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This paper is one of three sequential papers interrogating equity in partnerships (or partnering relationships [PRs]) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. In this piece, we prioritize abundance framing and dignity‐conferring work when engaging in partnerships with and for communities who have been historically marginalized. We propose a framework of seven drivers that define the directions and/or success of PRs: (1) mission, vision, or values; (2) goals or outcomes; (3) practices or processes; (4) power, privilege, or oppression; (5) communities and geography; (6) time and urgency; and (7) partners. This framework can be used to examine PRs at any phase of their existence to ensure equity‐centered and dignity‐conferring processes and outcomes. We discuss case studies that are common or specific challenges or frustrations that occur in nonequity‐centered PRs. We frame these as six vexations: (1) sustainable PRs; (2) dignity‐conferring PRs; (3) repetitive PRs; (4) political PRs; (5) "mission trip" PRs; (6) and deceptive PRs. We address these by using a data feminist lens (a perspective inspired by the book Data Feminism that centers on justice in defining and presenting outcomes), and future dreamings (a perspective that centers on potential ahead) to define our suggestions for designing intentional endings of partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concepts in science education such as "science identity" and "science capital" are informed by dominant epistemological and ontological positions, which translate into assumptions about what counts as science and whose science counts. In this theoretical paper we draw on decolonial and antiracist perspectives to examine these assumptions in light of the heterogeneous onto‐epistemological and axiological values, cultural perspectives, and contributions of nondominant groups, and specifically of those who have been historically marginalized based on their gender, race, ethnic, age, and/or social class identity. Building on these arguments, we critique deficit‐based approaches to science teaching, learning, and research, including those that focus on systemic injustice, yet leave intact dominant framings of the scientific enterprise, which are exclusionary and meritocratic. As an alternative, we offer a design of science teaching and learning for the pluriverse—"a world where many worlds fit". This alternative allows us to reconstruct science and science‐related "outcomes," such as identity, in the service of cultural, epistemic, and linguistic pluralism. We close the paper with the idea that because mainstream theories reproduce deficit framings and educational injustices, we must engage with decolonial1 theories of pluriversality and discuss different onto‐epistemologies to be able to grapple with existing social, racial, environmental injustices, and land‐based devastations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current science instruction does not educate K‐12 students equitably and creates short‐ and long‐term impacts on individual students and society. While students may be present in class, they may not have access to quality science learning experiences. The goals of this paper are to show how science instruction may not be reaching its aim of equitable access and to offer recommendations for creating a new baseline standard for equitable science instruction. Though not exhaustive, this paper identifies groups of students who are marginalized in current‐day science instruction—the racially minoritized, those with physical and cognitive differences, and those in urban or rural communities. First, this paper challenges the neutrality of science by highlighting systemic yet negative outcomes that disproportionately impact minoritized populations in everyday life because of the narrow network of people who define and solve problems. Second, this paper identifies examples where science instruction is not of its highest quality for the highlighted groups. Third, we present a synthesis of research‐informed solutions proposed to improve both the quality of science instruction and its equitable access for the highlighted groups, creating a new baseline standard for equitable science instruction. An elevated baseline would address the existing disparities in who has access to quality science instruction and consequently reduce the gatekeeper effect of who defines and solves societal problems that perpetuate intergenerational inequities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science educators are integrating more and more computational thinking (CT) activities into their curricula. Proponents of CT offer two motivations: familiarizing students with a realistic depiction of the computational nature of modern scientific practices and encouraging more students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, some studies show that increasing exposure to computing may not necessarily translate to the hypothesized gains in participation by female students and students of color. Therefore, paying close attention to students' engagement in computationally intense science activities is important to finding more impactful ways to promote equitable science education. In this paper, we present an in‐depth analysis of the interactions among a small, racially diverse group of high school students during a chemistry unit with tightly integrated CT activities. We find a salient interaction between the students' engagement with the CT activities and their social identification with publicly recognizable categories such as "enjoys coding" or "finds computing boring." We show that CT activities in science education can lead to numerous rich interactions that could, if leveraged correctly, allow educators to facilitate more inclusive science classrooms. However, we also show that such opportunities would be missed unless teachers are attentive to them. We discuss the implications of our findings on future work to integrate CT across science curricula and teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper's focus is on the "middle" of partnerships for equity in science education. Middle is used in a temporal sense, meaning the time after the general purposes and terms of working together have been set and before outcomes have been achieved. The middle