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The Inadequacies of “Science for All” and the necessity and nature of a socially transformative curriculum approach for African American science education
Abstract
“Science for All” is a mantra that has guided science education reform and practice for the past 20 years or so. Unfortunately, after 20 years of “Science for All” guided policy, research, professional development, and curricula African Americans continue to participate in the scientific enterprise in numbers that are staggeringly low. What is more, if current reform efforts were to realize the goal of “Science for All,” it remains uncertain that African American students would be well-served. This article challenges the idea that the type of science education advocated under the “Science for All” movement is good for African American students. It argues that African American students are uniquely situated historically and socially and would benefit greatly from a socially transformative approach to science education curricula designed to help them meet their unique sociohistorical needs. The article compares the curriculum approach presented by current reform against a socially transformative curriculum approach. It concludes with a description of research that could support the curricular approach advocated. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 301–316, 2011
... 155). The forms of knowledge contributing to cultural competency include Ladson-Billings' [17,18] culturally relevant pedagogy, Gay's [59][60][61][62] culturally responsive teaching, and Paris's [33] culturally sustaining pedagogy, which is briefly discussed. ...
... Integrating sociopolitical consciousness, she maintained, allows teachers to create conducive learning spaces where they and their students collectively [co-construct], identify, analyze, and solve real-world problems that impact education. Studies support using CRP because classroom curricula must be culturally relevant for students whose home experiences differ from those of the Eurocentric mainstream culture and curriculum [12,61,62]. ...
... Situating a culturally responsive teaching approach on Ladson-Billings' work, scholars such as Villegas and Lucas [19] and Gay [59][60][61][62] emphasized the need for teachers to build their instruction on students' prior knowledge, cultural backgrounds, and real-life experiences. Hammond [8] described cultural responsiveness as using students' cultural identities, race, ethnicity, language, etc., as assets and a way of building trust and relationships. ...
Teaching can be challenging, especially when teachers are under-prepared to enter a workforce with a constantly changing landscape. Preparing teachers for STEM content has generated multiple approaches from varying perspectives. While some scholars advocate for content expertise, others promote pedagogy or social context as approaches for translating STEM content for students. Yet, many contend that teachers must be culturally knowledgeable to respond to student diversity effectively. While these arguments are valuable and needed, many have not considered the interconnectedness of these approaches, often used in silos. This conceptual paper unpacks some of these arguments using the social constructivism theory of learning as the epistemic lens to examine and interpret what STEM teacher knowledge should encompass in the 21st-century diversified classroom. After thoroughly evaluating the core elements of three commonly used teacher constructs, this paper presents an integrative, holistic teacher knowledge—culturally responsive pedagogical knowledge (CRPK) framework that considers the necessary qualities that teachers must possess that are functional, content-focused, and pedagogically inclusive. The proposed CRPK construct would be a valuable programmatic tool for teacher preparation, curriculum development, and classroom praxis.
... In this article, I define engagement in science using two distinct approaches to African American students' learning: culturally relevant science pedagogy (CRSP) [18], an offshoot of CRP within a science context, and the five types of mastery [19], a socially transformative science curriculum model. At their intersections, CRSP articulates the instructional method for enacting equity and the five types of mastery supports the practice of equity through a curricular checklist approach to meet African American students' social and engagementin-science needs. ...
... Some scholars explicitly focus on racism and anti-Blackness as the root causes of systemic inequities. These inequities, in turn, are understood as being responsible for barriers to racial literacy and a lack of justice for African American and Black learners in science education because of anti-Black pedagogy, anti-Black curricular frameworks, and educational policies that uphold anti-Blackness racism [19,25,[27][28][29][30]. Increasing efforts to identify root causes for racial inequities in science education are exemplified by Mutegi and Atwater's [25] call for theorizing racism in science education. ...
... A racial equity agenda in science education must be implemented during the development of curricula and pedagogical methods, rather than being used as a measurement to rate effectiveness retroactively. For example, studies in science education to promote socially transformative curricula [19]; sociocultural consciousness [31]; culturally relevant teaching [18]; the inclusion and amplification of Black girls' voices in learning settings [32]; and awareness in teacher education programs of pre-service teachers' experiences in culturally diverse contexts [33] offer unique insights to confronting racism. Such studies define the purpose of and strategies for centering racial equity in science education. ...
Although African American educators strive to ameliorate racist and/or sexist barriers to learners’ science engagement in U.S. education, examples of applications of culturally relevant science instruments to measure African American learners’ engagement in science are hard to find in the literature. Inaccurate perceptions about student engagement in science education continue to exist, including assumptions about the prevalence and effects of low socioeconomic status, limited content knowledge, and a lack of interest or motivation of African American learners compared to white learners. Most exemplars of student engagement in science focus on the cognitive, behavioral, and social mores of white, male, cisgender, middle-class learners and their reactions to teacher pedagogy. This article reports on a qualitative study of three African American female and male secondary science educators’ narratives of “engagement” in science amongst systemic inequities in the northeastern and southeastern U.S. regions. To better understand African American learners’ science engagement, I combined socially transformative science curriculum approaches for African American students using five types of mastery with the concepts of culturally relevant science pedagogy as the facilitator of racial equity. A critical-arts-based research methodology was used to craft participants’ autobiographical data and drawings into a literary métissage of the participants’ experiences, memories, and culturally relevant pedagogical strategies. Themes included: (1) teachers’ recognition that their interest and positionality impacted their engagement in science; (2) their understanding of how identifying as scientists informed their career choices and modes of participation; and (3) their observations about how mentoring and vision influenced students’ attitudes about engaging in science. The major finding was that critical incidents that teachers experienced when they were students in K-20 schools influenced how they became engaged in science and constructed their culturally relevant practices as science educators. The implications of this finding for pre-service and teacher leadership development for equitable teaching and learning will be discussed, and recommendations for using culturally relevant science practices and navigating power dynamics will be provided.
... Teachers from non-Western countries regard the lack of suitable teaching resources as a major difficulty when using the historical approach (Höttecke and Silva, 2012; to teach NOS because the development of classical science arose in the West. Some teaching contexts and resources from Western countries may not be transferable for NOS teaching in non-Western countries (Mutegi, 2011;Wan et al., 2018). Consequently, it is necessary to develop and use culturally relevant teaching resources as one way to support non-Western students' learning (Abrams et al., 2013). ...
... Science educators have reached a certain degree of consensus in recent years that science education needs to consider culture-related aspects in NOS teaching (e.g., Mutegi, 2011;Kiang and Szeto, 2021). Some researchers (e.g., Mutegi, 2011;Wan et al., 2018;Kiang and Szeto, 2021;Shi, 2021) reported that the prevailing teaching approaches in science education are not likely to meet the social needs of students from non-Western countries; also, the core, when it comes to the future of science education, is in understanding, supporting and using different cultures as learning resources rather than hurdles, with a view to expanding human awareness and values. ...
... Science educators have reached a certain degree of consensus in recent years that science education needs to consider culture-related aspects in NOS teaching (e.g., Mutegi, 2011;Kiang and Szeto, 2021). Some researchers (e.g., Mutegi, 2011;Wan et al., 2018;Kiang and Szeto, 2021;Shi, 2021) reported that the prevailing teaching approaches in science education are not likely to meet the social needs of students from non-Western countries; also, the core, when it comes to the future of science education, is in understanding, supporting and using different cultures as learning resources rather than hurdles, with a view to expanding human awareness and values. Consensus on the value of the history of science has been reached to a good extent, and there are many investigations in teaching (e.g., Rudge et al., 2014;Williams and Rudge, 2016) but largely limited to the Western history of science (Walls, 2012). ...
Though there are a multiplicity of approaches that have been used to promote Nature of Science (NOS) among school students, an approach based on exploration of a scientific discovery indigenous to the sample population, of contemporary interest, and based on a topic outside the school science syllabus seems to be lacking in the literature. This study focused on Chinese high school students ( N = 98), using the discovery of an anti-malarial drug by a recent Nobel Prize winning Chinese scientist as a focus. A popular science article on this discovery formed the basis for the intervention, and a mainly qualitative approach was used. Variants of an explicit-reflective approach were used for the three groups formed by random sampling for the intervention. The four NOS attributes targeted were: socio-cultural, empirical nature, scientific method, and creativity/imagination, and these were explicitly interrogated through four open-ended questions, respectively. Responses to these questions were parked into five rating levels, which helped to explicate the extent to which the samples were able to provide descriptors to characterize their understandings. The approach based on reading of the article followed by student discussions and mediation by the instructor showed, overall, more gains in NOS as compared to just (1) reading/re-reading of the article and reflecting on it, and (2) reading of the article followed by small sub-group discussions and reflecting on it. It is suggested that there is a case for using indigenous scientific discovery as an approach to foster interest in NOS among students. Some implications of the study are discussed.
... That is, although "[m]eanings for Blackness have always permeated the prevailing racial ideologies, institutional practices, social arrangements, and opportunity in the U.S. society, these meanings are no less relevant to Black children's mathematical [science] development and lived realities" (Martin, 2012, p. 50). Hence, the learning experiences of Black children are stymied by race and racism (Mutegi, 2011;Spencer, 2009). ...
