EQUITY & Social justice

Centering equity and social justice as a central aim of science education is crucial for creating a truly equitable and inclusive learning environment. The pursuit of equity and social justice in science classrooms requires ensuring access to high quality and meaningful opportunities to learn and identify with science and acknowledging and addressing the historical and systemic injustices that have marginalized certain groups in science. Creating high quality and meaningful opportunities to learn can be facilitated through curriculum design efforts that anchor learning around phenomena and societal issues or problems that are relevant to students and connect to their interests, communities, and worlds. Acknowledging and addressing historical and systemic injustices can and should include examining how science has been used to perpetuate discrimination and oppression, and teaching students about the ways in which science can be used to promote justice and equity. In addition, justice requires centering the experiences and perspectives of marginalized groups in the curriculum, and empowering students to critically interrogate and challenge biases and inequalities in science. By prioritizing justice and equity in science education, we can help ensure that all students have the opportunity to engage in science on equal footing, and that science is used in ways that promote the well-being and thriving of all individuals and communities, rather than perpetuating systemic injustices to benefit a few communities while harming and disadvantaging other communities.

Equity APPROACHES

In the MBI template, we provide a structured way to engage in centering equity and social justice in your unit by reflecting on the approaches we use to think about what and why we are doing something. To accomplish this, we recognize that different equity approaches exist in relation to science teaching and learning and that engaging in different approaches at different times is essential for supporting students in navigating the existing educational system and society, while also supporting students to be part of creating a more equitable and just futures. To do this within MBI, we draw on equity approaches. 

Equity Approaches: In the recent report Science and Engineering in Preschool Through Elementary Grades by the National Academic Press (NASEM, 2022, p. 24), the authors describe a spectrum of four different equity approaches that have and can be used to accomplish different equity aims for science education. They are:

By naming the Equity Approaches in the units we create, we can design for more equitable and inclusive science units and instruction that prepares students to be active and engaged citizens in a diverse world.

Finally, like acknowledged by others, we recognize that Approaches #1-2 are more often found in curriculum designed for the Framework and Next Generation Science Standards. We appreciate how these discourses support students opportunities to learn and in finding intersections between their interests, identities, and the disciplines of science. This is important, since this can support students to find success and identify with science. However, as researchers like Philip and Azevedo (2017) note, it is within Approaches #3-4 that educational systems and society that have proven oppressive and exclusionary will be interrogated, troubled, and changed. Given this, we also want to be sure we are working to center these particular Equity Discourses as part of our curriculum design and instruction. In connection to Approach #3, this might mean us as teachers working to develop our 'interpretive power' (Rosebery et al., 2015) of the diverse ways in which students, communities, and cultures orient to and make sense of the world. In connection to Approach #4, we believe that students and society will benefit if we can identify at least one or two units throughout the year where Approach #4 can be elevated as a central aim of instructional units, so that students see science as part of social justice movements that support their dreaming of and involvement in creating more just and thriving futures. 

References

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). 2022. Science and Engineering in Preschool Through Elementary Grades: The Brilliance of Children and the Strengths of Educators. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26215.


Philip, T. M., & Azevedo, F. S. (2017). Everyday science learning and equity: Mapping the contested terrain. Science Education, 101(4), 526–532. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21286.

Rosebery, A. S., Warren, B., & Tucker-Raymond, E. (2016). Developing interpretive power in science teaching. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(10), 1571-1600. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21267.

Examples Of Equity Approach #1

The following, excerpted from Science and Engineering in Preschool Through Elementary Grades (National Academic Press, 2022), provides examples of distinguishing features of high-quality science and engineering learning and instruction for Approach #1.  Each of these is followed [in brackets] by an explanation of how these features are central to MBI unit design and implementation:

Examples Of Equity Approach #2

The following, excerpted from Science and Engineering in Preschool Through Elementary Grades (National Academic Press, 2022), provides examples of how increased achievement, representation, and identification with science and engineering can be accomplished in science classrooms as part of Approach #2. Each of these is followed [in brackets] by an explanation of how these  are accomplished in MBI unit design and implementation:

Examples Of Equity Approach #3

The following are examples of how teachers can create and support the identification of more expansive versions of what constitutes science and engineering in classrooms. Each of these is followed [in brackets] by an explanation of how these are accomplished in MBI unit design and implementation:


Note: Like with Approach #4, we like others, are very much still learning about how we can better accomplish aims associated with Approach #3 and expect to continue to develop and share additional examples of how this can be accomplished as we learn with and from other science educators, communities, and students. 


References

Bang, M., Brown, B., Barton, A.C., Rosebery, A., & Warren, B. (2017). Toward more equitable learning in science: Expanding relationships among students, teachers, and science practices. In C. Schwarz, C. Passmore, & B. Reiser (Eds.), Helping students make sense of the world using Next Generation Science and Engineering practices. (pp. 23-32). Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.


Sáurez, E. (2020). “Estoy Explorando Science”: Emergent bilingual students problematizing electrical phenomena through translanguaging. Science Education, 104(5), 791-826.


Examples Of Equity Approach #4

The following examples were created by students at Northern Arizona University. They are locally relevant examples of Approach #4 (i.e., Seeing science and engineering as part of justice movements).