Can the subaltern ‘speak’ science? An intersectional analysis of performances of ‘talking science through muscular intellect’ by ‘subaltern’ students in UK urban secondary science classrooms

In her influential 1988 essay, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’, Gayatri Spivak poses a dilemma for critical researchers, such as those committed to promoting equity within school science, namely that academic attempts to ‘give voice’ to the Other are doomed to ‘fail’ because they inevitably—albeit often unwittingly—reproduce relations of inequality, by homogenising the Other and leaving unequal power relations unaltered. Indeed, Spivak challenges whether elitist academic discourse can ever be an effective critical tool, in that it classifies and surveys the Other, thus reproducing the unequal power relations that it seeks to dismantle. In this paper, we use Spivak’s challenge as an orientation point for an exploration of power and the conditions of intelligibility for urban student subjectivities within UK secondary science classrooms. An intersectional lens is employed to foreground how “the colonized subaltern subject is irretrievably heterogeneous” (Spivak 1988, p. 79), within an exploration of the complexities of power and subordination within and across urban students’ performances of science. That is, the paper seeks to identify how, and if, diverse urban students can ‘speak’ science, or not.

For our conceptual framework, we draw on the feminist poststructuralist work of Judith Butler (1990). In particular, we employ Butler’s concepts of intelligibility and identity as performance to make sense of the performances of ‘subaltern’ (i.e. underserved) students within secondary school science. We borrow the term ‘subaltern’ here but with the conceptual understanding that these are not pre-existing, stable subjectivities, but are rather as subjectivities that are produced, negotiated and contested through discourse.

We treat gender and other social identities as being produced through discourse. Rather than being the fixed products of biological bodies, we see gender, ethnicity and all other identities as being constantly re-made and performed—that is, they are never finished and are ‘always in process’, as Stuart Hall puts it (1990, p. 222). Subjectivities are thus constituted within and through discourse and relations of power. In this way, we see the performance of identity as both an expression, and a mediation, of the extent to which a student may see science as being ‘for me’, or not.

We understand identity (comprising gender, ethnicity, social class and so on) as, what Butler terms, ‘performance’. To exemplify this position using the case of gender: gender is not the ‘result’ of a person’s sex and does not simply follow ‘naturally’ from particular sexed, racialised, classed, etc. bodies. Rather, Butler argues that gender is socially constructed through discursive and bodily ‘acts’. In this respect, gender is not what we ‘are’ but is rather something that we ‘do’ (i.e. perform) and continually re-do. Yet the repeated performance of gender creates the ‘illusion’ that gender is stable and ‘real’. Moreover, as Becky Francis (2007) argues, these performances of masculinity and femininity are often diverse and plural, varying across axes of social identity and inequality, such as ethnicity and social class. In other words, there is no single set of performances that constitutes gender (or likewise ethnicity, social class, etc.), rather there may be a plurality of ways of ‘doing boy’ or ‘doing girl’, mediated by other intersecting axes of identity, such as social class, age, ethnicity, disability and so on.

As a wealth of research attests, science classrooms, like any site, are not neutral spaces but are constituted through power relations. They are produced through constant negotiations and struggles for voice, authenticity and recognition—that is, who can and does, or does not, have voice and authority. As Heidi Carlone and colleagues discuss in their 2014 paper, these contestations work at multiple levels regarding, for instance, who is, or is not, recognised as being ‘good at school science’, who can produce legitimate science discourse and who can thus be recognised as being a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ student. These struggles for authenticity are inflected by intersections of gender, ethnicity and social class which, as Carlone et al. (2011) explicate, result in different teachers creating different conditions within their classrooms for what, and who, is valued as being ‘smart at science’, or not. Carlone et al. illustrate this point through the poignant example of an African American girl who was able to be recognised as performing herself scientifically in Ms. Wolf’s 4th grade class, but not in Mr. Campbell’s 6th grade class.

As Jennifer Adams and Preeti Gupta (2017) discuss, identity is responsive to context, hence ‘interactions between people are important to identity construction’ (p. 4). That is, they suggest, ‘our power to act, within certain structures and corresponding affordances, mediates our identity development’ (Adams and Gupta 2017, p. 5). Teachers can play a key role in shaping what identity performances are dominantly valued and celebrated, or not, within science classrooms and the implications of these celebrated subject positions for the voice and participation of underserved students. In this paper, we extend our focus to consider the ways in which racialised and gendered enactments of identity, voice and power between students can also play a part in restricting who can ‘speak’ in the science class.

Although identity is performed, this does not mean that it is freely chosen. That is, while agency is possible, the extent to which a person’s identity performances are possible and recognised by others will be constrained by factors such as the body of the actor and by the social field—for instance, what is valued, recognised as authentic and ‘allowed’ (i.e. ‘intelligible’). That is:

the “coherence” and “continuity” of “the person” are not logical or analytic features of personhood, but rather, socially instituted and maintained norms of intelligibility” (Butler 1990, p. 23).