... For learners of African descent, socially transformative STEM curriculum is critical because it speaks to the most basic and immediate needs of their communities. The conditions under which people of African descent currently exist can be characterized as pervasively deficient (Mutegi, 2011), which is to say that they have fewer of those things that are good (e.g., higher net worth, more effective medical treatment, higher home ownership, etc.) and more of those that are bad (e.g., higher incarceration rate, higher unemployment, higher mortality, etc.). Socially transformative STEM curriculum is envisioned as a means of helping people who are socially and historically situated in positions of pervasive disadvantage to correct that social condition (Mutegi, 2011). ...
... The conditions under which people of African descent currently exist can be characterized as pervasively deficient (Mutegi, 2011), which is to say that they have fewer of those things that are good (e.g., higher net worth, more effective medical treatment, higher home ownership, etc.) and more of those that are bad (e.g., higher incarceration rate, higher unemployment, higher mortality, etc.). Socially transformative STEM curriculum is envisioned as a means of helping people who are socially and historically situated in positions of pervasive disadvantage to correct that social condition (Mutegi, 2011). ...
Equity by Design: Relevance and Beyond:
The Role of Socially Transformative Curriculum in Science and Mathematics Education
Image description: Group of smiling young students of Color of various gender expressions, with a smiling masculine-presenting teacher of Color, in a STEM classroom.]
... Murrell (2012) work suggested the integration of the historical, cultural, political, and developmental considerations of the African American experience into a unified system of instruction, bringing to light those practices that already exist and linking them to contemporary ideas and innovations that concern effective practice in Black communities. Considering the histories and motivations of science education, for Black people is not only a learning experience, but also one of survival and liberation, linked to Afrofuturistic possibilities of living (Mutegi 2011). ...
... These following findings within this study focus on Monica's interpretations of the Black students' engagement with science. We believe there are two prerequisites for Black students to be liberated in science education: (1) re-framing and dismantling of deficit depictions and beliefs of Black people and their children (Martin 2010) and (2) understanding that the histories and contemporary experiences of Black people in the USA and much of the African Diaspora have not liberating for Black people (Mutegi 2011), which challenges Black scholars to not define Black liberations without using Whiteness as the measure (Ridgeway and McGee 2018). For doing so would be reifying the systems and structures we are trying to destroy. ...
... This in turn influenced their actions and ethos when engaging in other activities outside of school. Just as scholarship has described how students' lived experiences and home life can influence their learning in school (Mutegi 2011), the inverse is true and the over controlled learning environments impact students. ...
The contributions, participation, and exploitation of Black people within science and science education are devalued within the cannon of science teaching and learning. This in part is due to the Eurocentric nature of science and education. As a result, Black youth participate in science regularly; however, it is overlooked, not recognized, and/or misinterpreted within formal learning experiences. In this qualitative case study, the authors address this tension through the oral traditions of storytelling which historicize Black excellence in science while centering the voices and engagement of youth as scientists. This work is guided by critical race theory as a means of critiquing science education and its practices. While presenting a counter-narrative to mainstream science descriptions of Black youth, the authors posit the role of liberatory science education for Black learners.
... African-American girls are often steered away from rigorous mathematics and science courses (Walker 2007). They are also often tracked into lower-level classrooms where access to critical thinking, engagement, and relevance is limited or nonexistent (Tate and Rousseau 2002), and they are often excluded from learning experiences that make vital connections between the content and their values, priorities, abilities, culture, and lived experiences (Mutegi 2011). Additionally, who they are as African-American girls is not valued, and their intellects are often viewed through a deficit lens (Martin 2012). ...
... We believe that the design of educational programs, both formal and informal, plays an important role in the success of African-American students in math and science. Implementing a curriculum approach that values and affirms the experiences of students of color in relation to learning is essential (Mutegi 2011). Critical theorists, such as Paulo Freire, have long argued against educational systems that fail to prepare people to solve their problems (Foley, Morris, Gounari and Agostinone-Wilson 2015). ...
... Critical theorists, such as Paulo Freire, have long argued against educational systems that fail to prepare people to solve their problems (Foley, Morris, Gounari and Agostinone-Wilson 2015). Additionally, Jomo Mutegi (2011) argues that science should be taught through a socially transformative curriculum that positions African-American students to critically evaluate modern Western science while acquiring five types of mastery: content, currency, context, critique, and conduct. ...
This article describes a summer enrichment science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) camp for African-American girls and young women aimed at addressing mathematical and science self-efficacy and reinforcing the importance and usefulness of mathematics and science with a socially transformative curriculum. The research questions guiding this study are (1) How do African-American girl participants describe their experiences in Girls STEM Institute (GSI)? and (2) How does the STEM program experience affect their mathematics and science self-efficacy and valuing of mathematics and science? The data, which included journal entries and interviews, were collected and analyzed from four participants and indicated that participating in the Girls STEM Institute led to improved mathematics and science self-efficacy and increased perceptions of the value of science and math knowledge.
... It is well documented that this skepticism is also propagated by a culture of elitism and exclusivity that has historically functioned to exclude and marginalize Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities (Medin & Bang, 2014;Settlage et al., 2018). Issues of White supremacy, a racialized and colonial history of science, and continued marginalization of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities in the sciences and healthcare system have been called into question once again (Morales-Doyle, 2019; Mutegi, 2011;Rosa & Mensah, 2016). Following the Black Lives Matter movement, thousands of scientists went on strike worldwide, condemning enduring racism in STEM fields under the banner hashtag, "ShutDownStem" (#Shut-DownSTEM). ...
... The glaring absence of research with and for minoritized populations in science and technology is merely an extension of the rhetoric of science for all-being a dream shelved and gatekept by science education power brokers (Rivera Maulucci, 2010). This is visible with the persistent racialized disparities and inequitable and historical exclusion of minoritized populations in science education, science teaching and learning, and participation in science and STEM domains broadly (Mutegi, 2011;Rangel et al., 2020). These inequities and lack of representation manifest as schooling that is disconnected from the lived experiences and interests of urban students of color (King & Pringle, 2018) that overlooks and discounts students of color as capable of excellence and high achievement despite dominant practices and narratives falsely positioning them as deficit (Sheth, 2018). ...
... Consequently, we identified six core dimensions that are at the core of how technologies are implemented and enacted in the science education context. To ground our discussion of equitable, social justice criticality (which follows in the ensuing sections), we present a brief discussion of each dimension (for a detailed presentation of each dimension, please see Waight & Abd-El-Khalick, 2012, 2011. ...
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in the rapid emergence of vaccines, the dual benefits of both science and technology have been lauded, while dominant, deficit-based narratives of vaccine hesitancy and mistrust in science and medicine by the general public, particularly minoritized populations, run rampant. In this paper, we argue for a counternarrative, where instead of erroneously positioning communities of color as the problem, the problem is reframed to consider what the scientific, technological, and science education communities need to do to become more trustworthy and transgress the persistent shortcomings related to racism and injustice. Specifically, in this position paper, we (a) discuss the interactions of science, technology, and society from the perspective of the nature of technology; (b) engage an understanding of how bias, access, and racism operate in and at the intersection of science, technology, and technological systems; (c) discuss implications of these ideas in science education; and finally (d) pose recommendations to counter alienation and racism with an emphasis on a sixth dimension, equitable, social justice criticality, for science-technology education. In conclusion, we make recommendations by centering a more equitable, social justice criticality of science and technology.
... The existence of certain structures in science education and science classes has historically maintained unjust, inequitable, and othering experiences for youth of color, and in general for minoritized youth associated with their socioeconomic standing, language, gender, ethnicity, and/or race. More particularly, scholars have noted such experiences as Black youth in the USA interact with and within science (Brown et al., 2013;Mutegi, 2011;Parsons, 2008;Parsons et al., 2009) and other aspects of schooling (Hope et al., 2015;Lewis & Diamond, 2015). Thus, research that explores Black students' production of self in science education spaces and places is vital as it could facilitate pathways to liberating and empowering experiences or perpetuate alienation and oppression. ...
... I focused on identity stories of Black students as it pertained to science, a subject where they have been historically positioned as struggling, uninterested, deficient, and behind other racial groups in the US Fig. 3 Fara's chair split to represent "You Can't Mess This Up!" society. Analysis of the findings revealed that ethnodance offered Black youth with dance identities a medium to recount their evolving science identities coupled with their agentic ability to intervene in their experiences in science and to narrate the often-hidden power structures (Strong et al., 2016) in science and especially physics that maintain oppressive experiences for Black youth (Mutegi, 2011) and limit or restrict insider access and engagement. Thus, ethnodance was a unique tool to study students' science identity construction intertwined with the emotions and actions of agentic transformation against structures that maintain exclusionary science spaces from the students' perspective (Fig. 4). ...
