Imagining Otherwise: Militarism, STEM Education, and Racial Justice

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: Radical Dreams: Using the Anti-War Lessons of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Fight for Students of Color

Abstract

This paper advances a critical analysis of the relationship between the US military and STEM education (K-20), with special focus on issues of equity, pedagogy, and epistemology. We ask: what can be gained from attending to the broader political goals of STEM education, and to the ways they shape students’ experiences and possible futures? In other words, STEM learning towards what ends? Through historical and empirical analyses, we assert that the dearth of debate and dialogue on the intersections of STEM education and US military interests leads to the unwitting or strategic adoption of ideological agendas that contradict broader visions of justice for youth and communities of color around the world.

We draw on critical approaches to STEM education (Barton, 2003; Gutstein, 2003; Blikstein, 2008), including pedagogical models that connect inquiry and invention to community development. We also draw on cultural-historical theories of learning (Cole, 1995; Lee, 2008; Gutierrez & Rogoff, 2003; Nasir, 2002) that forefront issues of equity. These scholars move beyond expanding access to the STEM pipeline, asking epistemological questions such as STEM knowledge for whom and for what purposes? (Medin & Bang, 2014)

We draw on key texts to examine the US Military’s historical role in STEM education (Leslie, 1993; Schoenfeld, 2004). With this history as context and analytic tool, we revisit data sources collected from two STEM after-school programs. We then draw on micro-ethnographic approaches (Cazden, 2001; Erickson, 2004) to consider how the broader political goals of STEM education shape students’ learning experiences within specific pedagogical interactions. Our analysis combines a historical investigation of the military’s role in STEM education with qualitative coding of audio-video recordings, ethnographic field notes, photographs, interviews and pedagogical/curricular documents.

Our historical analysis reveals that the military-industrial-academic complex produced tangible hardware and software systems designed specifically for wartime endeavors. However, the militarization of academia also has epistemological implications. The scientific knowledge that makes these systems possible significantly shapes the nature of STEM research at the university level. Relatedly, the practices at the heart of recent reforms in K-12 STEM education (invention, modeling and problem-solving) are often explicitly tied to workforce development, without critical attention to the political and ideological nature of scientific labor. This includes, for example, encouraging young “makers” to experiment with drone technology. Our ethnographic analysis highlights the specific ways learning is shaped by the political goals of STEM education, including the kinds of the questions and critiques young people express in STEM learning environments and the ways educators mediate these questions.

Our findings contribute new insights towards 1) the development of critical forms of STEM education and 2) approaches to equity grounded in solidarity with communities of color around the world. We seek to imagine a future in which young people learn about natural, physical and technological phenomena as deeply imbued with socio-political values, where the production of new scientific knowledge is coupled with the development of a more just world.

Authors

• Shirin Vossoughi, Northwestern University

• Sepehr Vakil, University of Texas - Austin