Supporting Justice‑Oriented Data Literacy in Science and History Classrooms

• In Event: How Data Science Education Can Enable Exploration of Real World Phenomena

Abstract

Objectives
This contribution reports findings from the DataX project to show how justice‑oriented data literacy can engage secondary students in investigating real‑world phenomena using public datasets. Focusing on one seventh‑grade life‑science module and one eleventh‑grade U.S. history unit, the study asks how teachers enact justice‑oriented data work in disciplinary lessons and what opportunities and tensions arise.

Perspectives
This study embraces a humanistic stance toward K12 data science education (Lee et al., 2021) and recognizes the promise of engaging learners to relate to real-world data (Wilkerson & Polman, 2020). Specifically, the DataX project is guided by a Justice‑Oriented Data Science (JODS) framework we developed (Authors, 2023), which interweaves five areas—data practices, disciplinary inquiry with data, examining justice, critical reflection, and identity & cultural practices—into a learning space that teachers and students can traverse in multiple ways. Developed to foreground the political dimensions of K12 data work, JODS provides a common language that preserves disciplinary authenticity while opening curricular space for examining justice.

Methods
Following a design‑based research paradigm, the team co‑designed curricular materials with two teachers before piloting materials from their classrooms. Data include approximately eight hours of classroom video, teacher‑researcher design artifacts (conjecture maps, lesson plans), and pre‑/post‑implementation teacher interviews. Thematic coding first traced how instruction moved among JODS areas in each class, then examined moments of pedagogical tension or breakthrough. Analytic reliability was strengthened through iterative coder negotiation and the use of conjecture maps as boundary objects.

Results
In the life‑science module, the teacher involved students to analyze Childhood Opportunity Index data about their neighborhoods, beginning with a survey of local perceptions, progressing to map and plot creation, and ending with arguments to the city mayor about quality‑of‑life disparities. The teacher’s moves repeatedly linked students’ lived experiences to technical data practices, then to broader justice questions, illustrating fluid pathways through JODS. In the history unit, students interrogated early U.S. census tables and W. E. B. Du Bois’ Paris‑Exposition data portraits. Classroom dialogue centered on who was counted, who was erased, and how data can be wielded for social change. The teacher scaffolded contextual reasoning, invited student hypotheses, and modelled epistemic humility when confronting incomplete historical records, thereby sustaining inquiry across JODS areas. Across both cases, teachers typically started with identity‑anchored questions, moved to data practices, and cycled back to justice analysis, but each faced discipline‑specific constraints on the depth of justice-oriented discussions.

Significance
The study’s contribution is three-fold. First, it demonstrates the viability of engaging secondary students to traverse multiple areas of the JODS framework as they investigate real-world phenomena. Second, it reports pedagogical heuristics employed by teachers—anchor in students’ identities, visualize inequity, invite discipline‑specific explanation—that other educators can adapt. Third, it surfaces the emotional and positional labor required of teachers when data are used to reveal uncomfortable truths or negotiate a more just future, highlighting the need for professional learning in related areas.

Authors

• Bodong Chen, University of Pennsylvania

• Regina Lisinker, University of Minnesota

• Vivian Leung, Toronto Metropolitan University

• David DeLiema, University of Minnesota

• Cassandra Scharber, University of Minnesota