We find Butler’s notion of ‘intelligibility’ to be a particularly useful tool for exploring urban students’ identity performances within science because it foregrounds the social pressures that students may experience to conform to particular dominant norms. That is, an intelligible identity performance is one that can be read as valid because it re-inscribes and supports particular dominant, normative values and relations within a given context. Thus, identity performances which are subversive or challenging of dominant identities and practices within the science classroom will be ‘unintelligible’ and will be seen as ‘out of place’ by those in authority, potentially attracting disapproval, sanctions and even fear or disgust. As Butler explains, the cultural matrix through which identity becomes intelligible “requires that certain kinds of “identities” cannot “exist”’ (Butler 1990, p. 24). Hence, we are interested in the extent to which urban students are able to perform intelligible identities within a field (in this case, the science class) that is dominantly inscribed as high status, White, male and middle-class.

We understand performances of identity as taking place within what Nigel Edley and Margaret Wetherell (1995) term an ‘ideological battlefield’, in which different actors compete for authenticity, voice, recognition and dominance. Not all identity performances carry equal power: the more powerful, or hegemonic, performances are those which claim dominance and status and which are often based on the disavowal, negation and oppression of Other, less powerful, identities. For instance, Raewyn Connell (1989) explains how a common feature of hegemonic masculinity is its discursive organisation around the subordination of Others, notably women and gay men. For instance, a key performance that has been identified within educational contexts is that of ‘muscular intellect’, which involves confident, arrogant displays of knowledge and ‘intelligence’, which has been noted particularly among some high-achieving middle-class boys by Mairtin Mac An Ghaill in his 1994 work and by Becky Francis and colleagues in their 2012 study of high attaining popular school students.

However, not all students will be able to authentically enact hegemonic performances such as muscular intellect. Intersections of gender, ethnicity and class can structure these possibilities in powerful ways—for instance, the close association of muscular intellect with masculinity may make it more difficult for girls to perform in any sustained or authentic way. Equally, among boys not all performances of hegemonic masculinity will necessarily be ‘successful’—for instance, they may be resisted or contested by others and the authenticity of the performances may be called into question.

In this paper, we ask:

Through our analysis and discussion we also sought to identify and reflect on what the implications of these performances might be for students’ science engagement and participation.

In line with the theoretical framework explicated above, this paper adopts a feminist post-structuralist epistemological perspective. In other words, ‘reality’ is understood as relational and socially constructed through discourse. However, we do not take a strong relativist position, in which all competing accounts and interpretations of reality are accorded an equal ‘weight’. Rather we adopt a weak relativist epistemology, drawing on an intersectional feminist political commitment to what Susan Bordo (1990) termed ‘baseline realities’, that enables us to identify, name and challenge inequalities such as sexism, racism and classism (as ‘real’), while also recognising the social construction and performance of racialized, gendered and classed identities and inequalities. From this perspective, reality is understood as socially constructed, but some discursive constructions and performances are recognised as being more powerful (e.g. oppressive or liberatory) than others. Moreover, from this position, we conceptualise the effects of inequalities as being experienced in ‘real’ (discursive and materially meaningful) ways.

The data reported in this paper were generated over the course of a 9 months research and development programme that was conducted with nine teachers from six inner London schools as part of a longer, 5 years Enterprising Science study. The wider study comprised a partnership between universities (University College London and King’s College London), the Science Museum and the funder (BP). The wider project involved three main, different strands of work but findings reported in this paper came from the research arm of the third strand, which sought to examine the social and cultural factors that shape student engagement with science within classrooms. Three of the participating schools (Coleville, Mareton and Northfields—all pseudonyms) are state-run, co-educational schools which, at the time of the researcher, recorded within ± 20% of the GCSE results of other schools within their local area (GCSE’s (General Certificate of Secondary Education) are series of exams students take in the UK when they are 16). The schools had relatively high proportions of students who spoke English as a second language and were registered as eligible for free school meals, compared to other schools in the same region. Schools were purposively sampled to include high proportions of from communities that are traditionally under-represented in science and who have lower levels of ‘science capital’—a concept that we have previously developed and described elsewhere (Archer et al. 2015a, b). In each of these three schools we worked with two teachers who taught at least one class in the 11–16 age range (Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4). The other three participating teachers, who taught at three different schools, had all taken part in a professional development course that had been conducted in one of the two preceding years, as part of one of the earlier phases of the project (details of which can be found in King et al. 2015). These teachers had all expressed an interest in being involved with future phases of the project. Details on the participating teachers and their classes are provided in Table 1.

As detailed in Table 1, the sample comprised a spread of year groups (1 × Y7 class, 3 × Y8, 3 × Y9 and 2 × Y10) and attainment (set or track) groupings (4 × bottom set, 2 × middle set and 3 × top set). With the exception of students in Ms. Smith’s school, students were predominantly from working-class and a range of minority ethnic communities. The most frequently spoken languages across the student sample were Urdu, Bengali, Turkish, Polish and Portuguese.

