Associate Professor
gale [dot] seiler [at] mcgill [dot] ca (E-mail)
Phone: 514-398-7106
Room 357, Education Building
Website
Areas of interest
- Science education
- Urban education
- Sociocultural theory & cultural sociology
- Social construction of identity
- Teacher education
Description of research/teaching activities
My current research is focused on the relationship between identity and learning to “do science.” I am interested in the role of student-emergent curricula, cultural resonance, and other approaches to support the learning and engagement of students who are traditionally marginalized from and underrepresented in science. I combine traditional ethnographic methods with micro-analysis of video recordings to examine verbal and nonverbal interactions around science. Through these studies I have identified culturally specific ways in which students participate in school science and how curricula and classrooms can be restructured to build on extant cultural practices and dispositions.
Selected publications/presentations
Seiler, G. (2008). The P-O-W-E-R of Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools. In Payne, C. & Strickland, C. (Eds.), Teach freedom: The African American tradition of education for liberation. New York: Teachers College Press.
Elmesky, R. & Seiler, G. (2007). Movement expressiveness, solidarity and the (re)shaping of African American students’ scientific identities. Cultural Studies of Science Education 2 (1), 73-103.
Seiler, G. & Elmesky, R. (2007). The role of communal practices in the generation of capital and emotional energy among urban African American students in science classrooms. Teachers College Record 109 (2), 391-419.
Tobin, K., Elmesky, R. & Seiler, G. (Eds.) (2005). Improving urban science education: New roles for teachers, students and researchers. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield.
Seiler, G. (2001). Reversing the "standard" direction: Science emerging from the lives of African American students. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 38, 1000-1014.