This study examined the dimensions of the structure-agency dialectic embedded in students’ embodied narratives of their science experiences. As three Black high school students with developed dancer identities used what I have named “ethnodance” to author and narrate their evolving science identity, I looked for structures that hindered or supported their development as well as their agentic choices, resistance, and advocacy. I present an empirical illustration of dimensions of the structure-agency dialectic embedded in students’ ethnodances and reflection. Building on the consideration that for students whom a meaningful part of social life includes movement and dance, the theoretical argument frames ethnodance as an embodied narrative, dance as a form of cultural expression and social life for some Black youth, and identities-in-narratives as a window into students’ agentic power to disrupt normative science ideologies and carve a place for themselves in science. Furthermore, students’ ethnodances conveyed how changes to the science course sequence, physics discourse, and expectations from trusted adults limited or hindered their participation in science, and self-advocacy, choice, and resistance constructed, de-constructed, or re-constructed their competence in science.
... Science praxes reflect teaching practices and actions focused on promoting science inquiry, learning and understanding; it also includes the general ethos teachers create within science learning spaces that are attentive (or not) to students' social, emotional, psychological, cultural, and physical well-being (e.g., Mensah & Jackson, 2018). In critically examining existing science praxes, Black scholars have argued for nuanced, critical, racialized examinations of science education praxis to unpack both direct and indirect implications of racist policies, practices, pedagogies, and mind-sets on students' science engagement, possibilities, and outcomes (e.g., Dodo Seriki, 2018;Madkins & McKinney de Royston, 2019;Mutegi, 2011;E. C. Parsons et al., 2011). ...
... In formulating these guiding concepts, we consider the fact that the advancement of science, in ways that are truly "for the good of the people," does not, has not, and will not be achieved without redressing systemic anti-Blackness (Mutegi, 2011). Redressing systemic anti-Blackness can start with but should not be limited to actions that center and build upon Black contributions to science and Black cultural perspectives of science. ...
This paper calls for a critical reimagination of science epistemology and praxis by advocating for a move toward Black liberation in and through K-12 science education. This call is driven by our desires as authors to foster a future of K-12 science teaching and learning that centers, embraces, and promotes historical and contemporary Black scientific innovation and creativity through practices that redress structural anti-Black racism and its implications on Black existence and life. Black Liberatory K-12 Science Education (BLKSE) names the existing challenges with cultivating and empowering Black minds in and through science as a result of anti-Black ideologies that ground and govern K-12 science access, teaching and learning. In naming said challenges as the manifestations of anti-Black ideologies, we shed light on the roles of K-12 science teachers and science teacher education regarding the treatment of Black students given oppressive policies and practices that fail to recognize Black brilliance and innovation. By advocating for a push toward BLKSE, we offer guiding concepts we feel are necessary to begin the process of rooting out anti-Blackness; a process that centers a holistic, heterogenous form of Blackness at the crux of science inquiry and understanding. As a result of this perspec- tive, BLKSE embraces the beauty and creativity of Black youth, naming their positions and ideas as forms of scientific knowledge and inquiry, while disrupting existing mainstream paradigms and practices in science education. Implications for ways to work toward BLKSE in K-12 science teaching and teacher education are provided.
... As part of the pilot project and building upon a decade of work with Black girls, our primary objective through Girls STEM Institute (GSI) is to offer STEM learning experiences that are not just engaging but also socially transformative. Utilizing Mutegi's (2011) Socially Transformative Curriculum (STC) framework, we aim to equip Black girls with the tools, resources, and self-efficacy needed to critically evaluate and influence Western STEM practices, particularly in areas affecting their CENTERING CAREGIVERS 39 own communities, such as environment, healthcare, economy, and social welfare (Morton & Smith-Mutegi, 2018, 2022. ...
The Georgia (USA) Department of Education initiated the Georgia Numeracy Project (GNP) to provide resources for schools and districts to help K-8 students build a solid foundation in numeracy. The Individual Knowledge Assessment of Number (IKAN), designed by the New Zealand Numeracy Project, is one of two instruments used in the GNP to diagnose K-8 students’ numeracy knowledge and inform teaching strategies. Because teachers’ knowledge, skills, and beliefs in mathematics can have an impact on their students’ learning of mathematics, and numeracy knowledge and skills play an essential role in K-8 mathematics education, we must learn K-8 preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) strengths and weaknesses in this area. To support PSTs’ development of numeracy at the college level, the IKAN written assessment was administered using a pre/posttest design during four consecutive semesters (spring 2021 – fall 2022) to examine our PSTs’ numeracy knowledge (number order and sequence, basic facts, fractions, and place value) in a Foundations of Numbers and Operations course that focuses on PSTs’ content and pedagogical knowledge in numeracy. In this paper, we present findings about the patterns and changes in our PSTs’ content knowledge from the past four semesters of IKAN data.
... As part of the pilot project and building upon a decade of work with Black girls, our primary objective through Girls STEM Institute (GSI) is to offer STEM learning experiences that are not just engaging but also socially transformative. Utilizing Mutegi's (2011) Socially Transformative Curriculum (STC) framework, we aim to equip Black girls with the tools, resources, and self-efficacy needed to critically evaluate and influence Western STEM practices, particularly in areas affecting their CENTERING CAREGIVERS 39 own communities, such as environment, healthcare, economy, and social welfare (Morton & Smith-Mutegi, 2018, 2022. ...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the Fostering and Maximizing Interdisciplinary Learning Year-round (F.a.M.I.L.Y.) pilot project, which was developed to explore Black caregivers' interest and engagement in STEM, while also understanding the usefulness and relevance of STEM in their lives as Black caregivers to Black girls. Utilizing data collected from observations, journal entries, and dyadic interviews, a constant comparative analysis was conducted, rendering the results of a successful project. Results revealed that the project successfully increased the caregivers' interest and engagement in STEM while also enhancing their awareness of its applicability to their everyday lives. In addition, data also revealed that the project aided in providing resources and strategies that allowed for caregivers to better support their Black girls' STEM learning with a more informed understanding.
... Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) focuses on three tenets: critical consciousness, which challenges inequitable school and societal structures; cultural competence, which locates excellence within the context of the students' communities and cultural identities; and academic excellence, which is not based on cultural deficit models of school failure (Ladson-Billings, 1994), but on the cultural and linguistic assets that Black and Brown students bring to the classroom and curriculum. In the last decade, CRP has been explicitly theorized in science education (Mensah, 2011;Mensah & Jackson, 2018;Underwood & Mensah, 2018), with a few who prioritize sociopolitical consciousness of both the science teacher and the science student and its influence on the science curriculum (Madkins & McKinney de Royston, 2019;Mensah, 2011;2022;Mutegi, 2011). Sociopolitical consciousness is especially important in science education, "if we seek to change the historical hegemonic experiences of students of color" because as science teachers, "we need to address issues of race relations as they relate to science, society, and classroom" (Dunac & Demir, 2016, p. 38). ...
Marginalized communities cannot and do not have decontextualized experiences with how socioscientific issues, such as exposure to COVID‐19 as frontline essential workers, high Black infant mortality rates, air pollution leading to respiratory problems, and other issues, affect their communities. As PreK‐12 science teachers and teacher educators strive to dismantle oppressive practices in their classrooms and curriculum, it would be helpful to learn from Black women science teachers who have been engaging in anti‐racist practices before the racial awakenings of Summer 2020. In this study, three different virtual focus groups, or Sista Circles, were conducted with 18 Black women secondary science teachers. Ranging from 1 to 22 years of experience, Black women teachers across the country and international participants in Canada and Qatar participated in the Sista Circles. From intersectional qualitative analysis and narrative inquiry, the findings of the study reveal that Black women science teachers enact anti‐racist science teaching by bringing something new to the community; using NGSS standards within the context of the community; teaching at the intersection of history, culture, and science learning and teaching; and building critical consciousness in the science classroom. Furthermore, the findings of the study have implications for the use of anti‐racist frameworks within the context of science education that were authentically the practices of the Black women in the study. This study offers insights into how the critical consciousness of Black women teachers can be represented in the science classroom even in times of nonsupport from peers and administration. The power and necessity of Black women teachers are paramount in science classrooms specifically because of the neutral, apolitical ways science teaching has been approached in the past. The narratives and stories shared here exemplify how Black women science teachers transform science teaching and learning by displaying various acts of Criticality.
... The curriculum is student-centered and provides students with opportunities to engage in knowledge creation through authentic performance tasks. Researchers have argued that the science classroom should serve to develop students who challenge social inequality through teaching, curriculum, and social transformation (Dos Santos, 2009;Finkel 2018;Mutegi, 2011;Rodriguez, 1998). Further, Moje (2007) maintained that teaching science for social justice "not only provides access to mainstream knowledge and practices but also provides opportunities to question, challenge, and reconstruct knowledge. ...
