Critical Race Structuralism: The Role of Science Education in Teaching Social Justice Issues in Urban Education and Pre-Service Teacher Education Programs

Abstract

Using critical race structuralism (CRS), a new contribution, as well as primary and secondary data, this article explores the role of science in teaching social justice issues in urban education. In the United States, a teaching workforce, which is predominately White, middle class, and female, intersects with an increasingly diverse student population, creating a need for culturally responsive teaching practices, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) classes. An investigation of existing literature reveals the need for greater emphasis on environmental racism and social justice as they pertain to students living in low-income and urban communities. Our findings reveal that CRS can be utilized in a collective effort to transform teacher education programs and teacher pedagogy, to effectively address environmental racism and other social justice issues in urban schools and communities.

Multimodal Literacies in Elementary Teacher Education: Facilitating Culturally Relevant Pedagogy with Mathematics

“…Students of multiple ages can be provided opportunities to engage with mathematics concepts in agentic, engaging, and empowering ways that promote social justice, critical thinking, and problem-solving. However, implementing this instruction within certain paradigms requires an intentional, invested, and persistent shift in perspectives on pedagogy and mathematics, thus illuminating the complexities of effectively incorporating CRP into mathematics classrooms at various levels (Maloney & Matthews, 2020;Wiggan et al, 2020).…”

Critical Race Structuralism and Charles Mills’ Racial Contract: Pedagogical Practices for Twenty-first-century Educators

“…The tenets of CRS—C.A.U.S.E.—can help transform pedagogical practices for educators. As Mills (1997) envisioned the disruption of dominant perspectives, CRS can potentially challenge harmful racial practices and curriculum violence in schools and beyond (Ighodaro and Wiggan 2011; Wiggan et al 2020). The use of CRS to teach Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract can potentially challenge race-neutral approaches to teaching by incorporating critical pedagogical strategies that address racial and ethnic oppression and promote healing ( Healing Power of Education -2021) in schools and society (Watson-Vandiver and Wiggan 2021).…”

“…Given the debates surrounding CRT, critical race structuralism (CRS), a new contribution and sister framework, attempts to expand analyses and mediating processes regarding the impact of racism. Thus, CRS is “a theoretical framework that explains racial and ethnic relations in social and institutional systems in terms of patterns and relationships between race, culture, gender, and social structures” (Wiggan, Pass, and Gadd 2020:10). CRS is based on five major tenets (discussed later in the paper) that delineate the impact of racial and ethnic relations in U.S. society.…”

The Ambivalent Students’ Cognition to Be English Teachers for Young Learners: A Longitudinal Study

“…Pre-service teaching is a supervised and guided period of teaching by lecturers in education, and pre-service teachers are gradually introduced to teaching roles for specific classes. After studying teaching theory and pedagogy, they should gain classroom experience during their bachelor’s degree in college to become professional teachers ( Wiggan et al, 2020 ). As pre-service EYL teachers, they should therefore understand a variety of concepts, including the characteristics of students who are learning a foreign language, the importance of students’ age in determining classroom teaching methods, and the theories and principles underlying the teaching of EYL ( Juhana, 2014 ; Darwis and Hasanah, 2020 ).…”