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Vision, Recommendations, and Future Research

As we have shown throughout this report, preK–12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is currently not organized or operating in a way that provides all learners with access to high-quality STEM learning opportunities. The committee’s discussion of history and policy in STEM education illustrates that the patterns of inequity that characterize American society are reflected in the education system. In the United States, access to power and privilege and experiences of oppression are shaped by intersections of gender, race, language, class, sexual orientation, disability, and other demographic and individual characteristics. Similarly, learners’ access, opportunity, and experiences in preK–12 STEM education are shaped by complex dynamics around demographic and individual characteristics with reverberations that can be seen in trends at the national level all the way to moment-by-moment impacts on individual children and youth.

Despite the stark evidence of deeply entrenched systemic inequities, the committee is energized by the potential for change. We have adopted a stance that equity is not a singular goal or end state. Rather it is an ongoing process that requires intentional decision making and action toward addressing and disrupting existing inequities and envisioning a more just future. Given the specific histories and contexts of different schools, districts, communities, and regions, equity-related goals and the strategies for achieving them may vary substantially from place to place and may need to change over time.

Through decisions and actions guided by a clear vision for equity, actors across the system can play a role either in advancing equity, or in

maintaining an inequitable status quo. The multiple frames for equity that we articulated in Chapter 6, together with our discussion of policies and practices that show promise for advancing equity, offer guidance for embarking on the kind of intentional, structural changes that are needed. We have aimed to describe visions of equitable preK–12 STEM education that extend well beyond the foundations of what works and what does not work and toward innovative approaches to policy, practice, and research that promote a meaningful education for all.

We also note that in many cases as the committee was developing this report it was clear that educators are, in effect, “ahead” of the evidence base. Many educators and education leaders recognize the need to transform STEM education to be more equitable. They are at the forefront of testing new approaches and enacting change. It is important for researchers to work alongside of them, and in close partnerships with them, to document and elevate the creative, strategic, and important work they are undertaking.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In developing recommendations, the committee began with a focus on decision making toward a clear vision for equity. As we note in Chapter 6 of this report, we understand the patterns of inequity in education systems as the consequence of past decisions and related actions. Actors at every level of the system, from students to teachers to principals to superintendents to legislators, are decision makers whose actions matter. Even within constraints imposed by existing policies, practices, and resource limitations, individuals can work to advance equity in their sphere of influence. Consequential decision making for increasing equity in STEM education involves balancing short-term gains while maintaining a vision for and strategic action toward long-term, continuous, and broad systemic change.

Recommendation 1: Stakeholders at all levels of the education system—including state, district, and school leaders and classroom teachers—all have roles as decision makers who can either advance equity or allow inequities to remain in place. Using the five equity frames as a guide, decision makers should articulate their constituents’ and their community’s short- and long-term goals for equity and then make decisions about policy and practice oriented toward those goals.

As described in Chapter 6, decision makers possess different forms of power within the education system, and as a result the committee recommends that in recognizing that power, decision makers should be explicit about what their goals are by identifying which of the decision-making

frames they are prioritizing. The committee argues that actors’ visions for STEM, as well as how actors approach and conceive of equity, are two factors that shape their rationales for decision making and deployment of resources. All frames imply a desirable possible future. If an actor focuses on an issue or approach toward equitable STEM learning in which noticeable results can be achieved in the short term, they may not be thinking about different possible futures and could end up replicating the status quo. Alternatively, actors focused solely on broader and more ambitious future goals may not always meet immediate needs and concerns. While it can be challenging for actors to hold on to multiple time horizons at once, setting a purpose for equity within a period of intentional and concerted strategic action allows them to move forward with decision making that can work toward long-term goals while taking action in the present.

Recommendation 2: State, district, and school education leaders and decision makers across both in- and out-of-school spaces should develop strategic plans for advancing equity in STEM education. These actors should

• Ensure that the specific histories and cultural contexts of impacted communities are represented in the decision-making process through intentional partnership and engagement.
• Establish mechanisms for input and feedback from impacted community members.
• Conduct an initial “equity audit” to identify patterns of inequity and to aid in prioritizing investments and changes in policy and practice.
• Articulate the relevant outcomes to track and design strategies to reach them.
• Collect ongoing data to document progress toward equity goals and inform ongoing improvement efforts.
• Identity problematic or harmful policies and practices and revise decisions as appropriate.