In this paper we draw primarily on data from field notes of classroom observations and discussion groups with students. Fieldwork was conducted by the research team (who are listed as paper authors), all of whom are middle-class women and of whom four are White British, two are White European, one is White American and one is British Chinese. Our conceptual position rejects any simplistic distinction between ‘emic’ and ‘etic’ (insider/outsider) positions within ethnographic fieldwork. Following Nancy Naples (2003, p. 8), who argues that ‘ethnographers are never fully outside or inside the ‘community’’, we understand power relations between researchers and participants as complex and negotiated, ‘flowing’ in myriad ways during any research encounter, albeit with the overall balance of power tending to remain in favour of the researcher, who predominantly has the privilege of framing, interpreting and representing the research process. Our intersectional approach also complicates any simplistic notion of researcher–participant ‘matching’ (e.g. by intersections of gender, ethnicity, social class, age, region, dis/ability, and so forth). Although we recognise that differences in the (multiple) structural positionings and experiences between researchers and participants will inevitably have implications for the social construction of the research process and the interpretations and knowledge produced. While there is no simple or fixed formula that determines, as Diane Reay puts it, what differences our differences make within the research process, we agree that it is useful for researchers to reflect on the potential implications of the knowledge and interpretations we produce, not least with regard to the representation of Others (see discussion).

As Jay Lemke (1990) discusses, ‘talking science’ is widely recognised as an authentic, institutionally recognised and valued way of doing science. Likewise, as discussed above, performances of ‘muscular intellect’ have been identified as powerful, dominant ways of performing masculinity within educational and intellectual contexts. We observed that when students combined these two performances (that is, talking science through the performance of muscular intellect), it resulted in a particularly potent exercise of power that was recognised by both teachers and students.

‘Talking science through muscular intellect’ was characterised by confident, often ‘arrogant’, competitive displays of using ‘correct’ scientific terminology, often in the context of verbal ‘one-up-manship’ and as part of bids for public voice and attention within the classroom. We identified these performances as characterised by three main elements (i) controlling and dominating classroom science talk, (ii) competitive performances of talking science and (iii) policing and regulating what counts as legitimate science talk and the disparagement of other ways of engaging, doing and speaking science.

Mika tells the rest of the class to be quiet and listen to Miss. He explains how you can calculate the power in the lightbulb using the equation (Ms. Dennis, 9^th December)

Mr. Hobbes is facilitating the girls to answer a question during small group discussion. Youssef [who is in a different group] interrupts and shouts out over the answer that the girls are giving. Qadir calls “sir” repeatedly, trying to get Mr. Hobbes’s attention. The girls are trying to ask Mr. Hobbes questions about electricity but the boys keep interrupting their group discussion and trying to get his attention instead so they can give their own answers (Mr. Hobbes, 9^th February).

Mr. Hobbes asks the class “what are we talking about today?” Casey shouts out “acidic, acidic stuff”. Dwayne and Ahmad are sat quietly with their hands up. Mr. Hobbes says “we are going to start with acids today. The opposite of acids is -?” Qasim shouts loudly “alkaline!” Casey repeats “alkaline” (24^th February)

The selected extracts illustrate how the boys in question use particular discursive strategies to claim control of the classroom science talk. In the first extract, Mika raises his voice and instructs the whole class to be quiet and to listen to the teacher—an act which, in itself, can be interpreted an assertion of dominance due to Mika’s adoption of a proto-typical teacher role. He then goes on to claim the discursive space, speaking instead of the teacher and giving an appropriately scientific explanation of the question that the class is meant to be addressing. This move asserts and bolsters his legitimacy as someone who is appropriately scientific and has the authority to ‘speak’. Had Mika’s scientific explanation been produced, say, in response to a question from the teacher, we might have coded it as example of ‘talking science’, but his preceding instruction to the class (to “be quiet” and “listen to miss”) and his immediate subsequent claiming of the discursive space (i.e. providing the explanation himself) lead us to read his performance as a discursive manoeuvre which seeks to assert a position of dominance vis-à-vis both his peers and even his teacher.

In the second extract, Youssef (South Asian British Muslim boy) and his friends attempt to wrestle the teacher’s attention away from the girls whom Mr. Hobbes was in a small group discussion with, so that they can get their answers heard instead. Youssef and Qadir make repeated bids for recognition which we interpret as attempts to dominate the class science talk space. Again, their efforts are predicated on raising their voices above other students and attempting to gain the focus of the teacher, away from the small group that he is facilitating. Their bid to interrupt the girls’ discussion with Mr. Hobbes can be read as an attempt to exercise power in relation to both the girls and the teacher, in that they are contravening the classroom norm that (in this instance) was that students should be discussing the topic in small groups and that interjections require students to put up their hands and wait to be asked to answer a question or make a contribution. As with Mika’s example, the boys are not reprimanded for their interruptions and hence their actions can be read as achieving a degree of legitimacy—although they are not entirely ‘successful’, in that Mr. Hobbes ignores their attempts to interrupt and continues his discussion with the girls.

In the third extract, Casey (a white British working-class boy) shouts out to answer the teacher’s question, cutting in ahead of Dwayne (African Caribbean boy) and Ahmad (South Asian Muslim boy). The latter two were widely recognised as ‘good’ boys in the class, and they had put up their hands to answer the question, in line with the school’s behavioural norms, but are usurped by Qasim’s interjection. This example also involves a boy raising his voice above others and contravening expected behavioural norms in order to assert his own answers ahead of the two ‘good, quiet’ boys (Dwayne and Ahmad) who have raised their hands and are waiting to be called on to speak. We interpret this example as constituting a bid for recognition that is achieved through an exercise of power, which seeks to assert the protagonists’ dominance within the class science talk space.