Providing opportunities for youth who have been ‘pushed out’ of traditional schools to re-engage is an issue of social justice. The lack of equitable learning opportunities in the traditional science classroom is a contributing factor to youth being pushed out. Alternative education programs have the potential to support youth who have been ‘pushed out; to re-engage in science. This study investigated the factors that may contribute to the academic achievement of students in their class-based science courses at Xinaxtli Charter School, an alternative education program for youth who have been ‘pushed out’ in Southern California. A phenomenological research study using interviews was conducted. Students identified the Xinaxtli science classrooms as a critical and equitable science learning space with these components: educators who develop authentic relationships with students, a learning space that embodies an epistemological pluriverse inclusive of multiple perspectives and values the knowledge students bring to the classroom, the use of culturally relevant science that empowers students to make informed decisions, a localized-critical-action-based curriculum, and a wide array of equitable learning practices to re-engage students. Findings from this study underscore that a paradigm shift must occur in science education for critical and equitable learning opportunities to become commonplace.
... Many science education scholars have advocated for science teaching that produces transformative science learning experiences among all students (e.g., Mutegi, 2011;Upadhyay et al., 2020). However, transformative science teaching approaches are acutely missing from schools with a majority of Indigenous students (McCarty & Lee, 2014) as well as Indigenous and mainstream schools in Nepal (Joshi & James, 2022;Upadhyay et al., 2020). ...
... In addressing the issue of scientific illiteracy, the 'Science for All' movement aims to ensure equality of educational opportunity through the provision of meaningful experiences in science for all students (Kembara et al., 2020). By 'Science for All,' I am referring to the movement aimed at making science more accessible, particularly to groups that have traditionally shunned science, hoping to increase scientific literacy amongst the general population (Mutegi, 2011). Interestingly, the introduction of the sciences into educational institutions of "all grades" has its roots in eighteenth century Germany while the United States began emphasizing science in schools during the first half of the nineteenth century in all secondary (high school) institutions (Graves, 1916). ...
... Science education rooted in social justice points to the relevance of students' sociopolitical, cultural, and experiential backgrounds. Jomo W. Mutegi (2011) implored that race should be central to a socially transformative curriculum, specifically for African American children. Faith noted that because her school was Afrocentric, there was a need to make sure that students engage with content on a personal level, which should be true for all students (Ladson-Billings 2014;Mensah 2011). ...
In this paper, we reflect on Luisa Marco-Bujosa’s paper, Soul searching in teaching science for social justice: an exploration of critical events through the lens of intersectionality. Our goal is to offer the reader a deeper understanding of the principles and epistemologies of Afrocentric schooling that were foundational to Faith’s intersectional experience as she taught science for social justice.
We then consider Faith’s experiences in light of these refined understandings.
... The conceptual lenses that guided the study were the Socially Transformative STEM Curriculum Framework (Mutegi, 2011) and counterspaces (Solorzano & Villalpando, 1998). Implementing a socially transformative curricular (STC) approach within a counterspace opened the door to opportunities that value learners' experiences, interests, history, and the history of their communities (Maccleave & Eghan, 2010). ...
... The work of secondary science teachers in the USA has changed rapidly over the last 20 years as forces of globalization and related school reforms place new demands on teachers and their students regarding the teaching and learning of disciplinary literacies. At the same time, science teachers have faced increasing calls to grapple with the ways colonialism and systemic racism have influenced science teaching, learning, and literacy practices (e.g., Mutegi, 2011;Sheth, 2019). And this is not even to mention the more recent moment-by-moment changes science teachers have contended with as a result of COVID-19. ...
This chapter analyzes one high school science teacher’s development of disciplinary linguistic knowledge (DLK) for the purpose of meeting the civil rights of multilingual students in his English-dominant classroom. First, the chapter offers a brief description of the theoretical underpinnings of DLK and our conception of teachers’ professional knowledge development. Second, we outline our ethnographic methods for tracing the focal teacher’s DLK development. Third, drawing on six years of data, we present findings which suggest four stages of DLK development: (1) learning functional metalanguage to “see” classroom discourse in new ways; (2) applying functional metalanguage to develop conscious knowledge of official literacy practices in high-school science; (3) applying functional metalanguage to develop conscious knowledge of multilingual students’ literacy practices in science class; and (4) experimenting with language-focused curriculum design and implementation for unique contexts. Finally, we discuss what changes to practice emerged from this process and had staying power over time, as well as the implications of our findings for the practice of science teacher education and professional development.
... Efforts to reform science, mathematics, and engineering education toward more equitable access have taken a variety of forms. Since the first call to equity in the form of "Science for all Americans" (Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1991) there has been continued attention and investment toward the re-examination of epistemological and cultural stances defining what it means to think, speak, and act like an expert in these three fields (Lynch, 2001;Mutegi, 2011). It was once thought that treating every student the same and offering equal and standardized measures for all students avoided bias and would rebuff any critiques who drew attention to the predominant bias of rational, positivist engineering perspective. ...
In this chapter, the authors pose questions to generate discussion and reflection on the importance of centering equity, diversity and social justice in science education reform and research. They explore the need for a dimension of equity, engagement diversity and social justice to more responsively (and responsibly) guide research funding, teacher development and supportive accountability efforts (Rodriguez, Journal of Research in Science Teaching 52(7), 1031–1051). The studies exposited in this book provide examples of reforms in science education being conducted with little to no funding. Here, the authors provide synopses and key findings and recommendations of each chapter in the book.KeywordsNational science education standardsScientific literacyScience reformFederal fundingSTEM educationScience educationEquity-centered research
... Efforts to reform science, mathematics, and engineering education toward more equitable access have taken a variety of forms. Since the first call to equity in the form of "Science for all Americans" (Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1991) there has been continued attention and investment toward the re-examination of epistemological and cultural stances defining what it means to think, speak, and act like an expert in these three fields (Lynch, 2001;Mutegi, 2011). It was once thought that treating every student the same and offering equal and standardized measures for all students avoided bias and would rebuff any critiques who drew attention to the predominant bias of rational, positivist engineering perspective. ...
Herein, we report on preliminary findings from an on-going, mixed methods research project with secondary science pre-service teachers in Costa Rica during the last year and half of their professional preparation. Our study focuses on enhancing pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy in the integration of critical cross-cultural education with STEAM (science, technology, engineering practices, arts and mathematics education). Overall findings indicate a strong and significant positive impact on the participants’ perceptions of preparedness to enact more culturally and socially relevant approaches for STEAM teaching. However, our focus on this chapter is to mainly share surprising insights into the invisibility of marginalized ethnic groups in Costa Rica, and the role of teachers’ own ethnic/cultural identity (positionalities) can play in becoming much needed social change agents. These findings have implications for teacher education programs that are committed to the professional preparation of teachers as caring, inclusive and culturally competent individuals who can contribute to making STEAM education more accessible and socially meaningful to all students everywhere.KeywordsTeacher identitySociotransformative constructivismCritical positional praxisCulturally relevantFunding equity
... This implies that science is not universal but diverse in relation to socio-political developments and histories globally. The development of mathematics education, along with a particular form of numeracy, has thus unfolded within broader socio-political histories of colonialism, capitalism and imperialism, from which a Western modern science has developed and expanded (Mutegi, 2011). ...
... Both the paper I am responding to and my response thus far address primarily questions of how we can improve the science teaching and learning of African American students. Nothing so far has been critical or truly transformative, because we have not addressed the ways that science education can and should be used to promote social change (Mutegi 2011). To move beyond the singular goal of content mastery, I turn to the idea of liberatory pedagogy (Freire 1970), which seeks to transform the classroom into a dialogic and student-powered learning environment. ...
This essay takes up a question that was left unanswered in the paper by Parsons and Morton, namely, why the African American students interviewed in the study described their best teachers as they did. The theoretical perspectives of Rogoff and Boykin are applied to show the importance of culturally resonant science classrooms that hum with the repertoires and dimensions of African American students. Examples are provided to illustrate the need for science teaching that emerges from, is situated in and relevant to the lives of African American students, as well as approaches that lead to critical, socially transformative science teaching. These examples are also used to illustrate that a small space exists within NGSS for this kind of teaching to be done in science classrooms. Lastly, although student voice is important, surveying African American students to understand how they might best be taught science must be considered in the context of the racialized nature of the students’ experiences in the oppressive educational system that they have endured.
... Create humanizing spaces within schools and the larger community for Black girls to access STEM with authenticity Morton and Smith-Mutegi (2022) discussed disparities in the types of learning experiences that Black girls are afforded, and advocated for transformative spaces where their abilities and belongingness in STEM are validated. In their argument, they centered the importance of self-efficacy (Bandura 1986;Britner and Pajares 2006) and teaching the STEM disciplines using socially transformative curricula to master content, currency, context, critique, and conduct (Mutegi 2011). William Tate (2001) argued that access to science and mathematics education in urban schools is a civil rights issue, and that inequalities in schooling have focused on sharing the same "educational space" with our White counterparts, rather than on access to high-quality academic preparation. ...