Within these plans, stakeholders will need to consider which of the different mechanisms in the education system they are empowered to leverage. In this report, we have laid out components of education in the United States where decision makers have leverage to make policy decisions at all levels of the education system. In Chapter 4, we describe the role of accountability systems and assessment as a mechanism for measuring the state of equity in STEM. We follow these discussions with chapters on learning, instruction, teachers and professional learning, instructional materials, and pathways and opportunities. Based on the evidence reviewed in these chapters, and emerging educational practice, the committee developed

recommendations in four key domains of policy and practice: assessment and accountability, professional learning, curriculum and instructional materials, pathways and opportunities.

Assessment, Accountability, and Data

Decision makers often rely on the results of assessments and other data to help inform decisions in an effort to reach a certain goal. State-level actors may use state-level assessment results to inform how to allocate resources, while classroom teachers may use formal or informal assessments to inform practice decisions. Assessment, both large scale and classroom based, both summative and formative, can help actors know what is happening in education. But in Chapter 4 of this report, we question whether the current system for large-scale assessment in the United States has the capacity to pinpoint if current programs or methods for teaching STEM education are exacerbating or reducing inequities for students. The existing assessment system for documenting the state of STEM education, which focuses primarily on student achievement via standardized test scores, is not sufficient for documenting how policies and practices contribute to inequities and does not provide sufficient information to guide systemic changes that can address gaps in opportunity and quality of experience.

Further, while patterns of achievement and achievement gaps are often the primary focus in discussion of equity in STEM education, other indicators such as resource distribution, opportunity to learn, and quality of experience are more informative. Attending to these indicators can help bring about more balanced assessment systems that aid in more comprehensive approaches to achieving greater equity. Multiple measures are needed to capture the working conditions of schools and the student experience in different contexts.

As discussed in Chapter 5 of this report, while categories of social difference such as race, gender, or class provide useful information for understanding how power and access are distributed across the country, those same categories are not determinative. While the histories of different groups matter deeply for the present and future realities of students in STEM, trends across different groups do not apply to every individual in the group equally. This makes it especially important to adopt an asset-based lens when interpreting data, such that harmful narratives about different groups are not reproduced when discussing inequities.

Recommendation 3: In pursuit of assessment systems that support a vision of equity in STEM education, state departments of education should

• Establish new metrics for equity in STEM that are supported by research and go beyond student achievement, such as measurements of student experience and resource allocation related to those experiences.
• Develop systems approaches (e.g., portfolio-based approaches) to measuring the performance of districts, schools, and educators that reflect multiple measures beyond student achievement.
• Develop assessment policy that leverages the expertise and judgment of educators, while also developing their capacities, and enacts wider, more substantive views of student achievement.

Recommendation 4: In consultation with leadership from the state level, district leaders should implement balanced assessment systems that leverage multiple measures of equity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics beyond student achievement.

Recommendation 5: Data on students’ learning opportunities and allocation of time and resources provide important information to guide education leaders and decision makers as they work to advance equity in STEM education. Districts should develop data systems that capture information about opportunity to learn including time for instruction, allocation of resources and funding, access to and enrollment in STEM courses, and qualifications and characteristics of teachers. These data should be disaggregated to examine trends for subgroups of students (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, disability status, language) and by school characteristics.

Learning and Instruction

As we describe in Chapter 8, careful attention to relationships and sociocultural contexts of classrooms, schools, and communities is an essential part of teaching toward equity. Equity-oriented teaching involves eliciting and supporting affirmative and constructive sensemaking and experiences with domains, including subject matter for learners; with one another; with their own identities; and with learning itself. Inequities can be reproduced and/or disrupted and transformed through teaching and learning interactions and through the ways that learners’ sensemaking is recognized and cultivated or not.

