Objectification and the inscription of knowledge in science classrooms

In this paper, we explore objectification as a form of participation in socially defined activities. We explore objectification as it manifests in language (through, e.g., nominalization), entextualization, writing, perception (through the objectification of sensory experience), and identity formation. We document how these practices have been explored in the past, from philosophical, ethnographic, linguistic, and other perspectives. We group them under the common theme of objectification in order to demonstrate how all of these practices function to represent processes, actions, or relations as objects. We explore the prevalence of these processes of objectification in social life and suggest implications for learning, and specifically science learning.