Education by and for Indigenous peoples needs to focus on and honor the life-affirming notions of land- and place-based connections, our individual and collective responsibilities, reciprocity, and relationships. In todays' school settings, redefining what "success" looks like as well as supporting Indigenous identities are critical to…

Repeated closures of the world's science museums to stem the spread of COVID-19 have significantly reduced visitors' access to informal science learning opportunities. Interviews with educators and an analysis of the online content of a science museum were used in this case study to examine the impact of this phenomenon on informal science…

Due to the influence of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the National Research Council's (NRC) "Framework for K-12 Science Education," and a socio-workforce push to increase diverse representation in STEM fields, engineering education has become more prevalent in K-12 classrooms over the past decade. Although this shift is…

With the global pandemic educators have had to move their courses to virtual spaces, and this quick change has brought up concerns, especially in STEM education where there are ongoing discussions of adapting laboratories and shifting lecture and assessment practices to online learning. One issue that has become more pressing, beyond the financial…

Education reforms are rarely successful or free of controversies. However, efforts to "STEM-ify" public education in the USA by positioning education in STEM fields and training of future workforce as the central purposes of public schooling is proving to be remarkably successful and devoid of contention. This paper explains the success…

Despite acknowledging issues of inequity within science education, practices, standards, and reform-guiding documents like the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) still fall short in actions that result in substantive and sustained progress in achieving their expressed goals and expectations. Issues of inequity in science…

This paper emerges from a reflection inspired by Kristen A. Searle et al.'s "Whiteness at Work in the Elementary Classroom: A Case Study." Through the lens of Whiteness, the authors explored how a White male elementary teacher, who engaged in an integrated technology professional development, implemented culturally responsive teaching.…

This commentary to Ha and Kim's article suggests three ways to expand the interpretive functions of framing to explore and support marginalized students' participation in collaboration and learning, based on our comprehensive review of Ha and Kim's and other relevant studies. We argue that framing can be a useful tool for (1) understanding both…

In this commentary, I consider several theoretical and methodological aspects of Nadaraji Govender and Edson Mudzamiri's study. The commentary starts with an examination of the purpose for making physics understandable to learners of indigenous background and decolonization of school physics in Govender and Mudzamiri. Next, I offer an alternative…

Jill Williams and Sara Tolbert (2021) suggest that neoliberal reforms in Arizona have 'ironically positioned science classrooms and science teachers as high potential sites of/for resistance' to these reforms (p. 72). This forum response explores a number of ethical questions for American science teachers that arise from the political influence of…

This paper is in dialogue with Danielle Ferguson and Catherine Martin-Dunlop's paper, "Uncovering stories of resilience among successful African American women in STEM." The purpose of this article is to extend conversations on Black women in STEM, focusing on radical transformations of STEM by centering (and normalizing) their voices…

This qualitative study investigates the processes by which science and math teachers in high-need, urban schools develop a sense of professional identity, agency, and group membership in the context of instructional reform. Focusing on the experiences of two teachers, the paper explores both obstacles and affordances that teachers encounter when…

While much research has examined the impact that neoliberal reforms have had on education, very little research has examined science teachers/teaching in particular. In this article, we share findings from a longitudinal study with 9 public school science teachers in Arizona, USA. We argue that neoliberal reforms have positioned science classrooms…

In this paper, we craft a dialogue between "The Anthropocene as we know it: posthumanism, science education and scientific literacy as a path to sustainability," by Sophia Jeong, Brandon Sherman, and Deborah Tippins and, "The quest for sustainable futures: designing transformative spaces for youth through critical…

This paper explores various theories of curriculum intending to provide a new approach--which we regard as a significant theoretical contribution--to examine the broad set of different discourses that have been shaping science education. We first introduce concepts and values that support traditional and critical curriculum theories and offer some…