The high level of consistency in the pedagogical practices used by teachers has created a sense of what is "normal" and what is "other" in classrooms. Hegemonic pedagogy is thus the set of teaching practices that have become dominant over time and that perpetuate power/knowledge inequities and sustain the current regimes of truth in society, i.e. the pedagogy used by most of the world's teachers. For example, students "have a certain expectation of a science lesson when they walk into the room (especially if that room is a laboratory)" (Susanne Lakin and Jerry Wellington, 1994, p. 186). As one of the teachers in their study said:

Michael Reiss proposes that teachers might be better to assume students' frameworks "have so far served them well" and the task of the teacher would be to show students why these ideas have worked for them in the past, and encourage a change in "their thinking, not so much as having it proved wrong to them, but by pursuing it into new areas" (Michael Reiss, 1993, p. 39). This approach may encourage a diversity of ways of looking at scientific problems and not assuming that current Western science paradigms are the 'truth'.

The third concern that I have is that the ultimate effect of the constructivist model of learning is to view learning as collecting knowledge - or adjusting existing knowledge so that it aligns with current ("scientific") models. Certainly it is an active collection process, but collection none-the-less.

Anna Sfard (1998) argues that both the passive transmission model of hegemonic pedagogy and the active constructivism model of the ascendant contesting voice, are based on a single metaphor. She has dug deeply into the genealogy of the discourses on learning and has distinguished two driving metaphors: the acquisition metaphor and the participation metaphor. She argues that for thousands of years our thinking about learning has been driven by the acquisition metaphor, when we have conceived of learning as acquiring or collecting knowledge as if it was an object, or a set of objects. I have represented the acquisition metaphor at the top end of Figure 1, below, and shown how transmission (at point A) and constructivism (at point B) could be seen as opposing ends of a continuum of learning models from passively collecting knowledge to actively constructing knowledge. The common theme is the notion of acquiring knowledge. Many teachers would combine elements of both A and B so a 'both/and' rather than 'either/or' combination of models informs their pedagogy. The metaphor for the learner at point A is a sponge (soaking up knowledge) and at point B is a builder (constructing their own frameworks).

There are also further contestations of hegemonic pedagogy by more recent models of learning that fundamentally differ in that they are built on a participation metaphor. In these models learning is conceptualised as acting or doing, participating in a community of practitioners, somewhat akin to an apprenticeship model. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991) have constructed a widely utilised conceptualisation of "situated learning", a view of learning that draws on Vygotskian ideas and places an emphasis on the social character of learning and the negotiation of meaning. Situated learning is a process of participation in "communities of practice"; participation that is, at first, "legitimately peripheral" but that gradually changes in engagement and complexity as the learner becomes less of a "newcomer" and more of an "old-timer". Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger align learning with performing tasks: arguing that by engaging in the performance of tasks in ways that are congruent with those of the expert practitioner, learners also engage in discourse as part of that practice, negotiating meaning as they learn how to act in the community of practice (Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, 1991).

What has troubled me about situated cognition is its passivity, its acceptance that science-as-is (or any other community of practitioners) is not altered by the small perturbation caused by the addition of a new learner, a "legitimately peripheral participant". The new learner is simply inculcated into the current power/knowledge regime of the community. All of their practices and discourses are assumed to be exemplary and beyond critique. In this way situated cognition can be seen to still bear traces of the acquisition metaphor in that the discourse and performative practices of expert practitioners are passively acquired by the newcomer. Certainly, situated cognition is positioned at X, the passive orientation of the participation metaphor. The metaphor for a learner at point X in Figure 1 is of an apprentice (learning by following/copying the "master"). This model does not sit at all well with me from a poststructural feminist standpoint.

