Expanding Sociopolitical Consciousness: A Framework for Developing Justice-Centered Ambitious Science Teaching (Poster 3)

• In Event: Supporting Teacher Learning of Justice-Centered Ambitious Practice

Abstract

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and the subject specific iteration Culturally Relevant Science Teaching (Boutte et al., 2010) are frameworks created to assist JuST teachers in the proactive disruption of oppression and discrimination through instruction. These frameworks offer guidance around redefining academic success, cultivating cultural competence, and developing students’ sociopolitical/critical consciousness. Scholars of Culturally Relevant Science Teaching (CRST) have highlighted the underutilization of the third tenet and call for research/resources to guide JuST practitioners as they attempt to develop students’ sociopolitical/critical consciousness in science (Fowler, 2020; Madkins & McKinney de Royston, 2019). One potential reason for the limited use of the third tenet may be due to educators’ limited personal sociopolitical consciousness (Laughter & Adams, 2012) or their constructions of truth about society. If this is true, it means that we ought to learn from and co-construct with science teachers who hold high levels of personal sociopolitical consciousness in order to advance justice-centered ambitious science teaching.

In response to the call for increased guidance around developing sociopolitical consciousness in science, and this year’s theme of examining the truth at the center of educational decision-making, we present a conceptual framework that operationalizes the third tenet of CRST. Alongside our framework we also share empirical data drawn from the study of five secondary science teachers whose constructions of truth are rooted in critical consciousness (namely an awareness of how social, political, historical, and economic oppression impact society, educational institutions, and science education). This subset of participants was drawn from a larger sample of 20 secondary science teachers. Through Critical Discourse Analysis five of the original 20 were identified as exhibiting high levels of sociopolitical consciousness. For the purpose of this poster presentation we share participants’ ideology and beliefs about how to develop students’ sociopolitical consciousness in science. We compare their discourse and ideas with those offered in our conceptual framework entitled Expanding Sociopolitical Consciousness within CRST (figure 1). The framework comprises three ways in which science teachers can attend to sociopolitical consciousness in science. We suggest that they (1) focus on equity issues globally and locally to empower student voice, (2) recognize personal and student intersectionality, and (3) provide mirrors, windows, and doors for aspirational science achievement. See Figure 1 for detail on mirrors, windows, and doors. We then highlight where there are gaps between our imagining of sociopolitical consciousness and participants’. The final component of our presentation will include illustrative examples (that we created) to fill the gaps and serve as a resource for scholars and practitioners alike.

It is our hope that this presentation will serve as one effort in the struggle to elucidate the challenging work of building critical consciousness in science by providing concrete examples based on the literature, the wisdom of practicing JuST science teachers, and our own critical imagining of what could and should be.

Authors

• Britney L. Jones, Trinity College
  Presenting Author

• Jonte' C. Taylor, Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author