“All we Wanna do is be Free”: Advocating for Black Liberation in and through K-12 Science Education

In this paper, we outline how science teachers might engage in the work of creating educational equity. While acknowledging the historical inherent inequities associated with issues of access, opportunities to engage in science learning for individuals of marginalized identities (e.g., BIPOC individuals and women), and achievement, we broaden this definition to include social justice as a framework by which we can develop opportunities for the fostering of students' affinity identities with science. To this end, we draw on theorizations of equity within educational research, specifically discussed as excellence, equality, fairness, a zero‐sum game, and most recently, social justice. Additionally, we utilize McKinney de Royston and Nasir's (2017) Racialized Learning Ecologies framework. This framework provides a useful lens to notice the layers of (in)equity within education. We then extend this ecological model into science education and present three lenses (i.e., layers) through which equity operates within science teaching and learning. We conclude with a discussion of the practical implications of doing the work of equity, that is, recognizing, interpreting, and redressing inequity in science classrooms. Ultimately, we provide an actionable definition of equity that has the potential to facilitate transformative and socially just science teaching and learning.

Section: Three Layers Of Equity In Science Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Utilizing theory to elucidate the work of creating equity for transformation within the science classroom

Burgess

Patterson

2022

“…These values and priorities do not align with a view of science for the collective good, equity, and social justice. This has the consequence of URM students being excluded from the sciences and/or not developing a sense that their perspectives, values, and motivations have a place in the sciences (Morton et al, 2022). This lack of sense of belonging is further compounded by access to quality science learning experiences.…”

Section: Underrepresented Racially Minoritized (Urm) Studentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Present in class yet absent in science: The individual and societal impact of inequitable science instruction and challenge to improve science instruction

Jones

Burrell

2022

Current science instruction does not educate K‐12 students equitably and creates short‐ and long‐term impacts on individual students and society. While students may be present in class, they may not have access to quality science learning experiences. The goals of this paper are to show how science instruction may not be reaching its aim of equitable access and to offer recommendations for creating a new baseline standard for equitable science instruction. Though not exhaustive, this paper identifies groups of students who are marginalized in current‐day science instruction—the racially minoritized, those with physical and cognitive differences, and those in urban or rural communities. First, this paper challenges the neutrality of science by highlighting systemic yet negative outcomes that disproportionately impact minoritized populations in everyday life because of the narrow network of people who define and solve problems. Second, this paper identifies examples where science instruction is not of its highest quality for the highlighted groups. Third, we present a synthesis of research‐informed solutions proposed to improve both the quality of science instruction and its equitable access for the highlighted groups, creating a new baseline standard for equitable science instruction. An elevated baseline would address the existing disparities in who has access to quality science instruction and consequently reduce the gatekeeper effect of who defines and solves societal problems that perpetuate intergenerational inequities.

“…Namely that we as STEM educators are instilled with notions that surface‐level pedagogical approaches represent the solutions to social inequities in education. For example, consider the ways in which culturally responsive pedagogy and teaching have been simultaneously exploded in popularity while simultaneously being reduced to shallow, superficial pop culture content connections and the simplest forms of cultural relevance instead of, for example, authentically centering historical and contemporary innovation, creativity, knowledge, and practices of historically oppressed racial and ethnic communities (Morton et al, 2022).…”

Section: Our Loving (Self) Critiquementioning

confidence: 99%

Ideology in the mirror: A loving (self) critique of our equity and social justice efforts in STEM education

Basile

Azevedo

2022

This manuscript is born from contemplating and exploring how it is that we see so little systemic change in STEM education after so many years of working toward it, including the insidious persistence of systems of oppression, and historical and generational exploitation that our current critical, social justice efforts in STEM teacher preparation programs are ineffective and ill‐equipped at changing or dismantling. Starting from an explanatory frame of Freire's conundrum of the oppressed, we theorize toward a more complex notion of ideological change. Through the novel reflexive discourse of a loving (self) critique, we interrogate our own individual failures to construct a better theoretical understanding of them. Using self‐reflections and other examples, we theorize an imperative of continued ideological growth and development to more authentically step forward in our STEM education equity and social justice work.