Science teachers who use practical 'exercises' to teach students to be scientists are using the participation metaphor, at the X end of the continuum in Figure 1 below. Even constructivist teachers who support students to design original practical investigations are still engaging with the position of situated cognition at X in Figure 1 below. That is, they are applying their model of how scientists work and in doing so are inculcating students into science-as-is, via a passive doing model. There is usually no expectation that students will then, or later, critique or challenge the status quo of the 'scientific method' or the practice of hegemonic science. These teachers are drawing on a combination of active constructivism (point B) and passive situated cognition (point X).

The possibility of a new learning model emerges. My project with/in science education is to problematise and contest conventions of co-option into an essentialised science because of my conviction that feminist and other critiques provide sufficient grounds to not desire a re/production of hegemonic science and how it is learned. This new learning model may inform a pedagogy that works towards this purpose.

Many others have adequately contested transmission, and I have already problematised constructivism, so I will now return to my concerns with situated cognition, apart from its previously mentioned passive orientation.

First, I think that a student can learn about a field, without always engaging solely in the activities of the experts within the community of practitioners. That is, in learning science, I want more than students to be passively inculcated into 'science-as-is'. Second, I also want students to be actively thinking, informed and engaged critics of: the social world of scientists as it constructs their practice; of the impact that science has on society; and of the power dimensions involved in the scientific community and the ways these are used politically, economically and socially to support particular authoritative positions and to oppress other perspectives in society. This cannot be done as a seduced peripheral participant, abiding by the discourse patterns and performative practices of the scientific community.

I think that learning science in school is a broader project than learning to become a scientist just as learning music in school is more than becoming a musician. First, I, and other feminist science educators, seek an actively critical perspective for those who do pursue science - a perspective that requires a deliberate stepping back from the frame of reference and discourse patterns of the community of practitioners in order to see aspects to which the "expert" practitioners themselves are blind (e.g. the distinction between the nature of science as it is practised and as it is professed to be). Second, I do not believe any science teacher expects all their students to join the community of practitioners, to become scientists, any more than all music teachers expect all their students to become performing musicians. But I believe that most science teachers would intend that all students will become informed and competent users and critics of science, able to actively contribute to personal, local and society's debates and to be unintimidated by 'scientific' arguments that affect their physical and social worlds. This is what I call scientific literacy. A similar argument could be put for music or any other school field.

While the notion of transformative participation is built into Jean Lave and Etienne Wengers' conception of situated learning, they suggest that change occurs from within, not from outside, the community of practice. This is my third concern with situated cognition: its assumption that only experts within a community of practice are deemed to be able to change that practice. Yet history abounds with many outsiders being able to change internal practices of communities of which they were not a member. Frances Bacon and science leap into my mind as one significant example. I therefore contest the limited conception of how practice may be transformed that is articulated in the situated cognition model.

The effect of the learning models at A, B and X in Figure 1 is to inform pedagogies that "reinforce and reproduce existing discourses-practices" rather than support one that enables reflection, critique and active challenge to current power/knowledge systems (Cleo Cherryholmes, 1988, p. 43). The point at Y indicates where such a new learning model might be located.

My 'critical activism' model of learning would involve participation, or praxis, that integrates the processes of reflection, critique, and active challenge to power/knowledge as-is. This new model has two fundamentally alternative premises to current learning models even though it shares the participation metaphor with situated cognition and the active orientation with constructivism. First, in the critical activism model of learning the concept of participation is broadened to include both participation in a community of practitioners, and/or informed and engaged participation with such a community. In the case of science, this would mean both participation in science (doing science) and/or participation in debates about science (challenging science).

Second, my critical activism model incorporates an actively critical perspective to participation, where the practices of the community, their discourse, their task performance, and their ideological positionings are contestable, not merely self-perpetuating through the passive accommodation of the novice. Under the critical activism learning model students learn to be actively critical with/in a community and to be activists for change.

