Lena Hansson

I am an Associate Professor of Science Education at Kristianstad University, Sweden. I am trained as a secondary physics teacher, and have a PhD in Science Education. Since 2017, I serve as a director at the IHPST council.

My research interest is mainly in students' and teachers' images of "nature of science" and consequences of these images for students' possibilities in relation to science teaching. I am, together with Hagop Yacoubian (Lebanese American University), co-editing an ongoing book project on "Nature of Science for Social Justice".

I have an interest in research which is close to school practice. I lead a research project (together with Lotta Leden and Susanne Thulin), designed in collaboration with teachers, on nature of science in the early years. In the project, we examine the possibility of including conversations about nature of science (NOS) in preschool. The approach to NOS teaching tested in the project is based on picture books with scientific content.

I also, together with Maria Andrée (Stockholm University) work on a project, "Industrial initiatives in school – opportunities and challenges for science and technology education", funded by the Swedish Research Council. In Sweden, as well as world-wide, there is a large number of initiatives to improve science and technology education put forward by actors, such as government bodies, academia and industrial actors. This project focusses particularly on the involvement of industrial actors. The aim of the project is twofold: First, to shed light on how teachers use initiatives from industrial actors as part of their teaching, and how they negotiate potential tensions between public and private good. Second, to develop an understanding of how relations between science, technology, society and industry are established and negotiated by industrial actors, students and teachers when participating in industrial school science and technology projects.

Publications