Academics

Cleti A Cervoni

Professional Details

Spring Courses

Professional Biography

I am presently an assistant professor at Salem State College in Salem, Massachusetts where I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in the teacher preparation program. Prior to becoming an assistant professor, I was the Director of Education for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, a non-profit environmental education organization.

Professional Interests

Gender and science Learning and teaching Qualitative research I received my doctorate in education in 2004 from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. My dissertation, Boys and Girls "Doing Science" and "Doing Gender", ties together nature-study, science education and the social construction of gender. I spent a year in a second-grade classroom where the teacher used the natural world (plants, animals, vernal pools, streams) for all of her science lessons. Using ethnographic techniques and innovative image-based methods with the children (drawing, collage-making) and by bringing in live animals and objects from nature for the children to interact with, I systematically examined the gendered dynamics that shape the children's social relationships with their teacher, with their peers, and with the objects of science-study. I looked closely at the ways that unequal gender relations are negotiated, resisted, and sustained in the context of this second grade science classroom. In addition, I learned that the children responded to animals in the following three ways: a) care; b) aggression; and c) indifference. My multiple research methods of using participant observation and informal interviewing as well as conducting my own science research sessions allowed me to see how these expressions were consistent in individual children across contexts.

Responsibilities

Undergraduate Courses Teaching, Learning and Assessment Science, Mathematics and Technology for Early Childhood Science, Mathematics and Technology for the Elementary and Middle School Graduate Courses Science, Mathematics and Technology for the Elementary and Middle School Research across the Curriculum Instruction and Assessment for the Secondary School

Selected Publications

Cervoni, C. Boys and Girls Doing Science and Doing Gender Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2004 Cervoni C. The Social Worlds of Boys and Girls Engaged in Science Activity Unpublished qualifying paper. Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2002 Cervoni, C. Editor. On the Brink: Activity and Resource Guide to Teaching about Massachusetts Endangered Species. Massachusetts Audubon Society, 1993.

Selected Presentations

AERA, 2006 San Francisco, CA The Responsive Research Scholar: When Lessons Learned in the Field Help to Shape Research Methods Gender and Education International Conference, 2005 Cardiff, Wales Boys and Girls Doing Science and Doing Gender AERA, 2005 Montreal, CAN Schooling as a Site for Identity Construction and Boys and Girls Doing Science and Doing Gender

Personal Interests

Kayaking, bicycling, travel, knitting, reading