Science Teachers' Attitudes, Beliefs, and Enactment of Practices Through Professional Development for Gender and Sexual Diversity‐Inclusive Science Teaching

Bibliographic Data

ID21392783
AuthorsGary W Wright (0000-0002-5362-1922, Department of Learning Teaching, and Curriculum University of Missouri Columbia Missouri USA, corresponding author), Sarah Poor (0000-0001-5346-0201, Department of Learning Teaching, and Curriculum University of Missouri Columbia Missouri USA), Victoria Barron (0009-0003-9561-803X, Department of Learning Teaching, and Curriculum University of Missouri Columbia Missouri USA), Austin Gaskin (0009-0005-9004-0229, Department of Music Education University of Missouri Columbia Missouri USA)
Year2026
Volume110
Issue3
Pages826-851
Publication date2026-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0036-8326 • E-ISSN: 1098-237X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/sce.70039
OpenAlexW4417172643
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited65

Despite increasing calls for gender and sexual diversity (GSD)‐inclusive science education, exploring how science teacher professional development (PD) can be designed to prepare in‐service science teachers to engage with and enact GSD‐inclusive science teaching (GSDST) remains an important area for research. This mixed methods study drew on survey, interview, and observational data to examine changes in 14 secondary in‐service science teachers’ attitudes and beliefs, and their enactment of practices following participation in a 22‐h GSD‐aligned PD program. Our quantitative findings suggested that the teachers were mostly supportive of measures indicative of GSDST before the intervention, with some individual variation. There was an overall trend in favor of GSDST with medium to large effect sizes after the intervention, which reached statistical significance on measures of heteronormative attitudes and beliefs. Qualitative analysis identified distinct patterns of change among the participants: static supportive, positive shifters, and negative shifters. Observations further illustrated diverse enactments of GSDST across the participants, including critical enactments that disrupted normative structures and existing curricular frameworks in science, equity enactments focused on integrating GSD topics within existing curricular frameworks, and constrained enactment where external pressures such as administrative pushback or community resistance limited some teachers' GSDST. These findings underscore the need for discipline‐specific PD and structural support to foster sustained and critical science teacher engagement

Diversity (politics) · Equity (law) · Faculty Development · Gender equity · Normative · Observational study · Professional development · Qualitative research · Science education · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies in Language · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy

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