Exploring the disempowering cultures in prospective science learning: nurturing transformative learning

As STEAM scholars (authors) and a science teacher educator (the first author), we recognize that conventional teacher-centric prospective science learning cultures require improvement and transformation for authentic, inclusive, and meaningful science learning. In this regard, the driving question of this article is: How has Pratima experienced the disempowering cultures in prospective science learning for nurturing transformative learning? As an autoethnographer, she viewed her prospective science learning-related narrative through a transformative lens to address the spirit of our research question and methodology. She generated three key themes: (i) teacher-student communication as a one-way delivery mechanism, (ii) conceptualizing science as facts and figures, and (iii) prospective science teaching as a cookbook-dominated cultural reproduction through narrative analysis and interpretations. Likewise, she offers to deconstruct these disempowering cultures through enriching and empowering cultures like intercommunication between teachers and students, reconceptualizing science as an everyday phenomenon, and engaging in open-book science teaching-learning. Such science cultures contribute to developing prospective science teachers as change agents.