Disciplining Equity: Studying Science Teachers' Work at Content Area Boundaries

Daniel Morales-Doyle

There is broad consensus that students' science learning should be relevant in the cultural and community contexts in which they live. Educators also increasingly believe that evidence of learning science extends beyond students reconstructing canonical explanations of natural phenomena. At the same time, mainstream equity discourses remain singularly focused on broadening access to the disciplines that comprise the so-called STEM pipeline. These discourses often do not address the sociopolitical forces and historical contexts that create inequity, nor do they interrogate the end goals of the STEM pipeline itself. A contextualized view of equity in science education reveals potential tensions and synergies between access to the disciplinary canons and struggles for social or environmental justice. This project examines the complex relationships between equity and science content area boundaries. Specifically, the goal is to better understand how science teachers negotiate the limits of their content areas. The project will inform, and be informed by, practitioners' ability to shift the aims of science teaching away from the promotion or reproduction of the disciplines and towards appreciation, appropriation, and critique of disciplinary knowledges or practices in service of social and environmental justice.

About Daniel Morales-Doyle

Daniel Morales-Doyle is an assistant professor of science education in the department of curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research examines the potential for science education to act as a catalyst for social transformation by engaging youth in learning to do science and to critique science with and for just, sustainable communities. This work includes studying high school science curriculum, teaching, and teacher education as situated within broader contexts of inequity. Daniel was a high school teacher in the Chicago Public Schools for more than a decade before joining the faculty at UIC.