry
their values well into their intellectual work and that scientific knowl-
edge is as socially embedded as any other system of knowledge. As a
consequence, the sacrosanct position that science enjoyed earlier has
been undermined to some extent. While some science educationists
consider feminist science criticism as an inconsequential scholarly fad
(Matthews, 1994), there are some who take the arguments seriously and
have begun incorporating these ideas in curricula to improve science
education (Mayberry, 1998).

Liberal Feminist Frameworks and

Science Educational Reform
The liberal feminist framework of science critiques has been the most
prevalent form of feminism in science (Brickhouse, 1998). Its empha-
sis on equal opportunity for girls to study, work and excel in science
can be effectively translated into a variety of activities that help in
achieving this goal. Recognising the political and social import of this
notion, many out-of-school initiatives have been taken in accordance
with liberal feminist positions. Scientific research institutions and pro-
fessional bodies in India like the Indian National Science Academy,
New Delhi and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore have insti-
tuted programmes and committees to bring to the fore issues of gender
gap in both academia and industry. Many academic conferences usually
have a section on ‘Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics (STEM)’ or they promote discussions on gender and
science learning under the broader theme of science education. Such
initiatives have been successful in generating some discussions on the
dismal number of women science professionals in India. Facebook
groups like ‘Empowering Girls in Math and Science’ and ‘A Mighty
Girl’ have substantial followings and further the cause of girls and
women making a mark for themselves in science. Popular journalistic
Bansal 13

projects like ‘The Life of Science’ [https://thelifeofscience.com/],

documenting the lives and struggles of women scientists in India, have
taken off and are getting good coverage.
This approach to critiquing science usually has no problems with
science as it is, and instead calls for efforts to improve access, retention
and promotion of women in existing scientific and educational institu-
tions. It is predominantly about describing the discriminatory practices
of these institutions and does not challenge the epistemology or meth-
odology of science in any way (Brickhouse, 1998). As an indispensable
step to achieving that goal, it calls for improving the access of girls to
quality science education. Liberal feminist scholarship advocates teach-
ing science through pedagogic strategies that improve science learning
of girls and of those who belong to other marginalised sections of soci-
ety owing to their caste, class, region or disability. A variety of methods
have been proffered in the research literature to further these ends.
Interestingly, they are very similar to the methods that a constructivist
science classroom is expected to adopt, such as small-group collabora-
tive learning, peer instruction, inquiry-based science and workshop-
based science (Bug, 2003; Mayberry, 1998).
The approaches aimed at addressing the ‘number issue’ are based on
the belief that the science curriculum should recognise the experiences,
interests and learning styles of girls. Small-group learning, hands-on
learning or inquiry-based lessons that encourage deep and conceptual
understanding of topics have been shown to increase girls’ achievement
in science lessons. Laboratory experiences and activities, in fact, are
beneficial to both girls and boys (Osborne, Simon & Collins, 2003).
Although different researchers have labelled their respective approaches
differently, certain common features can be identified in what can be
described as a ‘gender-inclusive’ curriculum. Some of these features are
as follows: drawing upon the experiences and preconceptions of both
girls and boys, prioritising active participation; incorporating long-term
self-directed projects, including open-ended assessments that take diverse
forms, emphasising collaboration and communication, providing a sup-
portive environment, using real-life contexts, and addressing the social
and societal relevance of science (Brotman & Moore, 2008).
The role of robust teacher education is crucial if any meaningful
difference in the gender dynamics of science and society is to be made.
It has been widely acknowledged that good intentions alone cannot
bring about effective change (Crasnow et al., 2015). Teacher education
programmes should equip teachers to act in an informed and sensitive
manner to mitigate the effect of disparities experienced by their students.
14 Contemporary Education Dialogue 15(2)

A perfect constructivist science classroom wherein collaborative, hands-on

learning takes place in a non-threatening, cooperative environment
would be a step in the right direction, but it would do little to change the
power dynamics in the classroom by itself. For instance, the teacher
should have appropriate knowledge of the kinds of roles that are usually
performed by girls and boys in groups while doing an experiment or
activity together. This knowledge would prompt the teacher to shift her
role from merely observing the students while they work to deliberately
intervening if most girls were seen to be recording observations while
boys were seen to be tinkering with the materials and performing the
actual experiment. In such a situation, a teacher who is aware of the gender
dynamics of a science classroom would categorically state that each
student is required to partake in each aspect of the activity instead of
letting the students reach an ‘equilibrium’ of their own (Giles, Leach,
McGinnis & Tippins, 2002).