of the partnership also represents people interacting, bounded around the edges, by their institutional roles, norms, resources, and priorities. As co‐authors who had not previously collaborated (or even met in person), we approached the construction of this manuscript as a dialogue where we learn by sharing narrations of experiences and values and principles. We were inspired by the conversational book between Horton and Freire (1990) and specifically their discussion of "Is it possible to just teach biology?" (p. 102). In our conversation, we illustrate the ways in which partnerships may make justice‐oriented science education possible. Our focus is on complementary and contradictory knowledges, and ways of knowing, institutional resources and constraints, and strategies for making transformative change. We explore the middle of partnerships as a series of opportunities for learning and growing, caring for one another, and building solidarity spaces together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is evidence to support the existence of identity‐based disparities, inequities, and biases in the academic journal peer‐review process, little research supports the presence of this bias in the peer‐review process for academic journals in science education. Through an analysis of six leading journals in science education, we aimed to investigate the extent to which diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as well as the presence of bias in the peer‐review process, are addressed by these journals. We analyzed trends in the gender/sex, geographical affiliation, race/ethnicity, and the presence of equity‐centered research focus for members of these journals' editors and editorial boards. We found that although gender/sex is well‐balanced in these journals' editors and editorial boards, they are typically North American centric, and White individuals are overwhelmingly represented. Four journals had a quarter or more of individuals who pursue equity‐centered research. Only two journals provided detailed information on how manuscripts are reviewed in their author submission guidelines. All used a double‐blind approach to peer‐review. One of the journals includes an explicit position on DEI. Based on the analyses and reflections on our own experiences, we recommend science education journals consider ways to probe whether bias does exist in their peer‐review process, diversify their board to be more inclusive of scholars from communities historically marginalized, and move to a triple‐blind approach to their peer‐review process as mechanisms to mitigate bias in the journal peer review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing equity issues in science education requires a reorientation to how science students are advised and how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, particularly science, is viewed. STEM education is often figuratively described as a pipeline containing students who leak out before reaching the nexus of their STEM education/career journey. The authors of this paper argue that STEM education must be viewed from an ecosystems perspective, where students interact with one another, their physical environment and cultural contexts, and other humans who can support them in becoming STEM professionals. Within this STEM ecosystem, many individuals have a pivotal role in supporting students as they learn and develop within the science field. These individuals, particularly advisors, must possess knowledge, beliefs, skills, and dispositions that help students cultivate a sense of belonging, engage them in critical thinking about their academic and career choices, and aid their identity development in learning as becoming in STEM professions. The authors describe who these individuals are, the roles they play, and also provide practical examples, using vignettes, of how advisors can support students of color pursuing science degrees and careers. Finally, recognizing that students' STEM advising ecosystem operates at any grade level or stage of life, the authors have organized the descriptive portion of this study according to the following levels elementary, secondary, undergraduate, graduate, and career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use the concept of consequential learning to frame our exploration of what makes learning and doing science matter for youth from nondominant communities, as well as the barriers these youth must confront in working toward consequential ends. Data are derived from multimodal cases authored by four females from nondominant communities that present an account of 'science that matters' from their work during their middle school years. We argue that consequential learning in science for these girls involves engaging science with a commitment to their community. This form of engagement required the girls to develop bridging practices that allowed them to transform existing relationships among science and community for themselves and others despite normative barriers experienced in science. Our study expands upon current understandings of consequential learning through highlighting the vital role of sociohistorically constructed understandings of community in determining when, how, and why science learning and doing matters for youth. This view opens up new ways to understand how youth can and do contribute to the changing contexts in which science takes place, and toward the ways in which youth contributions alter what gets counted as learning, as being expert, and as meaningful participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in science education with multilingual learners (MLs) has expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion can be situated within a larger dialogue about what it means to provide minoritized students with an equitable education. Whereas some conceptions of equity focus on ensuring all students have access to the knowledge, practices, and language normatively valued in K‐12 schools (equity as access), increasingly prominent conceptions focus on transforming those knowledge, practices, and language in ways that center minoritized students and their communities (equity as transformation). In this article, we argue that conceptions of equity provide a useful lens for understanding emerging research in science education with MLs and for charting a research