Equity in Science Education: Advancing Social Justice, Democracy, and Indigeneity in Teaching and Learning

Dear Colleagues,

Equity is a central aspect of science education, but it has eluded many science teachers, educators, researchers, curriculum developers, and policy makers for a long time. Unfortunately, equity in science education is a contested idea. This struggle has created many challenges to conceptualize the meaning and scope of equity and the processes of attaining equity in science teaching and learning. The goal of science education for equity is to prepare students from all levels of diverse groups, but specifically from underrepresented groups, for social justice, democratic ideals, and locally authentic and relevant learning (indigeneity in teaching and learning). As the pressure of globalization seeps into many underrepresented communities’ social, economic, cultural, and democratic lives, teachers and schools must consider equity as the central focus for better science education. In many parts of the globe, people from underrepresented communities (gendered, ethnic, linguistics, cultural, and historical minorities, including Indigenous groups) have been marginalized. Therefore, marginalized people have been deprived and excluded from participating in science and science-related opportunities. The science education community has lost, and is in jeopardy of continuing to lose, many talented and transformative individuals from underrepresented groups who could have contributed to science and their communities for a better human experience. Thus, the co-guest editors of this issue envision equity in science education as an urgent need for a more equitable, socially just, democratic, and authentic science teaching and learning. We also believe that a multitude of diverse voices and experiences from across the globe would greatly improve our understanding of equity in science education and contribute to our knowledge on equity from multiple perspectives. Science education research has explored many disparities using multiple methodologies and in different contexts, but research in science education still fails to bring voices from the margins. Therefore, this Special Issue themed “Equity in Science Education: Advancing Social Justice, Democracy, and Indigeneity in Teaching and Learning” invites scholars and educators to share their research works and experiences in this area so that science education can expand knowledge and practices that aid in building a more equitable science and teaching and learning experiences.

This Special Issue is interested in both empirical and theoretical manuscripts that explore issues related to equity in science education in varied contexts, languages, and cultures. We highly encourage authors to take a critical stance in their methodologies and theoretical frameworks (culturally relevant pedagogy, critical race theories, feminist theories, multicultural theories, (critical) agency, Indigenous science knowledge (ISK), etc.). We encourage authors to explore broadly some of the following questions in different contexts:

1. What does equity in science teaching, learning, and engagement look like in primary, elementary, middle, high school, and college classrooms as well as informal settings, such as the museums, nature centers, and other non-formal environments?
2. How do teachers’ instructional decisions influence equity in science education?
3. How and in what ways do science teacher preparation programs explore the issues of equity in science education?
4. How does equity intersect with other disparities such gender, language, ethnic groups, etc. in teaching and learning science?
5. How should science teacher preparation and teacher professional development programs consider equity in science education, and why?
6. What does equity in science education look like when issues of social justice and democracy are centralized in educating youth?
7. How could equity in science education support greater participation from indigenous groups?      

Authors are welcome to explore these and other issues related to equity in science education in different contexts, such as K-12 schools, urban, rural, higher education, after school programs, and informal spaces (e.g., museums) and using different theoretical and methodological approaches.

Prof. Dr. Bhaskar Upadhyay
Dr. Stefanie Marshall
Guest Editors

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• equity
• science education
• STEM education
• social justice
• democracy
• indigeneity
• teaching and learning