A Social Justice Lens and Race-Visible Lessons: Being Accountable in STEM Education

• In Event: A Call to Action for a Changing World: The Positionality of Accountable STEM Researchers

Abstract

Purpose
Despite the requirement of diversity coursework requirements in teacher education, challenges persist in preparing teachers who are well-equipped to support learner diversity in STEM courses. Teacher candidates have thin experiences with Black and Hispanic learners (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017) prior to scattered opportunities afforded in teacher preparation programs. Many of those exist in virtual spaces and end after the internship. Diversity courses primarily center equity and fairness but are very limited on issues of race and racism (Author, redacted). Secondary STEM educators enter education spaces with advanced content knowledge, emergent pedagogical knowledge, and subpar racial diversity knowledge. The researcher addresses this issue through a race-visible Diversity course and social justice pedagogies to broaden opportunities in STEM and improve science and mathematics teacher preparation.

Framework
Paris and Alim (2017) call out many of the challenges faced by minoritized students in K-20 learning. Culturally sustaining pedagogies are meant to persist throughout experiences and not only in diversity courses and workshops. Likewise and in tandem, Adams and Bell (2016) demand that respect and awareness exist for all cultures. These frameworks shape the approaches to this study.

Methods & Data
Using a qualitative research design, the researcher collects and codes the narrative accounts and prompts of (n=11) participants before and after a Diversity Course prior to the internship semester.
The researcher analyzed narratives of teacher candidates in a Mid-Atlantic US program who identify as Black (n=1) and White (n=10) enrolled in a teacher education program. The data is transcribed, coded, and analyzed to 1) identify common themes, 2) understand what teacher candidates identified as problematic or not when presented with issues of race, racism, and privilege, 3)highlighting lessons learned pursuant to STEM and sustaining pedagogies before and after the course.

Results & Significance
Teacher candidates (10 out of 11) revealed having limited knowledge of race and racism and how to support racial diversity learners. Common themes showed that students rarely thought about their own race or the race of their students (8/11), and students did not consider race as a factor of their students’ lives (10/11). Students did not consider themselves privileged (7/11) and had limited knowledge of culturally sustaining pedagogies and social justice education before the course. After the course (4/11), students considered race as a factor in their students’ lives, and 8/11 considered themselves privileged. Students integrated culturally sustaining pedagogies and social justice standards in their STEM lessons (11/11).
This work is significant because of the growing need for STEM professionals and the shortage of teachers with a social justice lens in the pipeline for STEM careers. Understanding the nuances and content needed to shift thinking in Diversity courses are critical to preparing underrepresented learners in STEM disciplines.

Conference Connection
This paper informs perspectives in providing appropriate support and ways to hold teacher education accountability for issues impacting a racially diverse group of learners in the STEM pipeline.

Author

• Ebony Terrell Shockley, University of Maryland - College Park