This forum paper dialogues with Crystal Morton and Demetrice Smith-Mutegi’s Making “it” matter: Developing African American girls and young women’s mathematics and science identities through informal STEM learning. Their article unveils the experiences of participants in Girls STEM Institute, and how they challenged beliefs about their ability to perform in science and mathematics. I extend the discussion to explore the importance of access through community-based initiatives and stand on the premise that we will continue to oxygenate master narratives and perpetuate inequities if the structure and function of our programs fail to challenge the status quo. Therefore, this paper serves as a call to action to (1) recognize and address spirit murdering from teachers and authority figures who dismiss the abilities of Black girls to perform in STEM; (2) create humanizing spaces within schools and the larger community for Black girls to access STEM with authenticity; and (3) leverage the multidimensional identities of Black girls in ways that validate their cultural resources and brilliance. When we commit ourselves to creating more equitable learning spaces in STEM, then our actions will align with our responsibility to make Black girls matter.
... Unfortunately, opportunity gaps in learning science continue throughout formal schooling. Mutegi (2011) and Roehrig and Luft (2006) have identified a "one-size-fitsall" approach that teachers tend to implement for teaching science to all children as problematic, which contributes to widening opportunity gaps. This standardized approach represents a single dominant culture while ignoring the various ranges of nondominant children's rich cultural knowledge and experiences (Milner, 2010;Wynter-Hoyte et al., 2019). ...
The present study investigated how 380 early childhood pre-service teachers perceived equity in science education and how they planned to incorporate their equity concept into their future science teaching practices. An inductive thematic analysis of the data collected indicated that the majority of pre-service teachers harboured misconceptions about equity in science education. They also conceptualized equity in science education as involving English learners, something unrelated to children’s racial/ethnic backgrounds. Colorblindness and deficit beliefs were pervasive among pre-service teachers. One important implication is the need for pre-service teachers to understand that resolving opportunity gaps in science education between dominant and nondominant children depends on building their knowledge of equitable science instruction. Another implication is the need for ECE science teacher educators to create opportunities for pre-service teachers to identify their own cultural backgrounds, as well as to critically and continuously reflect on their own biases and prejudices towards children who come from diverse backgrounds.
... Interest in critical perspectives is also growing among science educators. It rests at the core of Weinstein's (2015) study of street medics, Tan and Barton's (2010) examination of the figured worlds of racial minority students, Aguilar-Valdez et al. (2013) push to have Latinx students' struggle in napantla foregrounded in science instruction, Morales-Doyle's (2017) justice-centered science pedagogy, and Mutegi's (2011)advocacy of socially transformative science curricula for learners of African descent (Mutegi & Momanyi, 2020). Although these scholars vary widely in the ways that they conceptualize critical perspectives in their work, they all struggle against both (a) the notion that there is one way to do science, and (b) the romanticization so prominent in presentations of Modern Western Science (MWS). ...
Although the Next Generation Science Standards and the National Science Education Standards prioritize the production of critical consumers of science as an overarching goal, there is relatively little science education research aimed at fostering critical perspectives among science teachers. The purpose of this theory-generative study is to identify ideas that might serve as affordances or hindrances to the development of critical perspectives of science. Data were collected from 64, preservice elementary-level teachers, over the course of three semesters, using an open-ended survey. In these data, we identified three affordances and five hindrances that might influence our ability to foster critical perspectives. Among the affordances for fostering critical perspectives, we found that students (a) have a clear sense that cultural difference does not suggest inferiority, (b) have a clear sense that human bias influences science work, and (c) regard opinion as a factor shaping the work of scientists. Among the hindrances to fostering critical perspectives we found that students (d) regard Western science as superior to non-Western science, (e) do not have a strong working knowledge of the concept of “culture,” (f) regard science as an objective enterprise, (g) do not have a strong working knowledge of the concept of “objective,” and (h) have a one-sided view of scientific advancement. We conclude with suggestions for future research and for practice.
... Prior to the NGSS, there have been science reforms, such as "science for all," arguing for all students' academic achievement and closing the ever-present disparities in science achievement and participation (Mutegi, 2011). The NGSS, which States and schools have begun to implement to varying degrees, argue for equity and diversity in science instruction more strongly than prior standards (Rodriguez, 2015). ...
The goal of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is to move away from traditional science teaching that has been based on the transmission of ideas and memorization of concepts and vocabulary. However, teaching science differently is challenging because teachers tend to teach the way they were taught, and preservice teachers enter teacher preparation programs with a set of teaching practices acquired during their many years of being in classrooms and observing teachers. Thus, becoming a science teacher means developing new skills and acquiring new ways of thinking.
The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how NGSS teaching, ambitious science teaching, equitable science teaching, and social justice science teaching, which were taught in a science teaching methods course, were enacted by preservice teachers during student teaching. The course was designed to utilize the practices of ambitious science teaching to promote NGSS teaching, as well as equitable teaching and social justice teaching. The study followed three preservice teachers through a yearlong science teaching methods course and into their student teaching classrooms. Data sources included classroom observations and video recordings, interviews, focus groups, teaching artifacts, and course assignments. Using the theoretical framework of habitus, structure and agency, the study examined affordances and constraints to the enactment of new science teaching practices. The findings show that, despite all being in the same science teaching methods course, the preservice teachers were on different trajectories in enacting NGSS and AST teaching, equitable science teaching, and social justice science teaching, thus making evident the power of affordances and constraints outside the university course in shaping their science teaching habitus. The findings suggest that change of habitus requires the support of multiple structures simultaneously and that all affordances and constraints are not equally powerful.
Overall, the preservice teachers made more movement toward NGSS teaching than toward equitable science teaching and social justice science teaching. Previous science teaching that they experienced and their cooperating teachers during student teaching were found to be particularly strong structures in affording and constraining change of habitus. The concepts of habitus, structure and agency were shown to be useful in understanding why there was differential enactment of science teaching practices advocated for in the course. This research distinguishes between equitable teaching and social justice teaching and applies these to science teaching in ways that have not been seen in the literature. Taken together, the findings have implications for how teacher educators, teacher preparation programs, and science education policymakers may more effectively support changes in science teaching.
... Students, like Black girls, who have racialized and gendered experiences in STEM learning spaces (Tan et al., 2013) are not often considered in curriculum. Rather a homogenized "science for all" experience is offered as an objective alternative to attending to racialized and gendered experiences of students and teachers (Mutegi, 2011). Hierarchies within STEM education (Barton & Yang, 2000) are a result of the dominant culture as a "culture of power" (Aschbacher et al., 2010, p. 564) that determines what is expected as normal, acceptable, right, and valid. ...
This research highlights the educational and professional experiences of three Black female secondary teachers of engineering. Using a lens of community cultural wealth, this research calls attention to the resources these teachers called upon during their navigation of engineering pathways and currently utilize to challenge their school's normative perceptions of engineering and engineers. Findings of this work discuss how aspirational capital functioned to support the teachers' successful matriculation through a STEM high school and undergraduate engineering and/or architecture programs, while also serving as a foundation for how they currently created opportunities for their students. Implications for future engineering education research and approaches for k-12 engineering educators acknowledging racialized and/or gendered experiences in these spaces are discussed.
This article examines two teachers' efforts to re‐organize their science teaching around issues of environmental and food justice in the urban community where they teach through the pedagogical approach of community‐oriented framing. We introduce this approach to teachers' framing of phenomena in community as supporting students' framing of phenomena as personally and locally relevant. Drawing on classroom observations of remote learning during the COVID‐19 pandemic, we took an analytic approach that characterized features of classroom discourse to rate community‐oriented framing at the lesson level. Results show that teachers framed phenomena as both social and scientific, and as rooted in students' lived experiences, with classroom activities designed to gather localized and personalized evidence needed to explain or model phenomena. We also share examples of how Black and Latinx students took up this framing of phenomena in their classroom work. By providing a detailed description of the launch and implementation of activities, findings illustrate how community‐oriented framing supported teachers in posing local questions of equity and justice as simultaneously social and scientific, and helping students perceive science learning as meaningful to their everyday lives. Community‐oriented framing offers a practical means of designing locally and socially relevant instruction. We contribute to justice‐centered science pedagogies by conceptualizing transformative science learning environments as those in which students understand their goal in science class as understanding, and later addressing, inequities in how socioscientific issues manifest in their community.
Paulo Freire’s works are among the most cited books in Social Science research and the most influential philosopher in critical curriculum studies. However, Freire himself often felt misunderstood, reduced to only a few of his concepts or to a method, being criticized by his oversight of racial matters, sexist language and utilitarian view of environment. Recognizing the diverse interpretations of Freire's work can provide researchers and practitioners with alternatives for addressing contemporary issues in science education. Given the critical role of academic publications in advancing science and the importance of coauthorship in shaping research and researcher identities, this paper proposes bibliometric tools for investigating how Paulo Freire's ideas have been appropriated into science education, seeking to elucidate the composition of coauthorship groups, the patterns of their interactions, and the ways in which they incorporate Freire's works into their research. Twenty-seven groups with at least three papers and two authors are found, of which 14 make perfunctory references to Freire’s works. Brazil and USA are the most prolific countries in the field, no African research is found, and few interactions are held between Latin American nations. Clusters that make significant references to Freire addresses thematic investigation and reflective practices, mainly in teacher education; racial issues, power imbalance, and STS and SSI approaches are also related to Freirean science education. In conclusion, more interaction between clusters can develop the field theoretically and methodologically; also, there is need for reflecting on science education research in Latin America and Africa, and the possibilities of this cooperation.