Insights from sociocultural theories of learning have informed development of new approaches to STEM learning and teaching in school that emphasize engagement in disciplinary practices and the importance of learners’ interest and identity. These new approaches open up productive spaces for advancing equity. Cognitively rich and engaging tasks; well-structured

supports; caring and supportive relationships; emotionally, culturally, and politically attuned forms of guidance; and opportunities for authentic sensemaking and multiple ways of knowing create the conditions for meaningful learning. Enacting instructional changes that promote equity will require changes in other school and district practices and policies to both eliminate barriers and encourage and incentivize instructional change.

Recommendation 6: In order to shift instruction in ways that advance equity in STEM classrooms, STEM educators in school and in out-of-school settings should

• Reflect on and interrogate routine instructional practices in STEM for how they may be providing (or limiting) opportunities for learners based on learners’ social identities.
• Implement instructional approaches in STEM that draw on asset-based perspectives, center students’ sensemaking as tied to their cultural and sociopolitical worlds, and frame STEM practices and knowledge as dynamic, evolving, and connected with other disciplines both within and outside of STEM.
• Work to recognize and disrupt inequities as they emerge in the classroom, including between students.
• Identify and leverage STEM resources in students’ families and in the surrounding community.
• When possible, join or establish professional learning communities within and across schools and districts in order to learn from and support each other.

Professional Learning for STEM Educators

Transforming STEM instruction cannot be the sole responsibility of front-line educators. Many educators are deeply committed to promoting the success of all students but feel constrained by the system and lack professional learning opportunities that provide them with opportunities to reflect on their instruction and strategies for making their classrooms more equitable. Educators need space and time to implement equity-focused instructional approaches: high-quality professional learning opportunities provide time, space, and support for educators as they build their practical skill in this area. Given the tremendous scope of this work, it is incumbent upon all actors in the system to make decisions aimed at buttressing the work of educators in pursuit of equity in STEM education. As we think about the roles of both learning environments (Chapters 5 and 7) and teaching and instruction (Chapters 8 and 9) in realizing equity in STEM

education, professional learning emerges as one of the primary mechanisms for bringing about lasting change.

Recommendation 7: High-quality, sustained professional learning opportunities are needed to engage teachers as professionals with effective, evidence-based instructional practices in STEM that advance equity. Such opportunities should provide support for teachers to reflect critically on their own instruction in STEM and try out new approaches in an iterative process over time.

• Designers and providers of professional development and coaching should design and implement professional learning experiences that draw on research-based models for advancing culturally responsive and sustaining instruction in STEM.
• Individuals with responsibility for selecting professional development providers (district administrators and other district leaders, school leaders) should develop rubrics for identifying high-quality professional development providers who can support teachers in developing equitable instructional practice and provide resources for teachers to engage in professional learning related to equity in STEM.
• School leaders (principals and instructional coaches) should allocate space, time, and support for teachers to engage in professional learning related to equity in STEM through both formal professional development experiences and through professional learning communities.

Recommendation 8: Teacher educators should provide preservice teachers with opportunities to learn about the history of inequities in STEM and in STEM education, reflect on their own experiences with and identities in STEM, become familiar with culturally responsive and sustaining instructional approaches, and implement equitable instructional approaches in STEM in settings where they can reflect on and improve their own instructional practice.

Partnering with Families and Communities

Families and communities are critical partners in preK–12 STEM education and they can play a variety of roles. The experiences that children and youth have in their families and communities can be rich resources for classroom learning. In addition, family members and community members can offer insight into the local context and history, may have STEM-related experiences and expertise to share, and can be valuable partners

in developing STEM learning experiences that are grounded in issues and questions that are relevant to learners.

Recommendation 9: Advancing equity in STEM requires recognition of the assets of families and communities, and investments in the development of mutually beneficial partnerships between schools, districts, families, and communities.

• District and school leaders should develop strategies for engaging with families and communities that deepen leaders’ understanding of local context and history, build channels of communication, and nurture mutual respect.
• District and school leaders should allocate time and resources for teachers to build relationships with families and communities to allow them to deepen their understanding of local context and history and help them to appreciate and leverage family and community assets in STEM instruction.