Mr Hobbes is writing an example on the periodic table to exemplify the point he has been making about metalloids. He starts saying “If I have metal on this side and a non-metal on this side…” but Mubid and Ali shout out to interrupt. Mubid calls [loudest]: “a metal that is not actually a metal! Yes!” Mr Hobbes says “it is a good answer” but he says that Ali has given a better answer and tells the class “have a listen”. Ali explains “A metalloid is a metal that contains metal like features but is not actually a metal”. Mr Hobbes gets him to repeat the answer again for the class and then explains further (Mr. Hobbes, 18^th November)

Mr. Hobbes shushes the class and explains the task. The students have to use a list of scientific keywords to help answer the comprehension task on synthesis and decomposition. They have to work on this in their books and then Mr. Hobbes reviews the answers with the class. Qadir shouts out loudly and abruptly over other boys to give the first answer. […] Mr. Hobbes invites Qadir to answer the first question for the class. Qadir says “iron and oxygen make rust”. Mr. Hobbes confirms the answer and chooses another student to answer the next question, but each time Qadir continues to call out the answer over the chosen students (Mr. Hobbes, 12^th January).

Mr. Hobbes has put a photo of a baby pulling a face on the powerpoint screen as the students come in. A question is on the board with the photo: ‘what is happening here? Do you like this feeling?’ As the class comes in they look at the screen and start discussing the image and question with the person next to them or in small groups. Qasim looks at the screen and shouts immediately at Mr. Hobbes “cos its acidic, that’s why!” (Mr. Hobbes, 24^th February)

Mr. Hobbes asks Jana to give her answer to the class. He draws a diagram to explain as she answers. But he has to stop as some of the boys are talking over her. Jana starts again, saying “you take out the…” But Casey interrupts. Mr. Hobbes tells Casey not to talk while Jana is talking. Jana starts again “You take out a quarter..” But Ayesha talks over her this time. Jana tries again “And add 1.5 water to the squash..”. Mr Hobbes probes her reply says to the class “yes, that is correct”. Jana smiles and says “yeah!” The girls celebrate a little but Mubid calls out to them and the class “yeah but Ahmed got it right first!” (Mr. Hobbes, 24^th February)

The above extracts, all taken from Mr. Hobbes’ class, provide some of the clearest examples of instances in which a small group of boys (namely, Mubid, Ali and Qadir, who are consistently assertive and vocal South Asian Muslim boys, and Casey, a white working-class boy) compete to shout out the ‘correct’ answer using scientific terminology. In the first example, Mubid and Ali interrupt the teacher and compete to give their answers first, with Mubid’s being the first and louder, and hence more clearly audible, response. Mubid then ‘celebrates’ his ‘win’ with a self-congratulatory exclamation (“yes!”) Although his interjection is recognised and affirmed by his teacher (“it is a good answer”), Ali ‘wins’ the competition, in that Mr. Hobbes judges Ali’s answer to be ‘better’, on account of its scientific formulation and expression. He accords it greater symbolic status, calling for it to be rearticulated as an exemplar response for the rest of the class.

As Francis (2000) discusses, competition is a trope that is associated with dominant forms of masculinity and hence is an intelligible way to perform masculinity. Yet it is also sanctioned as a legitimate way to perform science, as illustrated by the boys’ competitiveness with one another and Mr. Hobbes’ legitimation of the competition by allowing the answers and judging the responses against each other—with Ali’s being judged to be ‘better’. Indeed, Ali’s response is even modelled as an ideal response for the class (“have a listen”).

In the next two extracts, Qadir shouts out answers beyond his turn (in the second extract) or when the class are meant to be discussing the question amongst themselves (third extract). Although his answers are not recognised by the teacher, neither are they sanctioned. The fourth extract features Jana’s repeated attempts to be allowed to articulate her response to a question that Mr. Hobbes has asked her. She is first interrupted by a group of boys who try to talk over her answer. She is then interrupted by Casey, whose interruption is challenged by Mr. Hobbes, and Ayesha, who Jana talks over to give her reply. When Mr. Hobbes confirms her answer as ‘correct’, Jana and her friends, including Ayesha, celebrate their ‘win’—that is, they celebrate having got the answer right. However, Mubid interjects to challenge their ‘success’, asserting that ‘Ahmad got it right first’ (i.e. claims he worked the answer out before the girls). In this respect, we interpret the passage as exemplifying how talking science is normalised as a competitive practice—with competition being traditionally aligned with masculinity.

We suggest that these competitive performances can also be read as performances of ‘confidence’, in that they are assertive, quick, loud and assured public displays. Within the discussion groups, a performance of confidence was frequently linked to performances of science identity. For instance, when asked how someone might be able to identify a ‘science person’ in their class, students from discussion groups across different schools claimed that “confidence is the key”. Confidence was also linked with performances of competitiveness and the assertion of the self in relation to others through talking science. As one student put it, ‘being good at science’ is popularly recognised as someone “flaunting their, like, knowledge”, such as through confident displays of talking science. In this respect, we suggest that competitive performances of talking science through muscular intellect, such as those illustrated above, were intelligible both as performances of science and as performances of masculinity.

As illustrated by the above examples, performances of talking science through muscular intellect were often sanctioned by teachers and students as constituting valid, authentic ways of doing science even when they contravened other norms, such as the behavioural expectation that students should not ‘shout out’. We interpret this as a marker of the potential power of such performances. That is, a successful performance enables a student to assert themselves as active and agentic—they are not the ‘docile bodies’ that Michel Foucault (1980) discusses as the usual product of the school’s practices of discipline.

