In this paper, we examine traditional psychosocial approaches to the study of student agency in science education, emphasizing the importance of incorporating sociocultural and critical perspectives. We present both contemporary studies of student agency in educational psychology and the work of scholars who study students' student agency with…

Recent events reveal the impact of systemic inequities on marginalized communities and highlight the importance of critical frameworks in science teacher education. Education theorists and research suggest that lack of sociopolitical, or critical, consciousness among teachers limits their ability to engage students in culturally relevant teaching…

As Paulo Freire's education theory for social change and emancipation is being continually studied and disseminated in East Asia, it has faced skepticism as some educators are unfamiliar with its critical pedagogy or education for freedom concepts. In light of this, scholars have attempted to compare Freirean philosophies with concepts in Chinese…

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…

This paper is written in response to Alberto J. Rodriguez and Deb Morrison's article entitled, "Expanding and Enacting Transformative Meanings of Equity, Diversity and Social Justice in Science Education." The authors provide a historical account of science education social justice research efforts within the USA and support the need to…

Agency and structure postulate a dialectic relationship: agents' actions shape and are shaped by social structure in a spiral and dynamic manner. Empirical studies in pre-collegiate science education contexts, however, tend to focus on individual's positionality instead of the engagement between agency and structure. This paper first charts the…

Informal science education (ISE) is a popular pursuit, with millions of people visiting science museums, science centres, zoos, botanic gardens, aquaria, science festivals and more around the world. Questions remain, however, about how accessible and inclusive ISE practices are. This article reviews research on participation in ISE through the…

This article supports critical, social justice oriented science education research by providing a theoretical and methodological basis for examining how subjectivities may be constituted through discourses found in science education texts. Such research explores how discourses orient teachers and students to the world, others, and themselves, as…

This metalogue addresses the ways Sreyashi Jhumki Basu mediated our practices in science education and life. We focus on Basu's uses of critical science agency, democratic science classrooms, and critical feminist ethnography to transform the possibilities for all participants in her research and educational practices. We also examine her use of…

This qualitative study uncovers the voices of five Latin@ students who are high-"achieving" and undocumented and have strong aspirations in science, in a Southern, Title I high school. Through critical race methodology and these students' "testimonios"/counter-stories, these students' struggles and successes reveal their…

Given the growing environmental awareness, educators - especially in science and environmental education - need to avoid embracing a "critical pedagogy of place". Why conflating critical pedagogy with place-based education is an oxymoron, and why it perpetuates the thinking and silences that undermine both the diversity of the world's cultures and…

This paper offers steps towards overcoming current fragmentation within sociocultural approaches by expansively reconstructing a broad dialectical view on human development and learning (drawing on Vygotsky's project) underwritten by ideology of social justice. The common foundation for sociocultural approaches is developed by dialectically…

When environmental education manifests itself in schools, it is usually a simple matter of the insertion of an environment-related activity into the science, or perhaps social studies, curriculum. However, if one finds a teacher who has "the ethic," the entire school might be "green." The fact that this ethic is spreading…

The second edition of "19 Urban Questions: Teaching in the City" adds new questions to those in the original volume. Continuing the developing conversation in urban education, the book is provocative in style and rich in detail. Emphasizing the complexity of urban education, Shirley R. Steinberg and the authors ask direct questions about what…

Within this book Leadership for Social Justice: Promoting Equity and Excellence Through Inquiry and Reflective Practice the contributors provide a variety of rich perspectives to the social justice phenomenon from the lens of empirical, historical, narrative, and conceptual designs. These designs reiterate the importance of bridging theory and…