Characteristics

Alienation is as a sociopsychological construct broadly defined as the state of being/feeling disengaged, disempowered, and isolated from people and/or the local contexts where one is embedded (Lukes 1978; Calabrese 1987). Its symptoms are both individual and collective and are manifested in unique ways by those who have been positioned, or position themselves as, the Other. To be the Other is to be outside of an established norm, and being outside of an established norm results in the development of a bevy of emotions which result in “the distancing of people from experiencing a crystallized totality both in the social world and in the self” (Kalekin-Fishman 1998, p. 6).

In science education, where teaching is often focused on the meeting of arbitrary benchmarks of science skills, and learning is assessed based on the ability of the student to memorize information, alienation is one of the chief means through which a large number of youth underachieve in science. This is the case because school science lends itself to the creation of spaces where there are constant clashes between science, school science, and the ways of knowing and being of students in classrooms. In urban science education, where socioeconomically deprived urban youth of color populate classrooms, alienation from science is a pervasive issue. In these classrooms, alienation is closely correlated to Durkheim’s term anomie, which he describes as a mismatch between individual/group norms and larger societal norms (Durkheim 1915).

In urban classrooms, larger societal norms reflect a White, middle-class experience (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977) that is markedly different from the experiences of urban youth. In urban science classrooms, “the dominant cultural ideals of mainstream White society and Eurocentric science…are incommensurable with the beliefs and values of African American students” (Seiler 2001). This incommensurability is exacerbated by the physical structures of school and science such as textbooks, scripted curriculum, and laboratories that do not reflect the culture of students. When textbooks do not have images of Black and Brown scientists, curriculum does not create a space for students to express their inherent need to question, and cultural dispositions that align to orality, impromptu expression, verve, and movement are not considered in the teaching of science, youth of color are alienated from the discipline just by entering into the classroom (Emdin 2010).

While the larger structures of traditional science classroom alienate urban youth just because they happen to be in those physical spaces, alienation is even more deeply expressed because of the constant efforts to extract/invalidate urban youth culture in teaching and assessments. For example, when students are given academic grades in science based partly on “good” behavior or “academic potential,” they may be inadvertently judged based on the extent to which their expressions of culture are aligned to a Eurocentric ideal or the extent to which they are able to hide this culture. This process equates to an attempt to wipe out of the customs and the understandings of a population to the extent that consciousness of oneself within a context (in this case the science classroom) is a negating activity. In other words, they are commended or viewed as more scientific for not being themselves or for being closest to what is perceived to be a White male scientist ideal (Emdin 2011).

Finally, one cannot understand alienation without having some understanding of affiliation. Affiliation, which is the state of being connected to, or feeling the connections between, self and others, is a significant component of making youth feel like a part of the science classroom. It is also one of the major ways of being within communities who are not well represented in science. For these populations, there is strength in acknowledging their unique culture, and feelings of contentment, satisfaction, belonging, and togetherness are developed as they communicate with each other. Each of the emotions generated through affiliation stand in contrast to powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, cultural estrangement, self-estrangement, and social isolation that Seeman (1959) suggests are the result of alienation. If youth develop these emotions within science classrooms, they will not see themselves as scientists.

Cross-References