Mr. Okello calls on a few students to read out their questions (…) Moira starts her sentence “How do the vibrations, wait …” [she pauses and looks for her notes]’. Raja speaks abruptly to Moira: ‘Come on, say it properly!’ (Mr. Okello, 26^th February)

Mr. Hobbes asks “Why are wires made out of copper and not gold?” (…) Salma says “cos electricity doesn’t flow through it so well?” but she says it quietly and the class are talking. Mr. Hobbes asks her to repeat her answer. Salma blushes slightly, looks down and says “oh, I forgot what I was going to say [pauses] oh, I remember” then repeats her answer. Qadir loudly shouts ‘electrons!’ at her [in an ‘aggressive’ tone]. Mr. Hobbes ignores Qadir and follows up with Salma, “ok, so you mean gold is a good conductor”. (Mr. Hobbes, 18^th November)

Raani asks Mr. Sharma a question about the exercise (working out the number of protons, neutrons and electrons in different elements), saying “Sir, is it that this goes….?” Gabriel repeats what Raani said in a ‘silly’ (high pitched, ‘comic’) voice, saying “Is it that, Sir, Is it that sir?” Karam laughs. Raani tuts and rolls her eyes. Mr. Sharma tells Gabriel “don’t’ be mean” (Mr. Sharma, 7^th December)

We observed that performances of talking science through muscular intellect often involved the protagonists performing in ways that we interpreted as mocking or admonishing other students who were unable to produce science talk in the correct register. For instance, as illustrated by the above examples, the three boys in question convey, by shouting or mockery, that another student (in each case, a girl) has not been speaking ‘correctly, either by not using the ‘correct’ scientific terminology (Raja, Qadir) or by not talking in a confident, authoritative tone that is often associated with dominant performances of both science and masculinity (Gabriel). For instance, Raja chastises Moira to “say it properly” and Qadir tells Salma the ‘correct’ scientific terminology that he thinks she should have used (“electrons”). Gabriel’s imitation mocks the register of Raani’s voice—which we interpreted as ridiculing both the femininity of her voice, through a high pitch imitation, and her dependence and lack of confidence (in that she has asked for clarification, assurance and help)—which are set in opposition to his own masculine, confident voice and independent performances of talking science through muscular intellect within the class.

We suggest that the above examples can be interpreted as attempts to ‘police’ and control the boundaries of what counts as legitimate forms of discourse within the science class. These attempts to control the symbolic order are reinforced through the discipline and punishment (e.g. harassment, telling off, public ridiculing) of students (like Moira and Salma) who do not or cannot conform and perform in the ‘correct’ way. As Michel Foucault writes, the exercise of power achieves the control of individuals through practices of surveillance and examination, ‘to be able at each moment to supervise the conduct of each individual, to assess it, to judge it, to calculate its qualities or merits” (1980, p. 143). In this respect, we interpret the performance of talking science through muscular intellect as a technology of power, which enables protagonists to produce themselves as simultaneously intelligible as both ‘scientific’ and ‘masculine’, the dominance and authority of which are achieved through their surveillance and control of other students, as they police the boundary of ‘what counts’ as being ‘appropriate’ ways of performing science. That is, they position hegemonic masculinity as a, if not the most, legitimate way in which to perform science. We also note that in each example it is boys who are policing girls’ science talk, a pattern that was reflective of our wider observations. We interpret this as due to the ‘double alignment’ of the performances—not only is masculinity dominantly configured as authoritative over femininity but also, thanks to the dominant alignment of science with masculinity, performances of masculinity are used to police the boundaries of class science talk. However, as we discuss next, it was not all boys, but rather particular boys, who enacted and were intelligible in their performances of talking science through muscular intellect.

Spivak (1993, p. 104) famously argued that ‘the subaltern as female cannot be heard or read’. In this respect, we suggest that the boys’ performances of talking science through muscular intellect, and their self-appointed ‘policing’ of other students’ voices within the classroom science, can be read as practices of power which seek to control the boundaries of what counts as an authentic performance of science and who is allowed, or not allowed, to speak in class. As such, we understand such performances as being problematic in equity terms. Indeed, we suggest that the dominance of the performance of talking science through muscular intellect was such that the main male protagonists were often observed to close down the validity of girls’ voices at all within the science classes.

While a range of boys and girls from diverse ethnic backgrounds were observed ‘talking science’ across the classes, only a small group of boys were observed performing intelligible and legitimated performances of ‘talking science through muscular intellect’. In line with the classroom populations of the urban classrooms being observed, these boys were from working-class and predominantly minority ethnic communities. For instance, Raja is an African British working-class boy; Qadir, Mubid, Gabriel and Youssef are all British South Asian Muslim working-class boys; and Casey is a white British working-class boy. Although, as discussed further below, not all the boys’ performances were ‘successful’ (that is, not all their enactments of talking science through muscular intellect were recognised as legitimate by others), on the whole, these students were regularly observed as making consistent, loud, public bids for recognition through their performances of talking science through muscular intellect, asserting themselves in relation to both teachers and students.

