Boundary-work in science education: a cast study of GM food.

The term ‘boundary-work’ is used to refer to the constant effort to draw and re-draw the boundary of science; it has long been portrayed as constructed by the stakeholders of science to demarcate science from non-science to establish the authority of science. Twenty-nine semi-structured interviews were carried out with students from one university in England, originally to explore their views about GM food. However, the distinctive repertoire adopted by natural science and Humanities and Social Sciences students was striking. As a result, the focus of this study shifted to examine the discourse students adopted to talk about a controversial scientific topic, using Genetically Modified food as a case study. This paper shows that the boundary between scientific and non-scientific academic disciplines is heavily ingrained in university students’ discourse and it is ‘co-constructed’ by both actors that are included in, and excluded from, the institution of science. The innate authority assigned to the institution of science is found to have deepened the gap between scientific and non-scientific disciplines. In this study, science disciplines were portrayed as coherent and consistent, following similar scientific methods and philosophy whereas Humanities and Social Sciences disciplines are merely as ‘non-science’ disciplines. Hence, this paper suggests the wide scope of science should be better recognised and acknowledged in the National Curriculum for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Finally, this paper demonstrates that people’s role in relation to the institution of science has an impact on their discourse about, and perhaps subsequently their views towards, science and technology.