Science Teacher Education in Canada: Addressing Diversity by Living and Teaching Intersectionality

Abstract

As a Black woman of Caribbean heritage, born and raised in England, my own school science experience was focused on learning the tricks that teachers presented as intuitively graspable. I was used to pushing through and ignoring the ‘outsider’ feelings that I possessed. As a science teacher and science teacher educator, I came to understand that there are many students for whom the acquisition of science knowledge means compromise to their sense of selfhood, either because they are members of groups for whom Western modern science is not a central tenet of understanding or because of the esoteric mode of science instruction. In this chapter, I identify four critical incidents that have occurred during my professional experience as a science teacher educator. I explore the implications of these incidents by examining them through the equity lens of intersectionality to highlight broader concerns in science teaching and science teacher education. The analyses reinforce the need for science teachers to allow themselves and their students to be open and reflective about their own positionings in the field of science education as well as the need to acknowledge the historical and philosophical contexts of Western modern science as a body of knowledge. I hope that this chapter will be used by science teacher educators to stimulate dialogue and provide an artifact around which constructive and meaningful conversation foments in the many spaces of science teacher education.