agenda. We begin by tracing how conceptions of equity have evolved in parallel across STEM and multilingual education. Then, we provide an overview of recent developments from demographic, theoretical, and policy perspectives. In the context of these developments, we provide a conceptual synthesis of emerging research by our team of early‐career scholars in three areas: (a) learning, (b) assessment, and (c) teacher education. Within each area, we unpack the research efforts in terms of how they attend to equity as access while pushing toward equity as transformation. Finally, we propose a research agenda for science education with MLs that builds on and extends these efforts. We close by offering recommendations for making this research agenda coherent and impactful: (a) being explicit about our conceptions of equity, (b) paying attention to the interplay of structure and agency, and (c) promoting interdisciplinary collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has recommended centering health disparities to make science instruction relevant to students from minoritized racial and ethnic groups. While promoted as a recent innovation, the repurposing of science instruction to improve the health of demographic groups has a longer history traceable to segregated and colonial schooling. Using a historicizing approach, this study explores how certain U.S. science classrooms have become clinics of preventative care aimed at transforming groups into healthy citizens. Analysis identifies how U.S. science education studies have used psychological, sociological, and anthropological lenses to divide students into populations, classifying some as needing intervention to improve their minds (e.g., basic health knowledge), home lives (e.g., daily habits), and cultural beliefs (e.g., attitudes toward science and medicine). Through systematic analysis of U.S. science education journals and sources cited therein, I map shifts over three periods: the rise of urban, segregated, and colonial schooling (1901–45), postwar desegregation and international development (1946–89), and equity reforms (1990–2021). Despite declines in deficit language, analysis suggests the intervention space of the science‐class‐as‐clinic still demarcates groups as not yet fully reasoning, self‐regulating, or agentic, and as needing the applied relevance of preventative health. Paradoxically, efforts to redress disparities may reinsert older distinctions by positing groups as educationally and medically at‐risk—implicitly locating inequities within students rather than the unjust systemic conditions they face. I conclude with implications for research and practice, highlighting approaches that do not treat educational and health inequities as problems to be fixed in the child, family, or community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joining the campaign to center justice-oriented theory and practice in science education In I Theoretical Perspectives for Developing Anti-Racist Teaching Dispositions and Practices in Preservice Teacher Education i , Madkins and Restrepo Nazar unpack the idea of developing political clarity as a central part of science education and becoming an antiracist teacher/teacher educator. Keywords: equity; teacher learning EN equity teacher learning 1342 1345 4 10/21/22 20221101 NES 221101 INTRODUCTION The fields of teacher learning and science teacher learning are undertheorized (Horn & Garner, 2022). [Extracted from the article]

This article explores and wrestles with the various discourses that arise when considering why it is important to advise students from an assets‐based and holistic approach into science‐related majors and careers. Our hope is to inform how and why it is important to advise students into science‐related careers, specifically, and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, more generally, from an ethical and justice‐oriented approach. We begin with a review of empirical literature that highlights the different approaches to advising and the challenges racially and gender‐minoritized students often face in STEM fields. We then review contemporary research from science education that document the hostilities that racially and gender‐minoritized students experience in undergraduate and graduate science programs. We find the intersection of these two subfields to be productive for elucidating multilevel, context‐dependent strategies, which can redress the inexcusable and alarming underrepresentation and exclusion of racially minoritized peoples in science programs and careers in the United States. We end by contemplating the ethical question of how science programs, careers, and the broader field would need to change, to keep historically minoritized students from experiencing further material and epistemological violence. We argue that, without this reimagination, even the most effective advising models will only ensure that more racially and gender‐minoritized students are sacrificed on the altar of "equality" for the sake of the economic and geopolitical needs of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This framing essay situates the author's experiences with mentoring. This serves as a prelude to the two foundational essays about equity‐centered science education included within this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I explore some of the insights provided in a set of three manuscripts that focus on centering equity in peer review, authored by Bancroft, Ryoo and Miles, Nkrumah and Mutegi, and Marshall and Salter. I consider various aspects of their arguments, highlighting implications for the procedures and norms of journals and funding organizations and questions for further consideration. Drawing on their findings and analyses, I discuss various recommendations, such as the need to change the rules and norms of peer review to be more equitable, to ensure that reviews are free from race, ethnicity, gender, and other kinds of identity‐related biases, to work towards equitable distribution of the resources, such as advising, mentoring, and valuable feedback, that support fair reviewing, and to establish criteria and rubrics that support research that is conducted in collaboration with communities marginalized in science education. In addition, I raise issues for further consideration, including the evolving relationship