Science education reform efforts have called for teaching science to all students, yet the “Science for All” mantra has remained merely rhetoric. Given that multilingual learners continue to face inequities more broadly in the education system and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects in particular, there has been renewed attention to conditions that support more equitable science learning opportunities. In this exploratory, qualitative case study, we intentionally centered the voices of ninth grade multilingual learners by examining their science experiences in a Regents Living Environment class at an urban, inclusive STEM-focused high school (ISHS). Specifically, drawing from ecological and humanizing education theoretical perspectives, we investigated the elements of their experiences that were asset-oriented and humanizing, which promoted a healthy science learning ecosystem, as well as the challenges that coexisted. Qualitative data analysis revealed four main themes. First, multilingual learners appreciated authentic engagement in hands-on, science inquiry opportunities, including developing and implementing their own experiments. Students also noted feelings of joy, comfort, and belonging in their classroom environment that were supported by strong relationships and positive interactions among peers and their teachers. Moreover, students underscored the role of their teachers in intentionally co-creating a science classroom community of belonging and excellence. There were, however, persistent challenges associated with learning science and English simultaneously, in the backdrop of a standardized English-dominant, high-stakes accountability context. These findings have implications for pedagogy, teacher preparation, research, and policy for a more inclusive, asset-oriented, and humanizing science education for multilingual learners that broadens possibilities.
This analysis explores how middle school principals in the southern U.S. made sense of a multiyear STEAM education reform. Principals’ retrospective and prospective accounts, conveyed in interviews ( n = 9), are dominated by neoliberal paradigms and seldom reflect Black families’ everyday cultural life as a resource for learning. We conclude that without redirection, the reform stands to continue divesting from Black life in schools. In an exercise in Black specificity, we propose Black Futurity STEAM as an alternative reform imaginary that centers the creative impulses and capacities of Black children and cultural life in disciplinary learning.
In this chapter, we argue for a justice-oriented approach that centers youth lives in a multicultural science teacher education. We turn to the literature on justice-oriented science teaching to help shape broader understandings of the kind of teaching we hope teachers develop in early teaching practice. We report on insights grounded in long-term participatory design work with three youth of Color who co-developed and co-taught a science methods course to elementary preservice teacher candidates with the co-authors of this chapter. In a series of vignettes, we focus on the week in the course where the youth visit the preservice teachers to discuss their lives and experiential realities designing and developing engineering designs with and for their community members. Findings include discussing each of the three youth’s engagement with the preservice teachers focusing particularly on how (1) youth wanted preservice teachers to center the past, present, and social futures of youth in learning to teach; (2) how the youth wanted teachers to break the barriers of injustice by expanding expertise from educational spaces to youth lives, and (3) recognizing various forms of power and privilege are inherent in teaching across the lifespan within youths’ K-12 teaching experiences. We discuss how learning from youth lives must involve building critical frameworks that seek to understand the past, present, and social futures of youth while breaking barriers of expertise between youth and teachers. A focus on learning from the lives of youth can help to foster more consequential and future-oriented teaching.
Culturally responsive STEM and computing initiatives aim to engage and embolden a diverse range of learners, center their identity and experiences in curriculum, and connect learners to each other and their communities. With an abrupt pivot to online learning at the beginning of 2020, more educational experiences have taken place virtually. We ran a virtual synchronous culturally responsive computing camp and saw that establishing the right environment online to support a good sense of connectedness was challenging. To investigate this further, we interviewed eight K-12 instructors of culturally responsive STEM and computing programs. Three themes emerged on defining and cultivating connectedness in learning experiences, the role of equity in supporting community online, and affordances of being online specific to culturally responsive perspectives. We support our thematic findings with vignettes from the camp data. In this study, we address K-12 culturally responsive STEM and computing instructors' beliefs, experiences, and approaches regarding cultivating connectedness online. This work fills a gap in understanding instructor perspectives on building in-program and broader community connections online from a culturally responsive STEM and computing lens.
Many current STEM discipline reforms embrace the language of increased representation and diversity in higher education. Despite the tacit agreement on long-term goals for expanding diversity, institutions may also enact a counter-narrative and agenda that includes an emphasis on “high standards,” the objectivity and rationality of the discipline, and the desire to treat every faculty “equally.” In this chapter, we use vignettes from our experiences researching engineering programs to explain how the engineering culture within the academy propagates this counter agenda and produces some undesirable, perhaps even unintended, consequences. Each vignette demonstrates the need to open the constrained views of the membership toward equity and attempts to re-assess the opportunities to advance a broadened definition of scholarship, funding, support, and the definition of successful engineering education work. We conclude by suggesting strategies in higher education contexts to optimize engagement with the challenges we face in an era where equity and social justice are in the forefront of our national agenda.KeywordsEngineering educationEquity in STEMEngineering cultureAnti-racism
This article explores and wrestles with the various discourses that arise when considering why it is important to advise students from an assets‐based and holistic approach into science‐related majors and careers. Our hope is to inform how and why it is important to advise students into science‐related careers, specifically, and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, more generally, from an ethical and justice‐oriented approach. We begin with a review of empirical literature that highlights the different approaches to advising and the challenges racially and gender‐minoritized students often face in STEM fields. We then review contemporary research from science education that document the hostilities that racially and gender‐minoritized students experience in undergraduate and graduate science programs. We find the intersection of these two subfields to be productive for elucidating multilevel, context‐dependent strategies, which can redress the inexcusable and alarming underrepresentation and exclusion of racially minoritized peoples in science programs and careers in the United States. We end by contemplating the ethical question of how science programs, careers, and the broader field would need to change, to keep historically minoritized students from experiencing further material and epistemological violence. We argue that, without this reimagination, even the most effective advising models will only ensure that more racially and gender‐minoritized students are sacrificed on the altar of “equality” for the sake of the economic and geopolitical needs of the state.
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.
In her critical analysis of a popular children’s television show which centers the experiences of a Black girl veterinarian, Sheron Mark finds that although the positioning of these identities illustrates progress vis-à-vis representation, diversity through representation further upholds whiteness. Consequently, to meaningfully engage tenets of diversity and equity in STEM formal and informal learning spaces, the sociocultural contextual factors that account for the systems of power which shape broader ideological perspectives of STEM must be acknowledged. As she calls for such a reckoning within informal and formal STEM spaces, this forum contributes to Mark’s argument by illustrating how the term “equity” is operationalized within current science reform-aligned curricula. Throughout the forum, I provide parallel examples of how such standards which implicate equity function much like diversity, thus maintaining whiteness. Returning to Mark’s charge, this forum concludes with an actionable vision for STEM learning that is truly accommodating of diverse epistemologies and identities in the pursuit of a more equitable STEM experience for youth of color.
This qualitative case study examines the experiences of three Black female science teachers who experienced and participated in the triumphs and failings of today’s charter school system while teaching Black and Brown students. Using Critical Race Theory and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as frameworks, the findings of the study revealed that the teachers explained the rationale behind how and why they teach science to Black and Brown students, the actions that define their thinking (both positive and negative), and the personal and professional repercussions for being a Black woman science teacher working at a Charter Management Organization (CMO). Based on these findings, we suggest that science teacher educators encourage teachers to take risks by engaging in socio-political consciousness through curriculum redesign. Disrupting the White status quo requires science teacher educators to practice culturally relevant teaching themselves.
Research calls for teachers to integrate students’ funds of knowledge to bridge the gap between students’ lived experiences with that of learning science – that is, to make science relevant for students. Based on this critical practice, this exploratory study focuses on how pre-service science teachers integrate relevance, specifically students’ funds of knowledge, within the lessons they intend to implement. Drawing on the literature, this study developed a coding scheme to identify the ways in which pre-service teachers (PSTs) attempted to make science relevant to students. We distinguished between constructed relevance (i.e. relevance that does not consider students’ funds of knowledge) and relevance that drew on students’ funds of knowledge. Findings indicated that 48% of lessons contained some aspect of attending to students’ funds of knowledge highlighting that pre-service science teachers understand the need to make science relevant to students beyond constructed relevance. However, lessons that did attend to funds of knowledge, were most often done through attending to how students understand how knowledge is constructed. Across PSTs, there was a significant difference in the use of relevance over time during the semester. Findings indicated productive beginnings in PSTs’ orientations to funds of knowledge without explicit instruction in this area.
