Anti-Authoritarian Science Education via Southern Epistemologies

• In Event: Educational Policy, Social Change and Equity

Proposal

How are we to understand the role of science curriculum in a time of authoritarian threats? Normative perspectives of science curriculum are positioned in distal relation to the emergence of COVID-19 and other critical environmental/social issues, there is a growing mistrust of scientific knowledge (e.g. vaccines), and trends point to a global rise in authoritarianism. There are historical examples, however, that political ideology has the capacity to shape the direction of science and scientific practice to mutually support and constitute one another. Thus, a rising authoritarian tide threatens not only democracy, but scientific practice and science education, as well. I engage with the question of authoritarianism through the exploration of two broad questions. First, I explore the extent to which our classroom and research practices themselves constitute authoritarian logics that prime individuals to accept authoritarian power. Second, I engage with the question of how educators and researchers living and working within hegemonic regimes of practice might constitute material relations within the classroom that promote social change.
Any individual concerned with authoritarianism might start with themselves, particularly “the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior” (Foucault, 1983). Here, I argue that it is important to consider our material practices, rather than our sense of self. More than a capricious exercise of individual power, authoritarianism is constituted by regimes of practice. To that end, I attempt to identify the normative practices within the discourses of science education and science education research that mirror or constitute external authoritarian regimes of practice. Drawing from de Sousa Santos’s postabyssal methodologies (2018)–and without making claim to an authoritative list–I suggest that creating detailed calendars for [anticipated] instruction and assessment, framing science education as valuable in terms of high-paying jobs, and positioning educational research as the vanguard of change are some of the key mechanisms of authoritarian power in science education.
Turning outward to a world in which many individuals have successfully completed diverse visions of science curricula but have turned to popular media (and away from scientists and medical professionals) for information about COVID-19, I argue that imagining societal transformation at the scale used to identify and denounce “post-truth” systems is another key mechanism of authoritarian power. Here, I explore a post-abyssal perspective of “one foot in the macro, another in the micro… one foot in the future, another in the here and now” (de Sousa Santos, 2018). The micro level in the here and now is precisely the level of the fascist in our head. It is the level at which, once the authoritarian regimes of practice are identified, we may ask different questions of ourselves and our students to assemble new knowledges and new material relations. One such question: to what extent are students fully human in science curricula and classrooms? Ultimately, I hope to substantiate the argument that we may orient toward social change by recognizing our role within disciplinary power structures, then restructuring our ordinary practices and expanding our notion of curriculum to include complicated conversations about the knowledge of most worth (Pinar, 2012) to our students.

Author

• Christopher Irwin, Florida International University