Curriculum and Instructional Materials

In Chapter 10 of the report, we discuss the importance of instructional materials in bringing about more equitable learning opportunities in STEM. Because instructional materials are the primary mechanism for introducing students to STEM disciplines, it is critical that they are designed so that students see themselves (and their communities) reflected in STEM. As this report discusses in depth, in the absence of that recognition, students are less likely to persist in STEM and educators have less support in realizing their larger visions for equity. Because decisions made throughout the processes of developing, adopting, and implementing curriculum have implications for how students’ experience STEM learning and what content is prioritized, curriculum and instructional materials play an integral role in realizing a vision for equity in STEM. We note that across state education systems, who has control over the processes of developing and adopting curriculum may vary. We offer the following recommendations to responsible actors, knowing that the exact nature of each actors’ purview may shift across contexts:

Recommendation 10: In designing STEM curriculum, designers and developers of curricular and instructional materials should

• Include a diversity of designers (considering disciplinary perspectives, race, gender, ability, language, sexual orientation, geography) on their teams who share power and authority in the design process.

• Align materials to evidence-based instructional approaches in the STEM disciplines.
• Include a variety of modalities and ways of developing STEM knowledge and understandings that reflect diverse ways of knowing the natural and designed world through STEM.

Recommendation 11: State-level actors responsible for the selection, adoption, and implementation of curricular and instructional materials should leverage evidence-based rubrics for evaluating how well potential materials align to stated goals for equity in STEM. Among other criteria, state-level actors should ensure that materials

• are aligned to evidence-based instructional approaches in the STEM disciplines,
• support instructional approaches that leverage culturally appropriate/sustaining pedagogy,
• include a range of asset-based examples from different cultural contexts, and
• integrate features that are educative for teachers.

Recommendation 12: State, district, and school leaders who are responsible for guiding the selection and adoption of instructional materials should

• Include criteria related to equity when selecting instructional materials in STEM.
• Use rubrics and measures of curriculum implementation to evaluate whether STEM learning opportunities are equitable across schools and grade levels within their districts.
• Draw on resources in the community in developing and adapting STEM curriculum and instructional materials.

Pathways

In Chapter 11 of this report, we use the concept of pathways to discuss the fluid and dynamic ways that people take up different STEM learning experiences over time and space—choices that ultimately influence what they do with their STEM learning. There is no single pathway to STEM learning and success (which can be interpreted in a large number of ways from person to person). Peoples’ pathways are directly affected by their relationships, their identities, and social and cultural factors, all of which influence access to opportunities and how peoples’ knowledge and skills are valued (or not).

We also note that there are multiple barriers to pathways built into current systems that often limit peoples’ STEM learning opportunities, such as the way that requirements for advanced course taking in mathematics keep large swaths of the population from pursuing advanced degrees and workforce opportunities in STEM. Simultaneously, interpretations of pathways can be limiting for youth when approached as set tracks or pipelines that learners must follow based on their race, gender, socioeconomic class, language proficiency, or disability status. In response to these conclusions, we offer a set of recommendations related to pathways.

Recommendation 13: In realizing a vision for equity in STEM, state-level actors (such as state superintendents, state department of education staff, legislators and governors) should review how state-level policies, including those related to resource allocations (e.g., school finances, distribution of highly qualified educators) need to change to build equitable STEM pathways. This could include attention to policies related to district and school funding formulae; assessment; course access, placement, and sequencing; graduation requirements; and instructional time. This review should attend to how these policies may contradict or work in concert with each other and toward addressing inequities or reproducing them. Specifically, state-level actors should

• Examine state-level expectations for minimum instructional time across grade levels so that all students have access to instruction in the STEM disciplines.
• Engage with multiple sources of evidence (such as student experience, etc.) in supporting the development of policies that inform course placement and pathways.
• Examine resource allocations in relation to need.

