The interaction of students' scientific and religious discourses: Two case studies

When students come to school they often bring understandings which actively interfere with the curriculum offered by the formal educational setting. Although the discourses of science and religion have often been incommensurable at the institutional level, religious discourse has rarely been studied as a potential interference with the learning of scientific discourse at the individual level. In a two-year study with 23 students we identified different interpretive repertoires on which pupils draw to talk in sometimes contradictory ways about controversial issues such as abortion, euthanasia and the origins of humankind. These contradictions may interfere with students' science learning. We illustrate in detail two students' scientific and religious discourses.