Thinking Diversity with Animals. Adolescents’ Ideas of Diversity and Anthropomorphisms

“与动物一起思考多样性”研究项目总结。青少年的多样性和拟人化观念“动物似乎代表了自然。然而，动物表征必然会陷入拟人化的话语中。例如，动物总是沿着人类社会范畴的界线，如种族、性别和性取向，被隐含地构建起来。《与动物一起思考》（Daston/Mitmann 2005）是一个普遍现象，本项目旨在以此为出发点，对青少年如何与动物一起思考人类多样性进行定性分析，研究生物学习环境中动物的拟人化假设以及青少年对这些假设的反思如何与青少年的（人类）多样性观念发生交叉。它将收集青少年关于多样性的日常生活想法和神话，这些想法和神话与人类和动物之间的意义转移有关。分析将回答两个主要问题：哪些生物学知识，概念和动物理论与日常生活中的想法和神话（人类）性别，性和文化多样性纠缠在一起？当青少年与动物一起思考时，多样性的含义是什么？我们的项目提供了详细的见解形成，保持和生物学习情况下的两类差异的转变：性别和文化多样性/迁移。同时，该项目也推进了拟人语言功能和作用的研究。在科学素养方面，该项目还探讨了与动物一起思考的潜力，以反映差异的社会类别，生物化过程以及生物知识生产的社会文化情境。这些关系将在动物园进行调查。在动物园的图尔斯导游带领下，青少年将以小组讨论多样性。

Summary of the reseach project “Thinking Diversity with Animals. Adolescents’ Ideas of Diversity and Anthropomorphisms”Animals seemingly represent nature. Yet, animal representation is necessarily caught up in anthropomorphic discourses. For example, the animal is always implicitly structured along the lines of human social categories such as race, gender, and sexuality. Thinking with Animals (Daston/Mitmann 2005) is common and this project aims to take it as a starting point and to provide a qualitative analysis on how adolescents think with animals about human diversity.The project investigates how anthropomorphic depictions of animals in biological learning environments as well as adolescents’ reflections on these depictions intersect with adolescents’ ideas of (human) diversity. It will collect everyday life ideas and myths of adolescents about diversity, that are connected to meaning transfers between humans and animals. The analysis will answer two main questions: Which biological knowledge, concepts, and theories about animals are entangled with everyday life ideas and myths about (human) gender, sexuality, and cultural diversity in pupil’s Thinking with Animals? Which meanings about diversity emerge, and how, when adolescents think with animals? Our project provides detailed insights into the formation, maintaining, and transformation of two categories of difference in biological learning situations: gender and cultural diversity/migration. At the same time, the project advances the research on functions and effects of anthropomorphisms. With respect to scientific literacy, the project also explores the potential of Thinking with Animals to reflect on social categories of difference, on processes of biologizing, and on the socio-cultural situatedness of biological knowledge production. These nexuses will be investigated in a zoological garden. Following guided tours in a zoological garden, adolescents will discuss diversity in small groups.