They were not the only students to attempt such performances, but they were the only students whose attempts were consistently successful. The ‘success’, or not, of such attempts seemed to relate to the embodiment of the student in question, as girls were particularly unlikely to have their attempts at such performances recognised. For instance, our observations indicated that, across the classes, the symbolically dominant performance of talking science through muscular intellect did not appear to be an intelligible performance for girls. Most girls did not attempt performances of talking science through muscular intellect. For instance, even Boudica (a mixed White British- African Caribbean girl, Ms. Arkwright’s class), who was recognised by other students in her class as being very smart at science—and is recorded as receiving among the highest marks in the class—is rarely recorded in field notes as speaking out in class and offering her view. A couple of girls did attempt the performance, but none were observed to be ‘successful’ at it. For instance, the following example was typical of Sadia’s repeated attempts to call out the correct answers to her teacher’s questions:

The class are checking through their answers on their worksheets. Sadia (South Asian girl) continues calling out responses to most of the questions. But Ms. Dennis never responds – she neither disciplines Sadia nor values her responses. Sadia calls out again, ‘Insulin!’ Ms. Dennis finally responds – ‘Insulin, don’t shout.’ (…) Ms. Dennis puts up an image of insulin and Sadia calls out the answer, reading out the description from the book. Ms. Dennis ignores her and asks the class “what do we call people who have problems controlling their blood sugar?” One student offers ‘sickle cell anaemia’ and another ‘diabetes’ (Ms. Dennis, 3^rd February)

In the above example, Sadia arguably attempts to perform talking science through muscular intellect: she calls out the ‘correct’ answer (“insulin”) and she attempts to talk science by giving the ‘correct’, ‘official’ description of insulin from her school text book, a strategy that she attempts a couple of times during the class. However, her performances are largely ignored and, in contrast to the previous examples (e.g. with Mubid, Ali and Qadir), Sadia is told off by Ms. Dennis for shouting out (“Insulin—don’t shout”). This sanction contrasts with the various examples discussed above in which boys who shouted out as part of their performance of talking science through muscular intellect, were not told off.

The legitimacy of a performance of talking science though muscular intellect also depended on being able to ‘get the answer right’. Hence students who attempted it but who provided ‘incorrect’ answers, were unlikely to be recognised as performing authentically—with failed attempts attracting peer ridicule. For instance, during a discussion on discerning between compounds and mixtures, Mr. Hobbes used a cooking analogy to spark discussion:

Mr. Hobbes asks “if I put all the ingredients in the pot and start cooking, apart from the steam and all those lovely smells that come out, does anything else escape the pot?” There is lots of excitement and students shout out answers. One boy shouts out “water”. Another boy shouts “Bacteria!” A few of the boys stop calling out and turn instead to the boy who shouted it out, saying “what, man?!” (with a tone of incredulity and amusement) (Mr. Hobbes, 11^th November).

We suggest that attempting performances of talking science through muscular intellect can be a potentially risky endeavour, albeit one in which the chances of ‘success’, and the potential for asserting dominance that this produces, is increased by the possession of particular cultural and embodied resources. For instance, the boys who regularly achieved ‘successful’ (i.e. legitimated, sanctioned) performances of talking science through muscular intellect held in common (i) a ‘masculine’ body and performances of popular, ‘laddish’ masculinity (e.g. most performed loud, popular, ‘jokey’ masculinity—none of the boys were read as performing what Connell (1989), terms effeminate or ‘wimpish’ masculinity) and (ii) were confident in their knowledge of science and displayed a proficiency in being able to talk science. Where students lacked one or both of these aspects, they were much less likely to produce, and be read as successful in producing, performances of talking science through muscular intellect.

We understand the intelligibility of the boys’ performances of talking science through muscular intellect as derived from the way in which they combine normative performances of both science and masculinity. The performances are intelligible as performances of science because they involve talking science and conform to popular notions, as expressed by students in the discussion groups, that ‘being sciencey’ requires ‘got a lot of knowledge about science’ (Alexis, Black African Y10 girl) and actively demonstrating this knowledge within the class (‘answering all the questions’ and not ‘being quiet’). The performances are intelligible as masculinity because they involve prototypical masculine assertions of authority, ‘voice’ and control, as read through Francis’ gender binary, and also overlap with masculinised norms of ideal student participation as being ‘active’, as opposed to passive.

In one respect, the boys’ performances of talking science through muscular intellect might be interpreted as surprising and transgressive, in that we might expect that dominant performances of science ‘should’ be unintelligible for students from working-class and/or minority ethnic backgrounds, given the white middle-class dominant culture and coding of science. That is, we might expect those who occupy subordinated positions in terms of ethnicity and social class, to find it harder to enact dominant, powerful legitimated performances of science. As such, the above examples might be interpreted, to some extent, as moments of ‘empowerment’, in that they show ‘subalterns’, who are traditionally ‘under-represented’ within science participation, being recognised for their performances of science. As Foucault proposes, power is productive, not just repressive, and as such the boys’ performances of power could be interpreted as using masculinity—which could be their only axis of privilege—to resist and push back against their classed and racialized positions of subordination.