Recommendation 14: District and school administrators should consider ways to modify or eliminate course and program placement policies that limit students’ access to advanced coursework and programming. Where policy changes are made, administrators should develop communication strategies to explain the changes and devote resources to building the capacity of teachers, school staff (e.g., guidance counselors), and families to help them understand, support, and enact the policy changes.

Recommendation 15: District and school administrators should allocate sufficient time for elementary-level instruction in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, including science.

Recommendation 16: Guidance counselors, teachers, and school administrators, and out-of-school educators/mentors should attend to a broad array of student strengths and capacities (rather than test scores and grades alone) when guiding and advising students toward science, technology, engineering, and mathematics futures.

Investments for Advancing Equity in STEM

The committee recognizes that implementing the recommendations outlined will require investments of human capital, time, and resources. Organizations that fund programs in preK–12 STEM education can play an important role in prioritizing equity and providing the resources needed to engage in comprehensive systemic change.

Recommendation 17: To support equity in STEM education, philanthropy and funding organizations (funders) should

• Provide resources for the development of STEM instructional materials and associated professional learning materials for teachers that include attention to equity and are designed with robust conceptions of equity at the center.
• Prioritize funding proposals for STEM education programs that identify a specific vision of equity, articulate a clear plan for how the project will achieve its equity goals, and center equity throughout the project design.
• Expand how projects can demonstrate success to include measures that go beyond narrow definitions of student achievement.
• Support investigation of systems-level change initiatives to promote equity, beyond a focus on programs that seek to impact individual learners.

RESEARCH FOR AN EQUITABLE STEM FUTURE

Although there is considerable research in the areas we have covered in this document, large swaths of the scholarly landscape remain under-examined. For research and scholarship to meaningfully support the work of realizing a vision of equity in STEM education, research should focus on these ongoing areas of concern. In this section, we outline our ideas for fruitful areas of additional research, as well as our understanding of how researchers should engage with this work in pursuit of an equitable STEM education.

Areas for Future Research

Throughout this report, we have synthesized existing research literature in three major areas: (a) the history and conceptual background undergirding our shared understanding of the landscape of equity in STEM education; (b) the current state of the education policy and STEM education in the United States, and how actors make decisions inside the education system; and (c) equity in STEM education in different policy domains. Within each of those major areas, we have noted where additional research would support a fuller understanding of the state of affairs, or where that fuller understanding could more readily point to future action. Although there are endless specific questions that might be offered here, we turn our attention to a few, high-level areas for research that, if addressed, could lead to more clarity for actors in the education system.

History and Conceptual Background

Although histories of STEM education provide a general view, additional research on the histories of STEM education from the late 1700s to recent past (e.g., 2010s) should more deeply examine the (in)equities related to race, ethnicity, language, gender, social class, and other identifiers that organized society at the founding of the United States. Additional research in this area could help to illuminate the systemic and structural nature of inequity and to inform strategic action moving forward—i.e., what has been tried in the past, how those efforts worked (or did not work) in relation to equity. Of particular interest are deeper studies of historical efforts to enact equity in ways that both expanded access to robust education and examine community efforts to reimagine the purposes and practice of STEM itself. Alternatively, throughout history, what are examples of systems change (within education and in other domains), and what are the social, political, and economic conditions that have enabled system-wide transformation?

Despite the myriad theoretical and conceptual approaches to understanding equity laid out in Chapter 4, research that centers the lived experiences of children and youth in the creation, building, assessment, and support of educational spaces in STEM is still limited. This research should investigate the conditions and resources necessary for cultivating the cultural, social, and emotional wellbeing of children and youth in STEM educational spaces. This research should also pay close attention to issues of who in these spaces wields power and how; what equitable outcomes look like across time; and what policies, processes, and practices are involved in establishing and maintaining these spaces. We see a particular need for research that elucidates how educators can disrupt and transform inequities

in moment-to-moment interaction, both between teachers and students and importantly, among students themselves.