‘Radical’ Feminist Critiques and Science Education

As mentioned earlier, scholars in feminist science studies differentiate
between ‘women in science’ issues and ‘gender and science’ issues.
While the former comfortably falls under the ‘liberal’ paradigm discussed
above, the latter category of scholarly work draws on ‘radical’, ‘socialist’,
‘poststructural’, ‘psychoanalytic’ and ‘postcolonial’ feminisms. These
perspectives challenge the authority of science by questioning its
claim to produce a value-neutral and objective account of nature.
As described earlier, androcentric biases of control and domination
have been exposed in scientific content, methodology and epistemology
by feminist researchers. It has even been argued that the mere entry of
more women in science-as-usual would not bring about the transfor-
mation of science and society as envisaged by the feminists. Radical
critics of science insist that feminist politics and feminist theories
about science are valuable resources for tackling the forces of oppression
and marginalisation that characterise modern scientific structures
(Harding, 1989). Incorporating the fruits of these kinds of inquiries is the
real challenge to most feminist science educators. Do these critiques lead
to some particular pedagogic approaches that have not been exhausted
or devised so far? Will the mere inclusion of these perspectives in text-
books suffice? Is a progressive, inquiry-based, project-centred science
education not enough to sensitise students? Indeed, should we even
Bansal 15

bother about exposing our students to such contentious knowledge at

all? These are some important questions that would have to be grappled
with and resolved by feminist science educators who are engaging
with these ideas. Next, I present different dimensions of this compli-
cated issue.

Where Do We Fall Short Right Now?

Research literature on science teaching and learning often reinforces the
belief that a ‘democratic science classroom’ in which all students are
treated alike would foster the science learning of girls and of those children
whose experiences and knowledge are not usually represented in science.
But we have evidence that challenges the notion that inquiry-based
science learning is the antidote to most, if not all, educational evils.
Heidi Carlone’s study (2004) is among a few that problematises the
purported efficacy of ‘reform-based’ constructivist science classrooms
in improving science learning of girls or in increasing their interest in the
subject. Giles et al. (2002), too, establish that unless there is a deliberate
attempt to weave feminist approaches into these newer ways of teaching-
learning, the status quo shall remain intact for a long time. And to make
matters worse, Mayberry (1998) argues that even if these reforms suc-
ceed in involving more women and girls in science, we still run the risk
of acculturating our students into the hierarchical systems of science and
society as they exist today. This is because current science pedagogy is
not critical enough. It does not pay attention to the different critical
appraisals that have been made of science not just from feminist perspec-
tives, but also from the vantage point of scholarship on racial and post-
colonial issues. It often disregards the critical history of science which
helps students understand how science was shaped in the way it has
been. Often, it deprives students of an understanding that may enable
them to feel that they have the agency to bring about any change and to
ask their own questions.
As Brotman and Moore (2008) have pointed out in their review of the
literature on science education for girls, the challenge lies in ‘attracting
students to science and asking them to be critical of it’ (emphasis in
original) (p. 988). Efforts to attract and retain more girls and women in
science will do just that, that is, get more girls and women in science, but
these measures will not make them critical of their own enterprise. With
regard to the question of whether such allegedly contestable criticisms of
16 Contemporary Education Dialogue 15(2)

science should be made part of science curricula, Brickhouse (1998)

presents us with an elegant way out.

Feminists have uncovered a variety of ways in which gender ideologies have

found their way into the content of science. This leaves educators with the
question of how to deal with this material in science classrooms. They could
choose to ignore this facet of science. However[,] this would be intellectually
dishonest and [highly] unscientific. (p. 1078)

How to Integrate these Perspectives?

Since the present approaches to the teaching of science have limitations,
and agreeing to the proposition that it is both politically and scientifi-
cally necessary to expose students to critical appraisals of science,
we can move to the question of how to assimilate this material into
science curricula. Unfortunately, empirical research exploring different
models of integrating feminist approaches into current forms of science
education is quite scarce. There are even fewer studies that have
attempted to integrate science and their feminist appraisals at the school
level. Nevertheless, a few studies do investigate how classrooms that
have incorporated feminist perspectives on science have been organised
and how those classes have been received by students. These studies
provide us with some useful guidance for organising science education
that would enable students to question traditional understandings of
science and scientific knowledge.
Mayberry and Rees (1997) reflect on their experiment of teaching a
science course (in geology) using insights from sociological inquiry and
feminist pedagogy. Their course had all the elements of an ideal inquiry-
based curriculum, but along with that they ensured that they did not por-
tray scientific inquiry as detached from its social, political and historical
context. Their entire course was guided by the aim of bringing to light
the masculinity of the science of geology. As mentioned earlier, other
scholars, too, have undertaken similar projects seeking to integrate
feminist perspectives into the content of their respective courses (Kinsman,
2001; Ravindran, 2015; Shah & Chadha, 2011). Others have experimented
in creating bridges between scientists and women’s studies scholars, and
their respective areas of scholarship, to serve the twin goals of making
science more self-conscious and of enriching women’s studies by including
within its scope the concerns of generation, distribution and uses of
scientific knowledge (Baker et al., 2001; Swaminathan, 2015). We can
Bansal 17

glean some elements from these endeavours that will help us build a
template for integrating feminist perspectives with natural science:

1. Engaging students in the learning of relationships between scien-

tific knowledge, social policy and social inequality.
2. Making extensive use of interdisciplinary literature that illumi-
nates the social context of science in the classroom.
3. Opening all lines of inquiry and all topics to discussion.
4. Equipping students with an understanding that the present form
of science is the result of certain historical particularities and
circumstances, and making them feel that they have the agency
to ask and seek answers to their own questions in and about
science.
5. Discussing the intellectual histories of scientific concepts as well
as of different branches of science.