The performances are also potentially surprising in that they entail ‘subaltern’ students asserting power in relation to their teacher—contravening both general ‘good student’ behavioural norms and indeed, the norms that many of the students in discussion groups themselves asserted as key to performance of being scientific, such as ‘putting your hand up to answer questions’ in class. In this respect, the performances might also be read as confounding notions of the total ‘powerless’ or silenced subaltern subject—or, again, exemplifying how the exercise of disciplinary power by schools also produces resistance. The data might also be read as examples of how students can use science as a discursive resource and space through which to do different forms of identity work, as powerfully exemplified in Angela Calabrese Barton and Edna Tan’s 2010 study of agency, identity and science learning among urban middle-school youth.

The boys’ performances thus confound readings of themselves (as working-class, minority ethnic young people) as ‘unable to speak’ in science, as they assert a strong presence and ‘voice’ in the classrooms and their contributions are usually recognised by teachers and other students as being ‘scientific’. However, as discussed further below, we also read these performances as problematic due to their enactments of power in relation to other students which simultaneously curtailed other students’ intelligibility and ‘voice’.

In this paper, we identified and sought to unpick a dominant student performance of ‘talking science through muscular intellect’ that we interpreted as being enacted across nine London urban secondary science classrooms. In line with forms of sociological discursive critique, we attempted to discern how and why this performance was powerful, who enacted it, how it was experienced by others and how it was disrupted and maintained. In this final section, we also reflect upon the implications for social justice orientated approaches to school science.

Lemke (1990) usefully draws attention to how dominant ways of ‘talking science’ can be exclusionary and narrowing, and in this paper, we highlighted how, in the classrooms we observed, dominant performances of talking science were strongly gendered, being closely aligned with and enacted through performances of muscular intellect. We interpreted these performances as exerting a strong emotional power, particularly for those boys who performed them, demonstrated not least through their vigorous denigration of ‘other’ ways of being in science. Our analyses of talking science through muscular intellect foreground performances of voice. This perhaps inevitable given that the performance is very much a verbal discursive performance, albeit one that was also enacted by particular bodily performances (such as often standing up to speak and or boys moving around the classroom in particular ways—for instance, getting out of their seats to attract the teachers attention, or physically moving into the space of a girls’ small group discussion). However, we wish to underline that this is not to say that we do not recognise the importance of other performances of science which are more materially configured (e.g. which involve embodiment and/or other objects). We suggest that the focus on this dominant verbal performance may be both partly a function of our methodology (relying on fieldnotes and audio recordings, as opposed to using video recordings which may have better captured embodied performances). There is also the possibility that the verbal nature of this dominant performance could point to the continued dominance of the Cartesian dualism within science—the separation of ‘mind’ and ‘body’ and the privileging of ‘mind’ as an authentic (and masculinised) signifier of scientific intellect—a point which we are very grateful to one of the reviewers for suggesting.

Stacy Olitsky (2006) discusses how classroom discourse norms can hinder urban students’ potential to feel a sense of solidarity with science—a point with which we agree. Yet our analyses also highlighted the contradictory and dilemmatic nature of classroom discourse, in which some dominant forms of science discourse, as exemplified by talking science through muscular intellect, can both facilitate the engagement of some ‘subaltern’ students—in our case, working-class boys, from a range of ethnic communities, but who possessed particular masculinity capital—while also constraining the engagement of others, notably working-class/minority ethnic girls and ‘quiet’ boys. We suggest that our data exemplifies Rowhea Elmesky, Stacy Olitsky and Kenneth Tobin’s (2006) argument that the expansion of some boys’ agency through performances of muscular intellect and masculinity can involve the contraction and truncation of the agency of others, but especially, in our case, of girls and ‘quiet’ boys, even when these Other students are ostensibly attaining well in science. We conclude that the symbolic dominance afforded to performances of talking science through muscular intellect has particularly negative implications for the engagement of Other students with science:

Our analyses point to a tricky dilemma: the symbolic status afforded in science classrooms to performances of talking science through muscular intellect did seem to facilitate the engagement and the emotional investment of some urban boys with science, notably those with the requisite masculinity capital and investment in hegemonic performances of masculinity. At the same time, these performances also limited, marginalised and silenced others within the classes, notably girls and ‘quiet’ boys. That is, we need to acknowledge that some youth and some dominant assumptions within science education (e.g. around what constitute authentic ways of doing science) can play a part in silencing and marginalising some underserved students within school science.

Our discussions with teachers also suggested that they too sometimes found these performances complicated and difficult to address. We might speculate that during their own education and schooling, science teachers might have been socialised into recognising talking science through muscular intellect as a dominant performance of science. Moreover, we have little reason to believe that most science teachers will be comfortable with and well-equipped to engage with complex inequalities. The challenges facing urban science teachers in England may be particularly acute in this respect in this respect, given that nationally very little time is allocated within initial teacher education for supporting teachers to understand and engage with social justice issues. Moreover, few science teachers are likely to have been introduced to debates and issues around equality and social justice within the course of their UK science degrees. We thus suggest that many science teachers, but particularly those entering urban schools, may feel ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of identities and inequalities that they will encounter.

To this end, we recommend that more time and resource might productively be allocated within initial teacher education (ITE) to supporting science teachers to understand and reflexively engage with the complexity of student identities and inequalities and to develop more sophisticated understandings and strategies for engaging with these. We suggest that a key aspect of this training must be to equip teachers with a meaningful recognition of racisms, sexisms and other forms of inequality, and the intersection of these, so that they are able to develop ‘a more refined understanding of diverse learners’ (Adams and Gupta 2017, p. 5) and can identify and challenge complex forms of injustice.