Policy and Decision Making

First, although we understand that actors in this education system implicitly use different conceptions for equity when making decisions, little is known about how to help actors use frames strategically to support equity. What are the frames that different actors use to develop policy and practices? How can actors be supported in changing or expanding what frames they are likely to use in decision making, with a focus on helping actors expand the use of Frames 3 (embracing heterogeneity), 4 (using STEM to promote justice), and 5 (envisioning sustainable futures). What can be learned about the consequences of using different frames at different levels of decision making within the current policy system? How can we better understand the specific mechanisms and forms of powered decision making that impede or constrain more transformative approaches to equity? As actors take up more and more intentional action toward equity in STEM, it will be necessary to continue to learn how the use of different frames matters for supporting different visions for equity in STEM education, and how the field of education research can support the use of more robust, expansive frames for equity in policy and practice.

Second, there is a need for a better understanding of the impacts of decisions (implicitly or explicitly shaped by frames) made far from the direct experiences of children and youth upon their lived experiences. Like the research investigating the impact of state-wide school finance policies implemented over time for high-poverty and low-poverty schools and children and youth who attend them, mixed-methods research should examine the impacts of learning-related policies at different levels of the education policy system (e.g., elimination of tracking, consistent and continual rigorous course offerings, and concerted efforts to diversify enrollments). More research is needed to better understand the conditions under which particular configurations of policies related to instructional standards, curriculum, professional learning, and assessment lead to more equitable teaching practices and student outcomes. For example, which policy levers in which configurations lead to the best instructional and learning outcomes? What contextual conditions are necessary for these policy configurations to succeed?

Policy Domains: Assessment and Accountability, Professional Learning, Curriculum and Instruction, and Pathways and Opportunities

As discussed in the report, there is a critical need for the development of metrics of equity in STEM education that go beyond narrow measures of student achievement. How do we measure high-quality instruction? What are indicators of high-quality instruction that are rooted in the actual learning experiences of children? In addition to existing indicators of opportunity to learn in STEM, how do we measure equity in lived experiences of STEM learning? How can we better assess the new forms of thinking, inquiry, relationality, and action that emerge in environments rooted in multiple ways of knowing and multiple purposes of STEM learning? How can we better understand how to act as a result of those assessments?

Specific to the educator workforce, an important strategy for realizing a vision for equity in STEM involves the recruitment and retention of more teachers of color (specifically Black, Latinx, and Indigenous teachers) in STEM education. What are pathways for teachers of color into the system, and how can they be supported in their work? What are strategies for improving conditions for teachers of color so that they are empowered to teach toward equity? Another strategy for realizing a vision for equity in STEM education involves engaging white teachers who constitute much of the educator workforce. What strategies are effective in helping these educators to see the necessity of equity, to expand their perspectives, and to utilize their statuses within the societal hierarchy to work toward greater equity? What approaches are effective across time in preparing, supporting, and empowering white educators to commit to equity and to work toward it on a continual basis?

Furthermore, we need much more research on professional learning that helps educators implement more equitable instructional approaches to STEM instruction and to help them engage students with different ways of knowing in STEM, as well as developing a more critical relationship to the STEM disciplines. The committee found little research that describes pathways and trajectories for supporting educators in this kind of critical engagement with STEM content. Additionally, what can be done to support educators in the work of disrupting and transforming inequities in moment-to-moment interaction, including among students?

Beyond teachers, the committee recognizes a clear need to better understand the needs of school-, district-, and state-level leaders in STEM. These actors are often critical decision makers in the system, and yet may have limited exposure to different visions of equity in STEM education: what do effective professional learning opportunities look like for actors like these? What are strategies for helping actors enact visions of equity in STEM?

Specific to curriculum, research is needed to better understand how actors at all levels of the system make decisions around selecting and

adopting curriculum. What resources do actors select, and do those actions reflect goals for equity? What can be done to support the centering of equity goals in the adoption of curriculum? How do educators learn to teach with equity-oriented instructional materials—particularly over time? Lastly, more research is needed on the efficacy of equity-oriented materials, and how to help educators adapt existing curricula in support of equity goals.

