Refocusing science professional learning: social justice at the heart

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. Unfortunately, the teacher was described as falling short of achieving the pedagogy and practice set out by the professional development. With this, we were left to wonder how the outcome of the study would have differed, if the authors chose to focus on social justice education, rather than make it a companion to their professional development on integrated technology. Therefore, in this piece, we explore how science teacher education, like the one presented in Kristen A. Searle et al.'s work, would look if it prioritized the development of socially just science teachers.