To return to our initial framing and title—can the subaltern speak science?—we conclude that existing conditions can make it very difficult for many students, but particularly girls and ‘quiet’ boys from working-class and minority ethnic communities, to perform and assert an intelligible ‘voice’ in classroom science. As such, our findings echo those of Carlone et al., who reflect on how their study emphasises “the difficulty of prototypical school science in sustaining and buttressing nonmainstream students’ meaningful science trajectories” (2011, p. 863). Yet, our findings suggest that it is not just teachers who control the boundaries and conditions for which identity performances are recognised and can find authentic expression within science classes—other students can also play a key part in these processes.

Spivak argues that we cannot ‘give voice’ to Others but rather we need to create the conditions that allow diverse Others to speak for themselves. One essential component within this task is to recognise that the Other does not speak in a singular voice. Hence, Spivak discusses how attempts to ‘give voice’ to Indian subalterns within postcolonial theory was always doomed to fail because (i) this theory assumed a homogeneity among the subaltern, e.g. that there is a singular ‘Indian female’ voice that can be represented and (ii) it relied on western ‘experts’ to ventriloquize and ‘speak for’ the Other, thus re-inscribing the Other’s passivity and lack of voice. We thus borrow Spivak’s argument to propose that a socially just science education needs to focus on creating the conditions that allow for ‘polyvocality’ and a diversity of legitimated ways of being and doing in science, while also trying to ensure that none of these voices silences others. Yet we also deviate from Spivak’s own position in that we do not see the situation as hopeless.

In line with other scholars, we see a useful way forward lying in an opening up of ways of performing, talking, embodying and doing science—while also opening these up for student debate and critique. In a sense, we are supporting Megan Bang and colleagues’ (2012) call for multi-vocality in the science classroom, that is, for the valuing of a diversity of voices and ways of doing science. However, we believe that this cannot be achieved through absolute relativism. That is, we do not think it viable to treat all voices as equal. Rather we advocate for a politics of value that can help us to recognise how and where some voices and practices are more powerful than, and oppressive to, others. This is because without this tempering, we are left unable to challenge inequalities.

Moreover, we note that while performances of talking science through muscular intellect were observed across a range of lesson contexts (for instance, during small group discussions and practical work), they were especially prevalent during teacher-led, whole class discussions which used a prototypical ‘question and answer’ format. We thus hypothesise that, while we do not consider the performances to be a direct product of a particular pedagogy, some forms of more ‘traditional’ (chalk and talk) pedagogies may be associated with, or facilitative of, more ‘traditional’ ways of performing science. In other words, we raise the suggestion that more progressive and inclusive pedagogies and approaches to science education may promote and support wider performances of science among students.

We suggest that policy-makers might usefully consider integrating equity approaches more seriously and substantially within initial teacher education. Indeed, in the UK, this is a currently a small and paltry aspect of ITE at best. Without it, why should we expect teachers to be equipped with the required understanding and resources to enact equitable practice that can engage with the complexity of power relations?

Finally, we reiterate calls to rethink the dominant culture of science, in which science and ways of being and doing science are aligned with masculinity and specifically, performances of muscular intellect. Of course, this is no mean feat and we turn to Judith Butler for a guiding framework in this endeavour. In particular, we suggest that there may be value in extending Butler’s notion of ‘queering’ to science education. While Butler proposes this concept in relation to gender and sexuality, we believe that it can be usefully extended to think about a socially just approach to science education more broadly. That is, Butler’s concept seeks to fundamentally challenge binaries and disrupt the normalisation of dominant ideology. Within science classrooms this could mean ‘unfixing’ popular ideas around what counts as speaking, embodying and doing science, e.g. disrupting the normalisation of performances of talking science through muscular intellect. This endeavour does not seek simply to assimilate students into science (as per Brown 2004), rather it aims to challenge and change the ways in which science is currently dominantly configured. In this respect, ‘queering’ science education places plurality and the contested nature of ‘culture’ centre stage—that is, the boundaries around ‘culture’ are loosened and recognised as contested and complexly configured through relations of power, both dominance and subordination. Such an approach would require working across multiple axes of privilege and oppression and recognising the contradictions and tensions that will inevitably be generated. It would involve dismantling the privileged status of both ‘talking science’ and ‘muscular intellect’, and could require radically rethinking power relations within classrooms. For instance, challenging the distinction between ‘teacher’ and ‘student’ and engaging all participants collaboratively in self-reflexive and agentic engagement with the subject knowledge and in the mutual creation of the norms and values that are to be adopted by those participating in the science classroom. It would also necessitate challenging wider patterns of inequity, to level the playing field regarding the nature and scope of what forms of science education are offered to which students. Yet, we also recognise that such an approach is only part of the answer, given that, as Gloria Ladson-Billings and William Tate (1995) cogently argue, approaches that are focused on changing instructional strategies, may have limited impact because they fail to address wider structural inequalities, such as the inequitable distribution of resources between different communities. We offer these ideas to add to and help further stimulate dialogue around what a vision for a social justice approach to science education might look like, and how it might be achieved in practice.