Preparing for Inclusivity and Diverse Perspectives on Social, Political, and Equity Issues in Higher Education

Abstract

Pre-service and beginning in-service science teachers enrolled in a university teacher education program participated in a project to support their teaching through a lens of sustainability. While they demonstrated active and positive engagement, I considered the possibility of any students reacting negatively to the course material and doing so in ways that were silent and not easily visible. In preparing to avoid and, as necessary, respond to any evidence of such negative reactions in the future, I reviewed literature and contemplated how to create safe, empowering learning environments that welcome diverse and dissident perspectives, while upholding respect and intellectual engagement.

Keywords:

• Diverse and dissident perspectives
• inclusivity
• sociopolitical and equity issues
• student empowerment
• student silence

Acknowledgments

I graciously thank the middle and secondary science teacher candidates formerly enrolled in the course and who participated in the project, thereby supporting this subsequent paper. Additionally, I thank Tara Nkrumah for guidance in the production of this paper, along with reviewers whose feedback has contributed to strengthening the paper.

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interest in the publication of this work.

Notes

1 The pre-service teachers hold no teaching certification until all coursework, field experiences, and examinations in either Bachelor’s or Master’s degree programs are successfully completed. The beginning in-service teachers in this course hold provisional certification, while teaching full-time in classrooms matching their targeted certification area and completing their Master’s degree coursework, field experiences, and examinations. To be eligible to teach with provisional certification, the in-service teachers already hold science content-related Bachelor’s degrees that match or satisfy their expected middle and/or secondary curriculum responsibilities as classroom teachers.

2 The pre-service and in-service teachers in this course will be professionally certified to teach middle and/or secondary school students, depending on the grade- and subject-specification of their program of study at the university and certification sought through the state.

3 The instructional plans developed by each student had to be designed to match expectations of their middle and/or secondary grades certification areas in terms of curriculum (i.e. state-mandated academic standards and school district curriculum models), as well as developmental appropriateness (i.e. cognitive and socioemotional development of their targeted middle/secondary student population). Evidence of other research-informed pedagogical practices addressed during the course was expected, as well.

4 This course goal is situated in the larger pedagogical construct of place-based education (Gruenewald 2003).

5 For example, the importance and/or benefits of economic advancement and rapid resource accumulation over increased environmental protections; climate change as natural rather than significantly driven my anthropogenic factors; as well as a narrowed emphasis on recycling, while overlooking the broad suite of sustainability issues, including social, environmental, and economic concerns.

6 Based on level of participation and attitudes perceived among students during course activities, as well as the content and quality of final assignments students produced, which included the students readily critiquing challenges to sustainability and successfully designing instructional plans to support their students in devising solutions to improve local and/or global conditions.

7 The perspectives of more vocal and active students would tend to also be more readily identifiable by others in course settings.

8 For instance, challenges to taken-for-granted perspectives, including support for sustainability, may encourage students to engage in critical self-reflection, whereby they consider their beliefs more deeply, questioning and strengthening how and why they hold these beliefs or how they might defend them (Houser 1996). Support for sustainability, for example, can be engaged for reasons driven by environmental, economic, gender, indigenous, moral, and/or other perspectives.

9 For example, they may inaccurately recall professors’ roles in creating and/or mitigating conflict, as well as professors’ actions to address student behavior or emotional reactions during contentious course experiences.

10 Topics of hate and human rights are “closed”, meaning that there is general consensus regarding acceptable actions and discourse; however, topics that are “open”, or even “tipping”, whereby topics, questions, or issues move from being “open” to “closed” or the opposite, are potentially more controversial (Hess and Gatti 2010).

11 Making this underlying principle clear to my students is particularly important as they are learning to teach other students, as well. Their task will be to construct science learning experiences that are meaningfully place-based, but inclusive of their students’ diverse experiences and perspectives, such that their students are motivated and engaged.

12 For example, by using relevant video, reading, or experiential materials to present students with concrete evidence and mental models. Experiential materials can include in-person or digital simulations, field trips, or other embodied activities that serve to provide data or evidence to support further consideration of the issue at hand.

13 I plan to model such self-disclosure to explicate my perspectives towards sustainability, as well as any other potentially contentious topics I regularly engage for the purposes of modeling pedagogical concepts, including critical race and gender perspectives, institutional inequities in education, and science-technology-society issues. While this self-disclosure serves to quell potential negative reactions among students, I can accomplish it while utilizing instructional strategies I aim to teach in the broader context of the course, thereby cohesively and simultaneously advancing the curriculum and classroom climate goals.

For instance, learning objectives about instructional strategies stated in the syllabus include differentiated instruction (i.e. presenting ideas in diverse formats), teaching with technology, and integrating the arts into teaching. Rather than deliver my self-disclosure embedded in a traditional didactic lecture, which may appear further oppressive to students who are silently dissenting, I can communicate my self-disclosure in more engaging ways by modeling these aforementioned instructional strategies. As an example, I can use digital technologies to create video content to explicate the story underlying my perspectives. Alternatively, through visual and performing arts media, I can discuss the significance of a painting, sculpture, or even an everyday item to my perspectives. I can then task students with similarly designing non-traditional opportunities to self-disclose in their own instructional planning. Overall, in so doing, I can accomplish my goals of actively addressing any potential classroom climate issues, while advancing the goals stated in the syllabus. I believe that this more cohesive presentation of personal beliefs (through self-disclosure) and curriculum goals (stated in syllabi, thereby more explicitly shaping students’ expectations of the course) may be perceived by students as more relevant to the overarching goals of the course (i.e. learning to teach science effectively to diverse students) and may potentially further reduce student silencing.

14 For instance, seats may be arranged in roundtable or U-shaped arrangements, such that everyone can make eye contact (Walls and Hall 2018); professors may use indirect and suggestive language rather than directives (Garcia and Soest 2000); all class members may be encouraged to practice active, compassionate listening (Atwood 1994; Daly 2010); and all class members may be expected to refer to each other by name as opposed to pronouns.

15 These include digital technologies that support written communication among everyone in the class or one-on-one between students and professors upon a digital platform, such as a shared message board or even social media platforms, such as Twitter. Professors can monitor these platforms during the progress of the course and include ideas raised in these “backchannels” in the main course discussion and other activities.