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Allchin, Douglas; Osborne, Jonathan
doi: 10.1002/tea.70050pmid: N/A
In this response to Tolbert's 2025 commentary, “Trust, Distrust, and the ‘Competent Outsider’: Rethinking Science Education's Responsibilities in the (Dis)Information Crisis,” we address the nature of disinformation in the untamed landscape of public media, what we call “science‐in‐the‐wild.” We contrast political perspectives about how to situate science in society with the epistemic need to share specialized knowledge in society and the corresponding educational role of science media literacy in discerning who speaks for the expert scientific consensus. Notably, we distinguish interpersonal trust (based on individual judgments about power and benevolence) with epistemic trust (based on principles of conveying reliable knowledge).
Eddy, Sarah L.; Ahler, Sam; Baer, Juno; March, E.; Gutierrez, A.; Turner, O.; Wittmann, Beth; Lane, A. Kelly; Casper, A. M. Aramati
doi: 10.1002/tea.70043pmid: N/A
Queer undergraduates describe a climate in STEM fields and classrooms that is both hostile to and silent on queer identities, leading to experiences of social exclusion, devaluation as a scientist, and discrimination. In the few studies that have specifically focused on trans and non‐binary undergraduates (i.e., students with queer genders), these students report more hostile conditions than their cisgender peers. In biology and biology‐related majors, where core courses include topics related to sex, gender, reproduction, sexual behavior, and sexual and romantic orientation, the content itself may influence a student's experience. Yet, biology is the study of the diversity of life, including diversity across sex, gender, reproduction, sexual behavior, and orientation, which also makes course content a prime site for narratives that support students with queer identities. We employed Master Narrative theory to understand the narratives about sex, gender, reproduction, sexual behavior, and orientation present in undergraduate biology courses through interviews with biology majors with queer genders. We identified three narratives that both supported the belonging of students with queer genders and had the ability to challenge harmful societal narratives. These three narratives could manifest in the classroom in multiple ways, ranging from short disclaimers to elaborate case studies involving human examples. The ways the narratives manifested impacted their efficacy for at least some participants. These narratives and how they manifest provide potential starting points for designing interventions to support students with queer genders in biology classrooms and more accurately teach the biology of sex, gender, reproduction, sexual behavior, and orientation.
Pierre, Takeshia; Pringle, Rose
doi: 10.1002/tea.70044pmid: N/A
Black Men continue to be underrepresented in STEM fields. In recent years, scholars have argued that current issues with retention in STEM majors have less to do with Black students' mastery of STEM topics and are more related to the hostile environments they experience in their effort to obtain STEM degrees. Statistics show that Black Men leave STEM majors in record numbers, which can in part explain their relatively low representation in STEM fields. In this study, we document the experiences of 50 Black Men who held careers in STEM fields, acknowledging and amplifying voices that commonly experience erasure in these settings. Moments when these men exercised resistance to maintain their placement in STEM environments and remained in their respective fields are highlighted. We sought to answer the research question: What experiences shape the career trajectory of Black Men STEM professionals, and how do those experiences and their response to them lead to career persistence? We present 3 major findings: (1) Existence as Protest: Black Males Occupying STEM Spaces, (2) Acknowledging Hurdles, Surpassing Low Expectations, and (3) Making Broader Impacts. Future implications for research and suggestions for the broader STEM education community are discussed.
Garrecht, Carola; Christenson, Nina; Gericke, Niklas; Haglund, Jesper; Appelgren, Jari; Harms, Ute
doi: 10.1002/tea.70045pmid: N/A
Due to the far‐reaching and life‐threatening consequences of climate change, science education is becoming increasingly important for preparing students to become climate literate citizens. Climate literacy, which encompasses knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to climate change, can provide a strong foundation for informed climate action. While the influence of students' climate change‐related knowledge on their engagement in climate action has been the focus of much research and debate, few studies in the field of science education have examined how the combination of cognitive and psycho‐social aspects of climate literacy relates to students' climate engagement. The present study addresses this gap by exploring the relative contribution of different aspects of climate literacy (i.e., knowledge, skills, risk perception, and value orientations) to students' willingness to engage in climate action. Using the method of sequential regression analysis, we analyzed data collected from 1309 German and Swedish students. The patterns of the results in both countries are similar: Students' risk perception is found to be the relatively strongest predictor of their willingness to engage in climate action. Value orientations were also identified as strong predictors, while cognitive factors seem to have less explanatory power. Conclusively, our study suggests that science education should consider psycho‐social factors alongside teaching of the necessary knowledge, especially if we aim to empower students to go beyond the theoretical discussion of how to combat climate change.
