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…

Scientific literacy is still being identified and recognised as one of the main goals of science education. However, this concept has multiple interpretations and its definition changes continuously depending on its social, cultural, and political contexts. In this paper, scientific literacy is conceptualised through "visions I, II and…

Scientific training often begins with learning content knowledge and techniques. As a student progresses, they are required to communicate the results of their experiments with their instructors in a manner that other scientists would understand. This style of communication is stressed throughout their entire training. But what happens when the…

Science educators can provide learning experiences that challenge notions of mistrust in science, and provide students with the science skills necessary to obtain, evaluate, and communicate credible scientific information. As the COVID-19 pandemic persists, the American public continues to be inundated with messages reinforcing the importance of…

In the twenty-first century, the rise and support of fascism-related views threaten freedom of speech, freedom of sexual orientation, religious tolerance and progressive agendas that advocate equity. We argue that mainstream science education generally does not, but should, educate students against fascism-related views--such as racism, sexism,…

Jawaharlal Nehru's contribution in pioneering the concept of scientific temper in India is widely acknowledged, and his legacy has had an influence on Academia, Education policy and popular science movements in the country. But in the last decade, the new age social media revolution has seen a renaissance of right wing nationalism, backed by an…

The present study examines the pedagogical use of reading aloud of science trade books as an effective tool for teaching nature of science (NOS) to elementary students. To this end, we explore elementary teachers' and students' dialogic negotiation of NOS during interactive science read-alouds, as well as potential interactions between their…

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…

As products of the Anthropocene, the epoch of human ecological impact, models of environmental and social sustainability have been rooted in humanism, centering human agency and taking humanity as the prime reference point in understanding the world. Discourses around sustainability pose questions of how we are trying to sustain our world and our…

Socioscientific Issues (SSI) provide a strong framework for engaging students and teachers in meaningful and relevant scientific discourse in the development of functional scientific literacy. However, while most teachers recognize the value of introducing students to SSI, they themselves have limited knowledge of SSI and often lack the confidence…

Although in-depth educational reviews can be carried out building on curricular theories, the appropriation of this knowledge by science education scholarship can still be considered timid. In this paper, our intention is to work on this interface; we first introduce basic concepts from the main curricular frameworks and bring possible…

In this theoretical paper, I argue that whether science is universal or culture-specific endeavor is a nature of science (NOS) question that needs to be explored critically by learners in a science classroom. Delimiting the discussion to precollege (secondary) science education, I discuss the educational benefits of such a proposal and evaluate…

In this paper, I engage with arguments put forth by Anna Günther-Hanssen in her article "A swing and a child: How scientific phenomena can come to matter for preschool children's emergent science identities." Günther-Hanssen argues that new materialism can help us see how scientific phenomena can create affordances in becoming scientific…

This paper presents the development and structure of indigenous Nahua teachers' ideas about mixing colors, as well their ideas about colors derived from their traditions. For the scientific school knowledge, teachers answered two questionnaires and an interview regarding knowledge from their culture; they were interviewed outside school. This…

Science for all has been touted as the primary path to equity in science education in the USA. We argue that without attention to the power imbalances that both create and sustain dominant views of science education; such an approach is not equity-oriented but rather science colonizing. In this manuscript, we draw upon critical views of justice to…