The religio-scientific frameworks of pre-service primary teachers: an analysis of their influence on their teaching of science

Abstract

Scientific and religious ways of thinking are central to an individual's cognitive and cultural ways of making sense of the world. This paper explores what foundational concepts pre-service primary teachers are employing when they teach science. The study measured the attitudes to science and religion of 92 pre-service primary teachers. The categories traditionally used to describe the ways individuals' relate science and religion were found to be inadequate when attempting to reflect the attitudes' of the respondents. An alternative, phenonomenoligically based diagnostic framework was then proposed, constructed as a two dimensional scale on which participant's attitude to science/ religion was assessed as either 'epistemic' or 'pragmatic'. Analysis of interviews with a representative sample of eight of the teachers showed that individual religio-scientific frameworks could be linked to distinct differences in approach to the teaching of science. The impact of identifying the religio-scientific framework of pre-service teachers on the design of future educational programmes was then discussed.