Livni Alcasid, Gur Arie; Haskel‐Ittah, Michal
doi: 10.1002/tea.70052pmid: N/A
Mechanistic reasoning is a powerful and vital approach for science students to explain scientific phenomena. Current research on students' mechanistic reasoning aims to enhance unpacking, that is, the identification and description of entities at lower scalar levels. However, even the most comprehensive mechanistic explanation must conceal some mechanistic details due to insufficient knowledge or to maintain coherence. These knowledge gaps, known as “explanatory black boxes,” are significant in science education because they highlight areas of incomplete knowledge, facilitating discussions of explanation quality. We explored the impact of familiarizing students with explanatory black boxes by explicitly referring to them during learning. This “black‐box pedagogy” was implemented in a 14‐h online course focusing on cancer‐onset mechanisms. It involved iteratively highlighting black boxes in mechanistic explanations before delving into deeper mechanisms. Our goal was to examine whether and how this pedagogy may scaffold (a) the learning of mechanisms that span multiple scalar levels and (b) students' understanding of epistemic considerations in the context of black boxes and mechanistic explanations. We analyzed learning outcomes of 10th‐grade biology students in two phases. In the first, we used pre‐ and post‐questionnaires, along with in‐course prompts, to examine shifts in students' construction of mechanistic explanations and students' creation of questions regarding mechanistic details. In the second, students created poster projects and reflective worksheets that offered insights into their decision‐making processes regarding which mechanistic details to include or exclude. Findings indicated that black‐box pedagogy effectively supports students' focus on explicated black boxes and their unpacking, as well as their ability to identify implicit black boxes. In addition, this pedagogy facilitates discussions of epistemic issues related to the unpacking and black‐boxing of mechanistic details. While challenges and limitations exist, particularly in addressing lower‐level molecular mechanisms, this study underscores the importance of explicitly discussing, rather than avoiding, black boxes in the science classroom.
Ayers, Katherine Ann; Pennella, Robyn Ann; Wolfe, Hailey
doi: 10.1002/tea.70041pmid: N/A
This agential realist narrative inquiry maps the entangled process of becoming‐STEMM educator‐with as it materialized through the implementation of a kindergarten unit on germs in a historically marginalized urban school. Intra‐acting with Barad's theories of agential realism and spectral materialism, the study resists humanist framings of identity as internal or developmental, instead attending to the material and discursive forces (e.g., curriculum materials, institutional mandates, student bodies, affective atmospheres, and hauntings of pandemic‐era schooling) that co‐constituted pedagogical becoming. Rather than locating agency within the teacher, Ms. West, the analysis follows how her enactments emerged through shifting relations with students, tools, classroom routines, and inherited exclusions. Her initial hesitation toward the curriculum is read not as resistance, but as a hauntological re‐turn, an affective‐material residue of past mandates and constrained reforms. Through diffractive analysis of interview data, implementation logs, and student artifacts, the study maps how pedagogical shifts unfolded through emergent relationalities, where care, inquiry, and ethical responsiveness were not applied but materialized within the apparatus itself. Becoming‐STEMM educator‐with, in this account, is not an individual transformation but an ontological reconfiguration shaped by spectral histories, institutional logics, and material‐discursive intra‐actions. This work contributes to science education by troubling teacher identity as a fixed or intentional process and foregrounding the haunted material conditions through which STEMM pedagogies come to matter. It calls for professional learning spaces attuned to the affective, ethical, and infrastructural forces that shape possibilities for teaching, learning, and becoming otherwise.
Poza, Luis E.; Ribay, Kathryn; Visintainer, Tammie
doi: 10.1002/tea.70049pmid: N/A
As the nation and world face pressing contemporary science challenges at the intersection of race, place, and socioeconomic status (e.g., the climate crisis), it is imperative to nurture the strengths of racially and linguistically diverse student populations as thought partners and problem solvers in K‐12 classrooms. Too often, the labels English Learner (EL) or Academic Language Learner (ALL) position students through deficit orientations, focusing on what they supposedly lack rather than what they bring to science learning environments. To foster more inclusive science teaching aligned to frameworks of educational dignity, we conducted educator self‐study within secondary and elementary science teaching methods courses at a comprehensive public university to examine how concepts of critical language awareness, translanguaging, and raciolinguistics were integrated into teacher preparation curriculum and how candidates engaged with these themes.
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