Preservice teachers' sociopolitical consciousness in light of the racial disparities highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic
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Socioscientific issues (SSI) such as COVID-19 and climate change often highlight the inequalities that structural racism creates. If we ever wish to equitably solve these issues, we require a population that has the scientific literacy and the sociopolitical consciousness to do so. Yet, the push for culturally relevant education has had little movement in science education, partially because of the acultural view of science but also from the colorblind ideologies often held by teachers. The purpose of this pre-experimental study was to determine if a pre-service elementary science methods course that applies the SSI Teaching and Learning Framework for Social Justice promoted participant's sociopolitical consciousness, reduced their colorblind ideologies, and increased their socioscientific reasoning (SSR) skills. Linear mixed-effects regression models were run to assess these outcomes. Results indicate that preservice teachers' colorblind ideologies and socioscientific reasoning skills did not change through the semester. However, a statistically significant increase in their sociopolitical consciousness was found and this increase could be predicted by one of the components of SSR, perspective taking. Implications of these findings are discussed.
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Ph. D.