between "equity" and "merit" with regard to peer review and the need for centering equity in ways that allow for discussion, debate, and development of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As science education continues to embrace science‐as‐practice, equitable science learning environments must value and leverage emergent bilingual students' ways of communicating. This study investigates the translanguaging practices of a group of elementary‐aged emergent bilingual students while they problematized electrical phenomena. Building on asset‐oriented theories for supporting student learning, I utilize translanguaging as a theoretical and pedagogical lens for understanding how emergent bilingual students leverage their full semiotic repertoires for productive disciplinary engagement. The study took place in an out‐of‐school program focused on creating opportunities for students to problematize electrical phenomena, specifically electrical resistance. I present a close analysis of students constructing models of electric flow through a circuit and how electrical resistance regulates that flow. The findings also include evidence that students engaged in different kinds of translanguaging practices when problematizing electrical phenomena and co‐constructing knowledge with each other and the instructor. Specifically, students drew from and used multiple linguistic and nonlinguistic semiotic resources for communicating their models. Finally, the findings suggest that the instructor's pedagogical moves and own translanguaging practices implicitly signaled to students when and how to participate in translanguaging practices themselves. The findings emphasize the importance of desettling what counts as productive forms of communication in science for elementary‐aged emergent bilingual students by eschewing pedagogical models that police discursive boundaries. Therefore, equitable science learning environments must create opportunities for emergent bilingual students to leverage their full semiotic repertoires for meaning‐making, by inviting and valuing multiple languages and gestures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While gender parity has been achieved in overall science degree earning, large gaps still exist within many science disciplines. Further, studies addressing gender inequity in science often ignore a large source of undergraduate science degree earners: those who enroll in science courses intending to pursue careers in health or medicine. This study examines pathways toward or away from science degrees in N = 4,345 men and women enrolled in early science courses at a large undergraduate research university. Importantly, to understand shifts in students' academic intentions and how pathways to science may be differential by gender, this study analyzed students' incoming major and career intentions, estimates of incoming academic abilities, and relative performance in science and various non‐science courses. Results show that while men and women initially intending to pursue a science major graduate with science degrees in equal numbers, the plurality of science degree earners are students entering college intending health or medical careers. Further, from those subgroups, a significantly larger proportion of men end up in science, while a significantly larger proportion of women end up outside of STEM completely. Understanding disciplinary differences in gender barriers to science participation can help inform interventions that specifically target those populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we studied how community educators' designed for equity in an after school science program. Building from discussions of equity in out‐of‐school‐time (OST) science, this case study offers insight into the role of pedagogy in organizing for dignity and belonging in an after school program. This case study focused on the practices of nine Latinx community educators as they supported science practices in an after school program. Grounded in an understanding of place and the specific cultural, political, and historical densities of life in an agricultural town, the study found that educators created a space of affirmation and care that supported alternative paths to deep engagement in science. The findings add dimensionality to current discourses of equity in OST science and engineering education by examining how historical and political understanding of marginalization informed educators' pedagogical strategies. These strategies include offering: moment‐to‐moment affirmations of young people's ideas, material and cultural generosity in the Studio, connections to political belonging through science, and extensions from community activities into the after school science inquiries. Together educators created a space of belonging that used science and engineering as entry points for creation, political expression, and intellectual expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores ways to support girls of color in forming their senses of selves in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) during the middle school years. Guided by social practice theory, we analyzed a large data set of survey responses (n = 1,821) collected at five middle schools in low‐income communities across four states in the United States. Analyses focus on the extent to which key constructs that inform girls' development of senses of self and relations among those indicators of STEM identities varied by their race/ethnicity. Though the means of indicators sometimes varied across racial/ethnic groups, multigroup structural equation modeling analyses indicate no significant racial/ethnic differences in the relations of STEM identities, suggesting that similar supports would be equally effective for all girls during the middle school years. Girls' self‐perception in relation to science was the strongest predictor of their identification with STEM‐related careers, and this self‐perception was positively and distinctively associated with their experiences with science at home, outside of school, and in school science classes. This study argues for strategically expanding girls' experiences with science across multiple settings during middle school in a way that increases their positive self‐perception in and with STEM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]