The committee also recognizes that more work is needed to understand what transdisciplinary learning in STEM can and should look like in practice. What does learning look like when it moves beyond traditional disciplinary silos? How can researchers partner with STEM professionals and scholars of other disciplines (such as historians of science and mathematics) to collaborate to form new visions of disciplinary learning that work toward more expansive purposes for STEM outlined in the introduction to this report that advance equity? Furthermore, research in STEM education needs to be in conversation with other education subject matter/areas (e.g., social studies, arts, physical education, etc.). The questions that researchers are asking in those different domains regarding equity and justice may be different than those posed in STEM education and could strengthen the approaches of each group with increased conversation across disciplines.

Research is needed that examines the long-term impacts of centering issues of ethics, social responsibility, power, and history in STEM education: where do educators and youth who engage with these important questions eventually take their learning, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and questions? What do they do with what they learn and how does that ultimately help shape a better future, if at all? On a specific note, what are the implications of AI in STEM education, and how does it interact with ongoing and future equity concerns?

In regard to pathways and opportunities, research should follow or document the pathways of a broad diversity of adults. Beyond going into the STEM workforce, what are pathways for developing adults who can engage with STEM and to advance aims of justice and sustainability? What can be learned when research on pathways is driven less by surveys that focus on single contexts and more by how learning unfolds across settings and over longer arcs of time?

The Work of Researchers and Research

Alongside our recommendations for areas where more research is needed, the committee recognizes that the nature of the research enterprise itself—that is, how research is conducted, what kinds of questions researchers ask, how they partner with educators, families, children, and communities, what kinds of research is deemed valuable and important—also needs to change if these expansive equity goals are pursued. In order to create

knowledge that truly supports different actors in bringing about equity in STEM, research needs to be designed, conducted, and interpreted with equity at the center.

First, research on these issues must center the voices of those communities and individuals who are least represented in this field, including students/children, parents/guardians/families, community organizations, and others representing the most marginalized communities. In some cases, this also includes educators; often research can be disconnected from the problems of practice.

Along these lines, researchers should partner with educators of color, students of color, and communities of color across the nation, and should do so in ways that carefully attend to equity in processes of partnering. Researchers need to work toward building long-term trust with communities and the districts and schools that serve them, such that the research community will actually be able to equitably partner with Indigenous peoples, immigrants, Black people, non-native English speakers, Latinx people, Asians, Native Alaskan and Pacific Islanders, the Muslim community, LGBTQ communities, disabled people, and the myriad other communities whose labor has been used to build the U.S. economic and political STEM engine. Researchers need to learn how to truly partner so that research goals, questions, approaches, and interpretations are co-constructed, rather than driven entirely by researcher interest. Researchers need to build awareness of power dynamics in the partnerships they form, as well as the histories of their institutions and the relationships those institutions have had with communities in the past.

Researchers should not expect that what works well in one context will definitely work well in another. Research must take into account the sociocultural, historical, and political context of a space in order to better understand which practices and experiences can be recreated in different spaces, and which must be altered to better fit the needs and perspectives of different community contexts. In interpreting research findings, researchers need to attend to how the communication of research can impact decision making in STEM. Researchers may also want to consider how to more effectively communicate their messages to a broader set of actors and stakeholders. These shifts require deep attention to the education and training of researchers and to the forms of evaluation and promotion that support educators working at the edges of ethical and equity-oriented research.

Lastly, the committee agrees that the field needs more joyful research. Research should celebrate what is working, communities’ resilience despite oppression, and the ways that people come together to collaborate across difference to make life better for children and youth. Equity in STEM education is not only about pain and suffering, but also about agency, hope, creativity, and working to build something better together. Children and

youth deserve research for equity in STEM education that is as promising and hopeful as they are.

TOWARD A MORE JUST AND EQUITABLE FUTURE

The current moment is an opportunity to build on the firm foundation of educational efforts, research, and policy that are detailed in this report, so that this system is transformed to support more just and humanizing ways of thinking and learning in STEM. A system of this sort requires time to envision together, in communities, with youth and families, and to determine how to challenge and transform the institutionalized practices that do not serve the lives and wellbeing of students and our futures.