School science continues to alienate students identifying with nondominant, non-western cultures, and learners of color, and considers science as an enterprise where success necessitates divorcing the self and corporeal body from ideas and the mind. Resisting the colonizing pedagogy of the mind–body divide, we aimed at creating pedagogical spaces and places in science classes that sustain equitable opportunities for engagement and meaning making where body and mind are enmeshed. In the context of a partnership between school- and university-based educators and researchers, we explored how multimodal literacies cultivated through the performing arts, provide students from minoritized communities opportunities to both create knowledge and to position themselves as science experts and brilliant and creative meaning makers. Four theoretical perspectives (social semiotics and multimodality; dramatizing and the embodied mind; dismantling master narratives for minoritized peoples; and the relationship of knowledge production and identity construction) framed this multiple case study of classes of elementary and middle school students who made sense of and communicated science concepts and practices through embodied performances. The study provided evidence that embodied science representations afford students abundant opportunities to construct science knowledge and positionings that support engagement with science, whether performed on a small scale in classrooms, or for the whole school through a large-scale science play. Embodied dramatizing led to opportunities for collective meaning making as student-performers coordinated across various movements and modes in order to represent ideas. Multiple enactments of the same concept nurtured the development of multi-dimensional scientific, sociocultural, and sociopolitical meanings. During embodiments, students positioned themselves and others in ways that allowed expanded science identities to become possible, intertwined with other salient identities. By treating children's bodies as sites of knowledge, imagination, and expertise, integrating performing arts and science has the potential to facilitate the development of connections among ideas and between self and ideas.
As guidelines for teacher practice, standards and benchmarks serve a strong normative purpose that can work counter to goals of equity and justice. In this project we applied queer theory's critique of normativity and concepts from queer pedagogy to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Using a collaborative qualitative approach, our research team explored and document how pre-service and practicing teachers addressed issues of learning modality, selection of diverse sources and texts, and applied the meanings of "queer" to suggest ways to disrupt traditional structures and modes of communication, in addition to including LGBTQ identities and gender and sexual diversity in their classes. We propose that queering the standards is an approach that acknowledges the material constraints that shape and characterize K-12 schools in the U.S., while also opening opportunities for teachers to engage in the crucial, intense, and necessary work to make schools sites that create rather than foreclose possibility.
Is science an invention of European thought, or have legitimate scientific bodies of knowledge and scientific ways of thinking emerged separately in other cultures? Can indigenous knowledge systems contribute to contemporary science teaching? Here we describe evidence from the Yupiaq culture in southwestern Alaska which demonstrates a body of scientific knowledge and epistemology that differs from that of Western science. We contend that drawing from Yupiaq culture, knowledge, and epistemology can provide not only a more culturally relevant frame of reference for teaching science concepts to Yupiaq students, but also a potentially valuable context for more effectively addressing many of the recommendations of U.S. science education reform initiatives. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 133–144, 1998.
This chapter discusses the politics of land distribution and race relations is Southern Africa, with a particular focus on the experiences of the former settler colonial states of Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia. It examines how inequitable land relations have contributed to intensified race-based conflicts in the southern African region and shaped specific demands for land redistribution and land reform policies. The chapter relies on detailed case study evidence from Zimbabwe, as well as South Africa and Namibia, and implicitly assesses their implications for the entire southern Africa.
People are purposive, intentional beings. People are creatures of habit and yet full of surprises. People can be quite unpredictable. For these reasons and many others, it is difficult to come to know people in the sense of having a causal understanding of human behavior, which was the modernist project in education. At least this cannot be done as scientists do with moving objects such as particle or projectile motion, for example, or even with the behavior of non-human animal species. What a person can do that an object cannot is to tell you about him or herself, thus helping you to get to know this person. This is of course a different kind of knowing and it suggests that getting to know a broad range of people provides an educator with exemplars of what people in general are like. “Interpretive researchers,” noted Cobern (1993a, p. 936), “do not expect that the procedures of experimental natural science can ever be used to produce general laws of education. Rather, one must come to a greater understanding of what meaning is and how it is created. Similarly, the classroom environment is not to be composed of causal variables which the teacher manipulates to foster learning, but an environment mutually shaped to fit the members of the classroom, both teacher and students.” My research takes it thus as axiomatic that the more educators know about students as people the better educators will be able to teach people as students in their classrooms. Among others, Fenstermacher (1979), Hawkins and Pea (1987), Lythcott (1991), and Shymansky and Kyle (1992) have espoused similar views.
Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and longitudinal data from the first three waves of the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88), we examined achievement and growth rates in precollege science by racial–ethnic and gender subgroups. We found socioeconomic status and previous grades strongly and positively related to students’ eighth-grade achievement across all racial–ethnic by gender subgroups. We also found locus-of-control to be strongly related to eighth-grade science achievement for all subgroups except Asian American males. In modeling the growth rate, we found that the quantity of science units completed in high school was the only consistent predictor of science growth rates across all racial–ethnic by gender subgroups. The relationships between individual-level factors and science growth rates differed greatly for the remaining individual-level variables, highlighting the need for further research that both disaggregates data by race–ethnicity and gender.
It is well documented that African Americans have been
disproportionately underrepresented in science and science-related
careers for over two decades. However, although there have been great
efforts to address the problem through policy and intervention efforts,
our research-grounded understanding of underrepresentation has not kept
pace. This article provides an overview of empirical studies aimed at
extending knowledge on the underrepresentation of African Americans,
with the goal of providing a critical overview of this literature.
Empirical studies are reviewed as well as explanations garnered from
related literature that offer insight into potential causes of
underrepresentation. The article concludes by identifying five salient
limitations of existing literature. These limitations are the low number
of empirical reports, the preponderance of poorly defined factors
related to career decisions, uniformity in theoretical and
methodological approaches, the tendency to equate career attainment with
career choice, and the lack of an explanatory model for racial
disparity.
The mathematics success of African American male adolescents has been given limited attention. Most often, African American males are viewed in terms of their failure as opposed to their success. This tendency to focus almost exclusively on African American failure is a debilitating feature of extant literature and it constrains our understanding of African American mathematics achievement. Malik Williams is one case that stands in opposition to the norm. Realizing the importance of advanced mathematics to his college and career goals, Malik petitioned his principal to have a Pre-Calculus/Calculus course offered at his school. This article documents the story of Malik's success and in so doing, identifies key themes that inform current understanding of the mathematics achievement and career attainment of African American male students.
The purpose of this paper is to report our findings from a qualitative study intended to develop our understandings of: what high-poverty urban children understand and believe about food and food systems; and how such children transform and use that knowledge in their everyday lives (i.e. how do they express their scientific literacies including content understandings, process understandings, habits of mind in these content areas). This qualitative study is part of a larger study focused on understanding and developing science and nutritional literacies among high-poverty urban fourth-grade through sixth-grade students and their teachers and caregivers.
How should we think about the interrelationships that obtain among Philosophy, Education, and Culture? In this paper I explore the contours of one such interrelationship: namely, the way in which educational
and
(other)
philosophical
ideals
transcend
individual
cultures. I do so by considering the contemporary educational and philosophical commitment to multiculturalism. Consideration of multiculturalism, I argue, reveals important aspects of the character of both educational and philosophical ideals.
Blacks, Hispanics/Latinos, and Native Americans have long been underrepresented in schools and the workplace in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Although the monitoring of representation has become a larger and more important enterprise, existing databases make it difficult to discern trends in participation at different stages of science education as well as the magnitude of the differences in representation across racial/ethnic groups. We reanalyze four nationally representative databases to call attention to the difficulties, and we offer a solution—a ratio of representation. Our investigation of the representation of students in the biological sciences indicates that gains in the percentages of non-Asian minorities in the biological sciences over almost two decades do not exceed their growth in the U.S. population and, furthermore, that their underrepresentation appears to increase as they move through higher education. We call for the development of multiple measures of representation in the sciences, given the complexities of representing representation and the issue's importance for science, public health, and the American polity. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed93:961–977, 2009
Defining moments generally do not come at a time of a leader’s choosing but in the course of leading. Two early morning radio programs stand out in my memory as different instances when I suddenly understood how to best explain and frame my professional mission regarding urban public education.
Contributes to a radical formulation of pedagogy through its revitalization of language, utopianism, and revolutionary message. . . . The book enlarges our vision with each reading, until the meanings become our own. Harvard Educational RevieWtextless/itextgreaterConstitutes the voice of a great teacher who has managed to replace the melancholic and despairing discourse of the post-modern Left with possibility and human compassion. Educational Theory
Analyzing the triumphs and failures of race relations within the Castro regime, this book challenges arguments that the regime eliminated racial inequality or that it was profoundly racist. Through interviews, historical materials, and survey research, it provides a balanced view that demonstrates how much of Cuban racial ideology was actually left unchanged by the revolution. Finally, the book maintains that despite these shortcomings, the regime remains popular among the black minorities because they perceive their alternatives in the U.S. within the Miami Exile community to be far worse.
In this article, Donaldo Macedo presents a provocative critique of the current educational system and challenges educators to examine potentially dangerous educational practices that privilege specialization while ignoring the need to make linkages using critical literacy. Recent events such as the Gulf War and the first Rodney King verdict are presented as compelling evidence that, without the ability to read the word and the world critically, Americans are subject to political manipulation. Macedo links this current political climate to the state of many of our nation's schools, which operate under a pedagogy that perpetuates the inability to think critically.
