By arguing for "putting science education in its place," this essay cautions against overstating the role of science education with respect to global crises with technical components, like climate change. At the same time, it challenges the assumption that science education has no role in addressing equally urgent and widespread problems…

This article explores ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) through a Freirean lens of critical consciousness, dialogue, and transformation. The purpose is to draw from where there have been processes of engagement of sociopolitical action in science and how these spaces can become meaningful entry points to take toward making a…

This essay takes up a question that was left unanswered in the paper by Parsons and Morton, namely, why the African American students interviewed in the study described their best teachers as they did. The theoretical perspectives of Rogoff and Boykin are applied to show the importance of culturally resonant science classrooms that hum with the…

This article describes a summer enrichment science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) camp for African-American girls and young women aimed at addressing mathematical and science self-efficacy and reinforcing the importance and usefulness of mathematics and science with a socially transformative curriculum. The research questions…

In this paper, we discuss the role of dialogue in two layers; first, in relation to two self-organised communities of science teachers in which we participated and, second, our process of coming together during our PhDs to analyse these communities, a dialogue about the dialogue. Regarding the first layer, there is much to learn from science…

This forum paper is a reflection about the paper written by Valérie Frède and illustrates how it influences my work as a Ph.D. student in education. It focuses mainly on the relationship to knowledge and the clash between student culture and Western science culture in classroom. In this forum paper, I will briefly explain why these two ideas seems…

In this paper I argue for using the concept of "contribution" to activity to understand student engagement with science education and its transformational potential in formal settings. Drawing on transformative activist stance, I explain "contribution as how individuals take part in and transform collective practices according to…

This article uses key concepts of Anzaldúan philosophy to describe the Mosquitoes & Me summer camp as "ciencia zurda" or "left-handed science." It details a day-in-the-life portrait of Elena, a first-generation Latina middle schooler, as she experiences the opportunities that Mosquitoes & Me provided for self-other…

In an era of global climate change, intertwined with social and ecological predation, there is growing recognition of the importance of building socially, environmentally, culturally pluralistic, just and sustainable futures. Yet many of the calls for reform and discourses around sustainability are authored and defined through top-down approaches,…

This commentary promotes discussion on the imaginary provided by Sanaz Farhangi in her article entitled, "Contribution to activity: a lens for understanding students' potential and agency in physics education" (see EJ1191322). The commentary is concerned with aligning ontological assumptions in research accounts of learning and…

A defining characteristic of contemporary trends in global education policy is the promotion of STEM learning in the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors of education as a means to generate innovation and prosperity in the economy. Intertwined with common sensical assumptions about future labor markets and the transformative potential of…

As increasing numbers of families migrate from a range of countries into communities where Western science is viewed as valued curriculum content, a need for understanding the cultural nature of teaching Western science has become more urgent. The study reported in this paper sought to investigate pedagogical responses to everyday and scientific…

In this paper, we provide a conceptual critique of the various constructs often used to justify policies and/or research to promote equity, diversity and social justice in science education. As research expands in these areas, we seek to provide some clarity to support researchers in deepening their work toward transformative goals in science…

Cultural historical activity theory perspectives are drawn in this paper to realize collective transformative agency and the externalization of individual student identity, with students seeking personalized assistance from their teacher while learning mathematics at a grade eight classroom in Sweden. Even as teacher-researcher collaboration and…

This paper discusses findings from 40 ethnographically inspired interviews with 21 Native science professionals conducted in two iterative phases (21 in Phase I and 19 in Phase II), and a structured dialogue workgroup session with a six-member subset of the interviewees. Interview and group questions were open-ended to allow the participants to…