Learners/participants are thus conceived of as capable of changing the practices and discourses: activists in the community and/or critics engaged with the community of practitioners. In Figure 1, I re/present this notion with a shorthand expression: "critic/activist with/in the community". It is the critical activism corner that seems like a worthwhile learning model to me because it depicts learners as people who are actively thinking and engaged in ongoing critical analysis and reflective criticism of discourses and practices with/in a community of practitioners. People (including students) as critical activists.

Teachers' pedagogical practices are informed by the learning models they use as referents. If a teachers tells, they are using a transmission model; if a teacher provides opportunities for students to reflect on their current views, challenges them and supports an active re/thinking of their positions then constructivism is the base model; if a teacher uses modelling and experiential learning then situated cognition is the referent model. The learning/pedagogy dialetical relationship is fraught with tensions and possibilities, however, as we reveal our underlying beliefs and values through our practices.

Most of us teaching in the real world draw on an eclectic mix of learning models without being explicit with students, and sometimes ourselves, about our fundamental positioning and purposes.

I think that commonly resisted innovative teaching/learning practices frequently use a "critical activism" learning model as their referent - one located at the active end of the participation metaphor - and this implicit breaking of the conventions of the pedagogic contract results in such innovations being ultimately unsuccessful. I think that the underlying learning model ought be explicated with students and a new expectation of critique and action deliberately developed before pedagogies that use these premises will be widely accepted.

My schema of learning models acts as an advance organiser of my further thinking about an enabling pedagogy (an explication of which is beyond the borders of this paper) that draws from the underlying principles of learning used with/in critical and feminist pedagogies. All three pedagogies draw, I argue, from a critical activism model of learning.

Critical pedagogy opens up new visions of society "by combining a language of critique and possibility ... a discourse of imagination and hope" for a better world (Henry Giroux, 1991, p. 52-3).

From critical pedagogy I incorporate into my idealised enabling pedagogy, a desire to:

• prioritise ethics and a work towards social justice;
• challenge the ways schools perpetuate power structures in our society;
• support teachers in reflecting on our complicity in this perpetuation;
• show students that knowledge is socially constructed - and is not the 'truth';
• assist students in deconstructing knowledge to see how and why it is that way and whose purposes it serves, teaching them to "read the world differently" and "resist the abuse of power and privilege" that abounds (Henry Giroux, 1991, p. 49);
• "create new forms of knowledge through ... breaking down disciplinary boundaries and creating new spaces where knowledge can be produced" (Henry Giroux, 1991, p. 50)
• support teachers to be courageous in taking risks that alter past practices;

However, I must reject from critical pedagogy:

• the notion that reason, logic and rationality will prevail in changing schooling;
• the authoritarianism of the teacher who presumes to know how the student should/could be empowered.

In feminist pedagogy power is not merely about righting imbalances of limited power, but about spreading power around as if it is in endless supply, like love.

• a recognition that experiential learning matters;
• the concept of power as "energy, capacity, and potential" rather than as domination (Carolyn Shrewsbury, 1987, p. 8);

• a recognition of the interactivity of knowledge and people;
• support for connections, networks, and social environments that support mutuality as well as individuality;
• a utilisation of an emotional dimension that draws on notions of desire and pleasure, and the importance of feelings;
• embedding knowledge within its holistic frames - not abstracted fragments;
• a respect for diversity among people in who they are and how they learn;
• the fostering of critique, decision-making, and negotiation skills;
• an ethic of care for each other, our social networks, and the physical world, our environment;
• the use of language in multiple ways including play and subversion;
• catering for a (female?) need to understand deeply, not superficially;
• seeing silence as a process of thinking/knowing/resisting; and
• the honouring of "the private, personal, and the subjective as well as the public, impersonal, and objective" (Paula Roy and Molly Schen, 1987, p. 111).

Like Christina Hart, (1995) I have chosen to use the first names of authors to signify that all our 'theories' and arguments are constructed by people, acting as (disembodied) researchers. I feel that first names create a more personal connection with the author and remind us that we all look through frames of reference that re/present our multiple subjectivities.