In this study of course offerings in mathematics and science and placement procedures in six high schools, three high schools that were identified as "excellent" through regression analyses were matched with "average" schools, with one pair each in upper-, middle-, and working-class districts. The study found differences in course patterns available to students and the procedures used to assign students to classes. Excellent schools and districts that were higher in social class offered more college-preparatory and advanced courses. Also, the process by which students in these schools and districts were placed in classes was more systematic; it included broader assessments of students' abilities and involved faculty and guidance counselors more actively. It is note-worthy that although the social class of the community was related to the structure of schools, the structure of counseling activities and the courses offered differed among schools in the same social-class communities.
Much more than a "how-to/activities" book, this textbook gives students a strong background in the conceptual, theoretical, and philosophical issues in multicultural education. Cultural Diversity and Education is designed to help pre-service and in-service educators clarify the philosophical and definitional issues related to pluralistic education, derive a philosophical position, design and implement effective teaching strategies that reflect ethnic and cultural diversity, and prepare sound guidelines for multicultural programs and practices. This book describes actions that educators can take to institutionalize educational programs and practices related to ethnic and cultural diversity. The scope of this edition has been broadened to include a focus on gender, disability, and giftedness. The significant changes that were made in this edition necessitated that the title be changed. Multiethnic Education: Theory and Practice, the title of this book for its three previous editions, no longer accurately describes its contents. Consequently, the title of the book was changed to better reflect the broader coverage of its content. For pre-service and in-service teachers, and anyone interested in educational diversity.
BALTIMORE — Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups. Focusing more closely than ever on the life patterns of young black men, the new studies, by experts at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other institutions, show that the huge pool of poorly educated black men are becoming ever more disconnected from the mainstream society, and to a far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic men. Especially in the country's inner cities, the studies show, finishing high school is the exception, legal work is scarcer than ever and prison is almost routine, with incarceration rates climbing for blacks even as urban crime rates have declined. Although the problems afflicting poor black men have been known for decades, the new data paint a more extensive and sobering picture of the challenges they face. "There's something very different happening with young black men, and it's something we can no longer ignore," said Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of "Black Males Left Behind" (Urban Institute Press, 2006). "Over the last two decades, the economy did great," Mr. Mincy said, "and low-skilled women, helped by public policy, latched onto it. But young black men were falling farther back." Many of the new studies go beyond the traditional approaches to looking at the plight of black men, especially when it comes to determining the scope of joblessness. For example, official unemployment rates can be misleading because they do not include those not seeking work or incarcerated. "If you look at the numbers, the 1990's was a bad decade for young black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years," said Harry J. Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men" (Urban Institute Press, 2006). In response to the worsening situation for young black men, a growing number of programs are placing as much importance on teaching life skills — like parenting, conflict resolution and character building — as they are on teaching job skills.
In order to compete in the modern world, any society today must rank education in science, mathematics, and technology as one of its highest priorities. It's a sad but true fact, however, that most Americans are not scientifically literate. International studies of educational performance reveal that U.S. students consistently rank near the bottom in science and mathematics. The latest study of the National Assessment of Educational Progress has found that despite some small gains recently, the average performance of seventeen-year-olds in 1986 remained substantially lower than it had been in 1969. As the world approaches the twenty-first century, American schools--when it comes to the advancement of scientific knowledge--seem to be stuck in the Victorian age. In Science for All Americans , F. James Rutherford and Andrew Ahlgren brilliantly tackle this devastating problem. Based on Project 2061, a scientific literacy initiative sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, this wide-ranging, important volume explores what constitutes scientific literacy in a modern society; the knowledge, skills, and attitudes all students should acquire from their total school experience from kindergarten through high school; and what steps this country must take to begin reforming its system of education in science, mathematics, and technology. Science for All Americans describes the scientifically literate person as one who knows that science, mathematics, and technology are interdependent enterprises with strengths and limitations; who understands key concepts and principles of science; who recognizes both the diversity and unity of the natural world; and who uses scientific knowledge and scientific ways of thinking for personal and social purposes. Its recommendations for educational reform downplay traditional subject categories and instead highlight the connections between them. It also emphasizes ideas and thinking skills over the memorization of specialized vocabulary. For instance, basic scientific literacy means knowing that the chief function of living cells is assembling protein molecules according to the instructions coded in DNA molecules, but does not mean necessarily knowing the terms "ribosome" or "deoxyribonucleic acid." Science, mathematics, and technology will be at the center of the radical changes in the nature of human existence that will occur during the next life span; therefore, preparing today's children for tomorrow's world must entail a solid education in these areas. Science for All Americans will help pave the way for the necessary reforms in America's schools.
This discussion focuses on an aspect of teacher education for diversity that is frequently mentioned but not developed in sufficient detail. It is preservice teachers’ and teacher educators’ attitudes and beliefs about racial, cultural, and ethnic differences.These are the ideological anchors of teaching decisions and behaviors and meet Cuban’s criteria of deep structures and second-order targets of educational reform.
This paper focuses on the potential value of cultural myths in maintaining the notion of science for all through educational reform. Cultural myths are defined as networks of beliefs and values, and they have the potential of influencing science and science education. Not until recently did educators realize the importance of myths and their influence on the discourse of school science. Four different cultural myths are explored: (1) scientific literacy is a necessity for all U.S. students; (2) it is possible to have a universally shared vision of scientific literacy for all students; (3) females and minorities and science; and (4) current reform rhetoric calling for "science for all" reflects the swing of the proverbial education pendulum. (Contains 35 references.) (YDS)
Marek Kohn Cape, £17.99, pp 322 ISBN 0 224 03958 XAt the turn of the century some of the most innovative ideas concerning the prevalence of chronic degenerative diseases and mental disabilities were formulated in eugenic and racial terms. As human genetics research and screening have advanced, questions of ethnicity, race, and disease continue to haunt modern medicine.Attention has shifted from external physical appearance to chromosomes and genes, and most recently to the molecular level, but ideas of some type of racial essence or identity have persisted, and the Human Genome Project has wisely included a built-in ethical component. Other scientists adhere to long discredited notions: some schools of anthropology in eastern Europe seem like remote tribes cut …
The purpose of this study was to compare the worldview of Native American students of the Traditional Kickapoo Band with the worldview encountered in the science classroom. The qualitative study investigated the worldview expressed in science instruction by conducting periodic observations in two classrooms over an 18-month period, teacher interviews, and text evaluations. StudentsÕ worldviews were investigated during individual and group interviews, classroom observations, science activities, and social interaction. Twenty-eight Kickapoo students, two teachers, and eight nonteaching members of the community participated in the study. Adult members of the Kickapoo Band were interviewed and asked to reflect on the educational and cultural norms of the students. A variable-oriented analysis revealed differences in epistemology, preferred methods of teaching/learning, values, spatial/temporal orientation, cultural rules for behavior, and perspective of the place of humans in the natural world. The study revealed significant worldview differences, none of which would prevent Kickapoo students from being full participants in the scientific community, but many of which may be preventing them from being successful in the science classroom. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 111–132, 1998.
A perennial challenge for urban education in the United States is finding effective ways to address the academic achievement gap between African American and White students. There is widespread and justified concern about the persistence of this achievement gap. In fact, historical evidence suggests that this achievement gap has existed at various times for groups other than African Americans. What conditions prevailed when this achievement gap existed for these other groups? Conversely, under what conditions did the gap diminish and eventually disappear for these groups? This article explores how sociocultural factors involved in the manifestation and eventual disappearance of the gap for these groups may shed some light on how to address the achievement gap for African American students in urban science classrooms. Our conclusion is that the sociocultural position of groups is crucial to understanding and interpreting the scholastic performance of students from various backgrounds. We argue for a research framework and the exploration of research questions incorporating insights from Ogbu's cultural, ecological theory, as well as goal theory, and identity theory. We present these as theories that essentially focus on student responses to societal disparities. Our ultimate goal is to define the problem more clearly and contribute to the development of research-based classroom practices that will be effective in reducing and eventually eliminating the achievement gap. We identify the many gaps in society and the schools that need to be addressed in order to find effective solutions to the problem of the achievement gap. Finally, we propose that by understanding the genesis of the gap and developing strategies to harness the students' responses to societal disparities, learning can be maximized and the achievement gap can be significantly reduced, if not eliminated entirely, in urban science classrooms.
Teaching in urban schools, with their problems of violence, lack of resources, and inadequate funding, is difficult. It is even more difficult to learn to teach in urban schools. Yet learning in those locations where one will subsequently be working has been shown to be the best preparation for teaching. In this article we propose coteaching as a viable model for teacher preparation and the professional development of urban science teachers. Coteaching—working at the elbow of someone else—allows new teachers to experience appropriate and timely action by providing them with shared experiences that become the topic of their professional conversations with other coteachers (including peers, the cooperating teacher, university supervisors, and high school students). This article also includes an ethnography describing the experiences of a new teacher who had been assigned to an urban high school as field experience, during which she enacted a curriculum that was culturally relevant to her African American students, acknowledged their minority status with respect to science, and enabled them to pursue the school district standards. Even though coteaching enables learning to teach and curricula reform, we raise doubts about whether our approaches to teacher education and enacting science curricula are hegemonic and oppressive to the students we seek to emancipate through education. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 941–964, 2001