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The gender gap in achievement in science continues to plague science educators in the United States  (AAAS, 2001). Strategies to close this gap have defined the problem in terms of girls’ lack of interest or their inability to survive in science classrooms.

Recent feminist scholarship has re-centered this problem of gender inequity not on girls, but on the nature of science and how it is taught in schools (Birke, 1986; Parker, 1997). Lesley Parker (1997) argues that it is schools that need to change and recommends a gender-inclusive science curriculum for schools.

My dissertation argues for a new framework and …