In a more equitable and just world, as articulated earlier in this report, STEM education would

1. Support social and economic development of society and individuals in ways that do not mean more for some and less for others, but rather uplift the wellbeing of all;
2. Support the development of the STEM disciplines toward discovery and contributing more to the social good, specifically the thriving of all communities within a more just society.
3. Contribute to solving core planetary challenges, sustainability, and needed adaptations for the 21st century; and
4. Contribute to the cultivation of just, sustainable, and thriving human communities.

In light of these purposes for STEM education, preK–12 STEM education could look a number of different ways. With all that we know about equity in preK–12 STEM education, it is time to engage in the creative work of questioning, dreaming, designing, and developing improved activities, programs, pedagogies, policies, and systems for the better of our children, youth, and planet. Here, we invite our readers to set aside the constraints of the current world and different historical or current roles (be it educator, researcher, policymaker, principal, student, parent, etc.) to engage in this re-envisioning of what teaching, learning, research, and policy could look like in a just, future world. What does an equitable system for STEM education entail? In this just, future world, conditions would not necessitate a continual, never-ending struggle on the part of racialized and other marginalized communities for their humanity to be recognized, valued, and positively weighed in the decisions of those who govern.

Consistently working toward equity in preK–12 STEM education would require simultaneous rethinking and restructuring of institutions, including how they are structured and who runs them. For example, for

policymakers and legislators to successfully build more equitable norms, expectations for learning, and assessments in STEM education that center inquiry, youth agency in positively impacting the world, ethics and social responsibility, and attention toward protecting the earth for all beings, the education system would require different political representation and actors with power and authority as well as structures that differ from the current reality. This will mean that reforms are not based on the timing of elections (from federal, state, to local school boards) but rather what is best in serving children and youth, their families, and communities. In line with Chapter 6, this will also mean the intentional consideration of longer timescales required to change an unjust system of decision making around education, and the use and generation of expansive equity frames and their related teaching practices and learning goals.

Schools too might look different: in an equitable system, do students’ experiences of STEM education vary based on their race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, and other sociocultural factors? In an equitable system, are students’ traditional ways of knowing shut out of the classroom? In such a system, are children still subject to metal detectors at the entry of school buildings, or drills to prepare for armed shooters? In an equitable system, community and school will be more connected with parents, grandparents, and other community members welcomed on campuses to be a resource to our children and youth’s learning. State and school district leaders would provide sufficient resources and autonomy to support school administrators in establishing the myriad of infrastructures conducive to more productive and empowering connections and collaborations with the community and others committed to the wellbeing of children and youth. Educators would focus on designing new curricula or improving their pedagogical skills to be more culturally responsive and sustaining, all in collaboration with one another and with more time to focus on innovation, self-reflection, and self-driven professional learning. Educators would be paid more and could work more equitably in concert with administrators with less top-down power dynamics driving their relations. Out-of-school programs would be welcomed to interact, plan, dream, and build with in-school programs while still having the freedom to design and innovate STEM learning goals in their own ways. Such programs would have better funding and be able to sustain their educators over decades with better pay and professional development. They would move beyond human built environments and be embedded in efforts to reconnect with the rest of the natural world in ways that support students’ understandings of the places they live, their histories, presents, and possible futures. STEM education would turn to the knowledges of Indigenous communities and other relevant communities from around the world to improve the balance between human

and non-human relations, and together with new technologies focus would move toward education that counters human pollution and extraction, human violence, and human harm visited on one another and the planet.

Within this system, educators and learners, leaders and community members, would all regularly meet to reflect on their views and actions in the world in relation to one another, on personal belief systems, notions of self and others, perspectives and biases that play out in daily life for good and bad, etc., through the shared practices, approaches, and strategies determined by communities.

These are some of our visions for a just future; they are our hopes and dreams, having benefited from time to collaborate across disciplines and institutions and with STEM educators across the country. We recognize that our readers will have other dreams as well, and we hope this report will feed the fire of the ongoing equity work in communities around the country.

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