Biography:

Charbel Nio El-Hani is professor of history, philosophy, and biology, teaching at the Institute of Biology, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil, and researcher of CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development). He is affiliated with the Graduate Studies Programs in History, Philosophy, and Science Teaching (Universidade Federal da Bahia and Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana) and in Ecology and Biomonitoring (Universidade Federal da Bahia). His research interests are in science education research, philosophy of biology, biosemiotics, theoretical biology, and animal behavior. His recent publications include Multicultural Education, Pragmatism, and the Goals of Science Teaching, in Cultural Studies of Science Education (2007), in collaboration with Eduardo Mortimer; Gene Concepts in Higher Education Cell and Molecular Biology Textbooks, in Science Education International (2008), in collaboration with Maiana Pitombo e Ana Maria Almeida; Valuing Indigenous knowledge: To call it science will not help, in Cultural Studies of Science Education (2008), in collaboration with Fbio Bandeira; Gaia theory in Brazilian high school biology textbooks, in Science & Education , in collaboration with Ricardo Santos do Carmo e Nei Nunes-Neto; Theory-based approaches to the concept of life and biological education, in Journal of Biological Education; The contribution of ethnobiology to the construction of a dialogue between ways of knowing: A case study in a Brazilian public high school, in Science & Education, in collaboration with Geilsa Baptista. He is a member of editorial boards of Brazilian and international journals in science education and philosophy of science.

Abstract:

Modeling interactions between modes of thinking and ways of speaking in meaning making about Darwinist explanations with a conceptual profile of adaptation

We will first present the theoretical and epistemological grounds of the conceptual profile approach as a way of modeling the heterogeneity of thinking and speech in science classrooms. Subsequently, we will move to an analysis of interactions between modes of thinking and ways of speaking in meaning making about Darwinist explanations in high school and university classrooms using a conceptual profile of adaptation. Discourse analysis of four teaching episodes will be presented. We will show how, in the episodes, meaning making occurred through a tension and equilibrium between tendencies of univocality and authoritative discourse, on the one hand, and dialogicity and internally persuasive discourse, on the other. We will characterize ways of speaking about adaptive evolution based on the conceptual profile and discursive marks. We will also established discursive contexts providing conditions for the emergence of different perspectives to explain evolutionary change and negotiation of meanings shifting classroom interactions towards univocality around a Darwinist perspective. Our analyses will show how evolution teaching should also focus on students acquisition and mastering of speech genres characteristic of evolutionary perspectives and variational explanations.