Incorporating investigations of environmental racism into middle school science

Bibliographic Data

ID21392754
AuthorsAllison Bradford (0000-0002-4198-4435, Berkeley School of Education University of California Berkeley California USA, corresponding author), Libby Gerard (0000-0002-2708-5409, Berkeley School of Education University of California Berkeley California USA), Erika Tate (Bluknowledge Savannah GA USA), Erika D Tate (Savannah State University), Rui Li (0000-0001-9744-7965, Berkeley School of Education University of California Berkeley California USA), Marcia C Linn (0000-0003-2257-9474, Berkeley School of Education University of California Berkeley California USA)
Year2023
Volume107
Issue6
Pages1628-1654
Publication date2023-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0036-8326 • E-ISSN: 1098-237X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/sce.21824
OpenAlexW4385761440
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited30

To promote a justice‐oriented approach to science education, we formed a research‐practice partnership between middle school science teachers, their students, curriculum designers, learning scientists, and experts in social justice to co‐design and test an environmental justice unit for middle school instruction. We examine teacher perspectives on the challenges and possibilities of integrating social justice into their standards‐aligned science teaching as they participate in co‐design and teach the unit. The unit supports students to investigate racially disparate rates of asthma in their community by examining pollution maps and historical redlining maps. We analyze interviews and co‐design artifacts from two teachers who participated in the co‐design and taught the unit in their classrooms. Our findings point to the benefits of a shared pedagogical framework and an initial unit featuring local historical content to structure co‐design. Findings also reveal that teachers can share similar goals for empowering students to use science knowledge for civic action while framing the local socio‐political factors contributing to the injustice differently, due in part to different institutional supports and constraints. Student interviews and a pre/postassessment illustrate how the unit facilitated students' progress in connecting socio‐political and science ideas to explain the impacts of particulate matter pollution and who is impacted most. Analyses illuminate how teachers' pedagogical choices may influence whether and how students discuss the impact of systemic racism in their explanations. The findings inform refinement of the unit and suggest supports needed for co‐design partnerships focused on integrating social justice and science

Curriculum · Environmental justice · Framing (construction) · General partnership · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Political science · Racism · Science education · Sociology · Unit (ring theory) · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Engineering · Psychology · Science Education and Pedagogy · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies