Changes in Science Teachers' Discourses and Positioning About Equity and Justice Through a Professional Development

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Supporting Our Own: Experiences in Professional Development

Abstract

Drawing upon positioning theory (Davis and Harré, 1999; Wilson et al., 2018), we examined changes in patterns of participating science teachers’ discourses to understand the ways in which engaging in designed virtual PD activities (about promoting equity and justice in science teaching) may change their discourses about equitable and justice-oriented science instruction. Data were generated from PD observations, surveys, teachers’ artifacts, and interviews. Analysis of forty-four teacher interviews revealed: (1) Two themes in teachers’ discourses and positioning (equity and justice as giving access and teachers as providers, and equity and justice as mindset and teachers as reflectioners), and (2) Teachers used a core language while deepening the sources of inequity and injustice across their participation in the PD.

Authors

• Raúl Orduña Picón, University of Massachusetts - Boston

• Hamideh Talafian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Hosun Kang, University of California - Irvine