Educators and educationists also believe that students should be exposed

to feminist perspectives on science in ways that are accessible to them.
Attention should be paid to issues of sexism and gender bias in curriculum
materials, and the contributions of those women in science who have
been ignored in conventional histories should be included and acknowl-
edged. Inclusion of the history, philosophy and sociology of science
offers a way of bringing these concerns into the classroom (Bansal, 2018;
Brotman & Moore, 2008).
Brickhouse (1998) advocates that educators should provide students
with opportunities to interrogate the meanings of dualisms like subjec-
tive/objective and emotion/reason, and their association with feminine
and masculine. In light of the latest research, a substantial revision of
science curricula, particularly biology curricula, at both the university
and school levels, should be undertaken. This would include integrating
the work of feminist scientists into course materials, engaging students
in critical analyses of biological theories about women, discussing bio-
logically based accounts of human behaviour (and why they are usually
very appealing), and discussing the limits of science in revealing an
absolute, apolitical truth about the natural world.
Finally, a strong teacher education programme assumes paramount
importance here too. Science teachers should be involved in discussions
on issues related to gender, ethnicity and identity in education, and should
be provided opportunities to question their own views and assumptions
about existing problems and how solutions to these problems can be
located (Brotman & Moore, 2008). They should be trained to teach
18 Contemporary Education Dialogue 15(2)

students in such a way that the students feel that their participation could
improve science. Teachers should be taught to appreciate that science is a
way of seeking knowledge about the world, that different individuals and
communities have produced and promoted different kinds of knowledge
at different times and places, and that factors other than empirical ade-
quacy and logical coherence often play an important role in determining
which system of knowledge appropriates and elides other systems.
Professional development programmes for in-service teachers should
encourage them to engage in research that attends to the gendered and
other axes of identities of their students and those of their subject matter.
There should be forums for teachers to encourage collective brain-
storming over educational challenges and to support an open exchange of
information on emerging perspectives in their respective fields.

Conclusion
Feminists have developed a number of distinct perspectives on science.
They have articulated positions that reveal a variety of gender-based
forms of oppression that have characterised science since its origins up
to the present day. They have drawn attention to the almost complete
absence of women in conventional histories as well as in the contempo-
rary practice of science. Along with this line of research and action,
feminists have identified sciences as both a source and a locus of other
kinds of gender inequalities as well. Some radical appraisals of science
have involved reading the entire project of Western science as an andro-
centric conspiracy to maintain the superior status of men. Thus, those
fashioning a feminist response have been deconstructing and redefining
concepts like objectivity, rationality and value-neutrality in the philosophy
of science to improve scientific practice and knowledge.
What does all of this mean for science education? Certain feminist
perspectives have found increasing acceptance by diverse sections, and
some of these approaches have been more easily translated into action
than others. The liberal views that call for greater equality of opportunity
for girls and other marginalised groups in science have struck a chord
with administrators and scientists alike. On the other hand, serious
engagement with more fundamental and more polemical critiques of
science is lacking. Successfully assimilating these fundamental feminist
critiques in science education requires extensive and intensive changes
in the present system of education. From educating teachers thoroughly
Bansal 19

in this domain of inquiry to drafting a curriculum that is sensitive to

these concerns, the journey will be long and arduous.
We need to expand the notion of science education to include these
critical aspects of science too. We can no longer stay uninformed about
the origins, dynamics, functions and purposes of science in our society,
especially when we have documented knowledge that illuminates our
understanding of these issues. In fact, it would be irresponsible of future
science practitioners—those who are being educated and trained today—
to claim naivety about these important issues later on. The kind of femi-
nist science education discussed above has the potential to transform not
only scientific culture but also scientific knowledge as well as our wider
society. Such interventions would make students realise that science
indeed is a human affair—vulnerable to human foibles and fantasies, and
corrigible by human praxis.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Notes
1. Prominent feminist writings on science that appeared in the 1970s were
those of primatologist Sarah Hrdy, evolutionary biologist Jeanne Altmann,
biochemist Ruth Hubbard, neurophysiologist Ruth Bleier and theoretical
physicist-turned-mathematical biologist Evelyn Fox Keller.
2. I realize that you are able to cite numerous and frequent cases of women
learned in the sciences and the arts. But I would then ask whether you
know of any women who…have themselves discovered any new arts
and sciences…which have hitherto not been discovered or known ….
(Christine de Pizan, as quoted in Schiebinger, 1991)

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