ERIC Number: EJ1417508
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 35
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-4308
EISSN: EISSN-1098-2736
A (TRANS)Formative Approach to Gender-Inclusive Science Education
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, v61 n4 p937-971 2024
The teaching of science in K-12 schools has long been criticized as a process that propagates oppression for students who do not conform to entrenched norms of gender, sex, and sexuality. Academic standards, curriculum, and textbooks are rife with rhetoric that reinforces any deviation from cisheterosexuality as aberrant, unusual, or abnormal. However, these often-over-simplified conceptions discount the historic social and scientific intricacies of gender and sexual diversity as well as students' own lived experiences. While there have been advancements in LGBTQ+ and gender-inclusive science education reform, these movements have been stymied by a lack of cohesive guidelines for pedagogy and practice, particularly for trans, nonbinary, and gender-creative youth. Situated within trans-created conceptual frameworks for critical education, this study explored the pedagogical practices of 10 transgender science teachers with the purpose of learning from their experiences creating gender inclusive curriculum. From the data (in-depth interviews, instructional materials samples, and reflective teaching statements) emerged the "TRANS (Trans and Research-informed Approaches for Nonbinary and gender-inclusive Science education) Framework" for gender inclusive science education pedagogy. This framework is anchored in three domains for teaching science through a trans-informed lens: "interrogating and accessing power," "resisting essentialism," and "embracing experiential knowledge and personal epistemologies." The findings of this study contribute to our growing understanding of gender-inclusive science learning environments. Importantly, this study amplified the experiential knowledge of teachers whose voices are critically absent from research surrounding gender and LGBTQ+-inclusive science education practice. Moreover, the framework derived from teachers' experiences can be used to guide educators in making their science classrooms safer and more gender inclusive.
Descriptors: Science Education, Elementary Secondary Education, LGBTQ People, Social Bias, Student Diversity, Science Teachers, Diversity (Faculty), Curriculum Development, Experience, Classroom Environment, Inclusion
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A