Developing, Implementing, and Refining Approaches for Teaching Science for Social Justice: The Collaborative Work of a Secondary Science Department as Part of Their Professional Learning

Our qualitative case study investigated a secondary science department's professional learning plan (PLP) designed and enacted across an academic school year focused on teaching science for social justice. During the academic year, science teachers were provided with opportunities to collaborate, reflect, and share their professional practice with support from science department peers and their administration. Our research examined the equity discourses and practices that shaped teachers' efforts to teach science for social justice as part of their engagement in the PLP. Data consisted of semi-structured interviews with groups of science teachers and an administrator and artifacts of the PLP (i.e. written teacher reports and reflections) and lesson plans. We found two equity discourses emerged: increased achievement, representation, and identification in science and engineering (Discourse 2) and seeing science as part of justice movements (Discourse 4), along with accompanying practices for each. The findings can inform how science teachers teach science for social justice, how they think and talk about social justice and equity, and how science departments and administrators can create conditions conducive to teaching science for social justice.