Broadening Queering
Centering Queer and Trans Cultural Praxis in Science Education Research
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21392862 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Katharina R Mendoza (0000-0002-7079-477X, Department of Teacher Education, College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences University of Nebraska at Omaha Omaha Nebraska USA), Khanh Q Tran (0000-0002-3776-7091, Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Service; School of Teacher Education and Leadership Utah State University Logan Utah USA) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0036-8326 • E-ISSN: 1098-237X |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/sce.70076 |
| OpenAlex | W7165521779 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 46 |
In this commentary, we respond to the persistent deficit framing of queer and trans life in science education research and call for a reorientation of queer‐ and trans‐inclusive scholarship towards more joyful commitments. We trace the “joy deficit” in scholarship on gender and sexual diversity in science education through Wright and Delgado's (2023) three paradigms —safety, equity, and critical—and examine both their contributions and their limits for research and pedagogy. While each has contributed to important progress, they continue to position queer and trans people through deficit framings and constrained subjectivities. In response, we draw attention to a growing body of anti‐deficit work emerging within a relational paradigm, which recognizes queer and trans cultural praxis as onto‐epistemological, methodological, and pedagogical forces that sustain and create joy and possibility within science education. We outline how these works reframe research by centering relationality and collective care as constitutive of science learning, and we invite scholars to take up these commitments in building more just and life‐affirming science education futures
Cognitive reframing · Framing (construction) · Mindset · Performativity · Praxis · Queer · Queer theory · Scholarship · Science education · Gender Studies in Language · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
Designing for Rightful Presence in STEM
“I can be the weird STEM kid who is also gay”
Exploring the Agency of Black LGBTQ+ Youth in Schools and in NYC’s Ballroom Culture
Queer Joy as Pedagogy
Equity and justice in science education
Generating a framework for gender and sexual diversity‐inclusive STEM education
Reviving the Orchard
Cultivating culturally sustaining integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classrooms
A ( TRANS )formative approach to gender‐inclusive science education
Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth
Introduction to the special issue “Mobilising queer joy
For Me, Us, Our Community
Nature Is Nonbinary
Navigating the heteronormativity of engineering
The racial politics of STEM education in the USA
Fugitive pedagogies of dread for radical futurity
Mapping the contours of queer battle fatigue in educational contexts
The Art of Ridicule
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
Beyond Equity as Inclusion
Cultural Ways of Learning
Black Queer Students’ Counter-Stories of Invisibility in Undergraduate STEM as a White, Cisheteropatriarchal Space
[Re]considering queer theories and science education
Trans*+ing Classrooms
Finding Homeplace within Indigenous Literatures
Beyond single-identity spaces of Black mattering
The School-to-Coffin Pipeline
Reducing the Joy Deficit in Sociology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |