education

1. EQUITY & EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION, 43(1), 56–71, 2010
Copyright C
University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Education
ISSN: 1066-5684 print / 1547-3457 online
DOI: 10.1080/10665680903492704
Middle School Science Teachers’ Perceptions of Social
Justice: A Study of Two Female Teachers
Bhaskar Upadhyay
University of Minnesota
The focus of this qualitative study is to document two middle school science teachers’ perceptions
of social justice and how these teachers implement various aspects of social justice in their science
instruction. The two teachers teach science in an urban school that serves students from low-income,
immigrant, and ethnic minority families. The study highlights key findings that pertain to the integra-
tion of their views of social justice with science teaching, empowerment of students through social
justice-oriented science teaching, and utilization of students’ knowledge and values in socially just
and equitable science teaching practices. The study also highlights the challenges of teaching science
for social justice in this environment, and emphasizes the importance of context in constructing and
executing science instruction for equity and social justice.
The purposes of teaching and learning science for social justice should be about liberating
oneself from oppression (Freire, 1973; Harding, 2006). The concept of teaching for social justice
requires teachers to be knowledgeable about the diverse needs, practices, and dispositions of
students who represent diverse backgrounds. However, there is little research documenting the
implementation of social justice ideas in science teaching and learning contexts. This article aims
to identify conceptions of justice articulated by two teachers, Mary and Pa, who teach middle-
grade students (age 12–13) in schools that serve students from low-income and ethnic minority
families. I examine the following questions in this study:
1. What conceptions of social justice do these teachers practice when teaching science to students
from ethnic minority groups and low-income students?
2. How do these teachers manage the challenges of teaching science for social justice?
In order to answer these questions, I present results from an in-depth qualitative study of Mary
and Pa. First, I present the theoretical frameworks of critical pedagogy and social justice theory
that guided my data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Second, I present the findings of the
study. Finally, I present discussions of the findings and implications of the study for teachers who
are interested in teaching science for social justice in the context of urban minority students.
The materials in this article are based on the research supported by the President’s Faculty Multicultural Research
Award, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this article are those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Minnesota.
Address correspondence to Bhaskar Upadhyay, Science Education, 125 Peik Hall, Department of Curriculum and
Instruction, University of Minnesota, 159 Pillsbury Dr. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455. E-mail: upadh006@umn.edu

2. MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS 57
DEMOGRAPHIC REALITIES
According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2004), by 2050 nearly one in five (19%) Americans will
be an immigrant. The Census Bureau (2005) further reports that in 2003 more than 20% of
students had at least one foreign-born parent. Despite the increased diversity in the school-going
population, the percentage of full-time racial minority teachers was only 17% in 2004 (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2007). There are fewer teachers, less than 9% (Snyder, Hoffman,
Geddes, 1998), who come from minority communities, such as African American, Hispanic,
Asian, and Native American and are trained to teach students from minority and immigrant
families.
Researchers in science education have advocated for the importance of interaction between
culture and pedagogy in various science classroom contexts (e.g., Elmesky, 2003). Yet in many
science classrooms populated solely or primarily by minority and recent immigrant students, sci-
ence instruction tends to discount the rich and complex cultural, social, and linguistic knowledge
of the students (Lee Luykx, 2007). This demands emphasis on social justice in the teaching
and learning of science by connecting science to students’ own home culture and experiences.
CRITICAL PEDAGOGY: TEACHING AND LEARNING SCIENCE
FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE EXPERIENCE
Critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970, 1973; Giroux, 1988a) generates in students the desire and ability
to participate in critical thinking, questioning, and generating relationships between classroom
learning and students’ lived experiences. The theory of critical pedagogy offers constructs to
understand how teachers integrate the idea of social justice into their teaching. I use this theory
frame science teachers’ actions in the classroom as they attempt to implement a social justice
perspective while teaching science to students from ethnic minority and low-income families.
Critical pedagogy embraces the notion that learning should be an empowering and trans-
formative experience for students and teachers (Calabrese Barton, 2001; Cummins, 2001;
Giroux, 1988b). Freire (1970, 1973) believes that education and liberation from oppression and
(re)humanization of people are intricately connected. In that regard he believes that teaching and
learning have to be tied to building personal and social consciousness for change in the learners.
Thus, the concept of critical pedagogy captures the complexities of practicing social justice in
science education where the individual and the social contexts are closely tied together. Science
education has to help students to investigate how their lives are shaped by present practices,
such as students’ healthy food choices, and waste disposals, or recycling, and how they can alter
inequalities, such as access to healthy foods for their well-being (Apple, 1996).
Acknowledging children’s knowledge from the outside world and honoring and valuing that
knowledge during science teaching is the first step toward science education for social justice.
For example, in a study of homeless African American children, Calabrese Barton (2003) found
that students seek to learn and engage in science that makes a difference in their immediate
lives—their enjoyment, their sense of satisfaction, their safety. Social justice-oriented science
learning experiences are enjoyable because these types of science activities prompt students to
learn more about what they experience in their lives. For example, when students investigate how
much of their diet contains starch, they build a sense of satisfaction of learning science that helps

3. 58 UPADHYAY
them know about their own food practices. This type of social justice-oriented science education
could encourage children to adopt a healthier diet and a safer lifestyle. Activities, such as building
a garden in the community or building a desk for personal use, allow children to bring together
their indigenous or local knowledge of plants, locally available materials like seeds, and tools to
understand the science behind those activities. Using science in this way is consistent with the
Freirean perspective of social justice and social transformation because students become more
aware of the linkages between the science that they learn in class and their social and cultural
practices.
In the context of teaching science to low-income and ethnic minority students, applying critical
pedagogy is appropriate for two reasons: (a) learning takes place in a context and students have to
be able to see the connection between science and the social context; and (b) learning is possible
when community knowledge is respected and shared in schools and science classrooms. There-
fore, teachers need to engage students through personal and community participation in science
activities and concepts that are directly related to students’ experiences in the community. For ex-
ample, Spillane, Diamond, Walker, Havelson, and Jita (2001) show how community resources and
community relationships can foster science learning because the science performed is relevant to
the students and the community in which they live. In their study, students develop and implement
a plan to clean the river and the land around their communities. Students not only learn about
science concepts related to water pollution and environment but also aesthetically improve their
community environment. Similarly, Delgado-Gaitan’s (1996) work shows the positive results of
acknowledging the contribution of immigrant families in school activities and teaching. When
a school values and becomes more sensitive to minority people’s experiences and knowledge,
there is increased community and student participation in school science activities (Upadhyay,
2009). This greatly improves ethnic minority students’ opportunities to learn and enjoy science
and truly affords a social justice experience for these students by allowing immigrant students,
like Hmongs, an opportunity to bring their cultural ideas into science classroom discourses.
THEORY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE:
TEACHING AND LEARNING SCIENCE IN A CONTEXT
Researchers in science education have argued that students from low-income and ethnic minority
groups learn science better when content and concepts are connected to the communities where
the students live (Bouillion Gomez, 2001). Additionally, effective ways of teaching science are
related to recognizing and valuing social structures, culture, community, and social contexts that
have marginalized students, as well as those to which the students belong. Young’s (1990) theory
of justice argues that to achieve justice, teachers cannot divorce their teaching from existing
social structures, culture, and relationships among students and their communities. For example,
Calabrese Barton (2003) shows in her studies of homeless children that many teachers’ actions
in science classes are influenced by prejudices that exist in the larger school systems. She also
argues that teachers and schools need to focus on content mastery and do science that is directly
related to students’ everyday needs, such as health and food.
Young’s (1990) notion of social justice also emphasizes that justice has to be viewed through
the lens of heterogeneity and the hierarchical nature of communities because students come from
diverse personal and social backgrounds. Young further argues that the distributive paradigm

4. MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS 59
of social justice (Rawls, 1971) is insufficient to explain the impact of communal and political
structures on the distribution of goods and services. Distributive justice as proposed by Rawls
(1993) seeks to establish equal basic rights and liberties for all persons irrespective of their
circumstances and, further, aims at providing fair and equitable opportunity so that the most
disadvantaged members of the society get the greatest benefit. The major thrust of distributive
justice is based on economic inequality; therefore, it seeks equity not uniformity among individu-
als or groups who are marginalized. However, distributive justice does not view gender, minority
status, and immigrant status as possible sources of injustice. Distributive justice puts a higher
premium on equality of opportunity rather than equality of resources (Arnot, 1991). Therefore,
distributive justice fails to recognize root causes of inequality in education, such as gender (Lynch
O’Riordan, 1998). Another argument against distributive justice is put forth by Fraser (1998),
Power and Gewirtz (2001), and Young (1990) who argue that distributive justice does not account
for injustices caused by cultural domination, non-recognition, and disrespect aimed at a group or
an individual by the dominant group. Thus, justice cannot simply be about the redistribution of
goods and services but also needs to take into account cultural and social identities of individuals
so that cultural identities of oppressed groups are recognized and accepted.
Furthermore, the distributive justice model has a one-size-fits-all view and asserts that all indi-
viduals are independent of social, cultural, and institutional contexts (Anderson, 1999). But social
justice, as viewed by Young (1990), emphasizes the need to recognize sociocultural differences
among individuals because students represent varied social, economic, linguistic, and cultural
groups. Thus, individual differences cannot be isolated from their social and cultural associations.
Young’s (1990) theory of social justice allows me to explain and understand teachers’ views
of justice in the context of teaching science to diverse groups of students. Unlike the distributive
explanation of justice where structural inequalities and oppressions are absent, Young’s notion
of justice is inclusive of both the distribution of goods and the diversity among students. In
addition, from Young’s perspective of justice, science teachers need to focus on individual
students as well as the social and cultural contexts in which they live or with which they interact.
Similarly, as teachers practice social justice in science classrooms, they promote views of critical
pedagogy, such as home-school connections, critical thinking skills, and empowering science
learning experiences. Many researchers argue that teachers need to focus on justice based on
“recognition” because through recognition teachers can help students build self-efficacy and a
sense of empowerment (Fraser, 1998). This view also suggests that in order for me to observe
justice I need to consider how teachers recognize, value, and enact students’ experiences and
knowledge in classroom teachers’ science teaching and learning practices.
SCHOOL CONTEXT
Mary and Pa teach sixth grade students in Horizon Middle School, which is located in a poor,
urban neighborhood with a large number of students from Hmong communities. Horizon opened
only five years ago, and as a new school has few financial resources to buy materials since
the focus is on infrastructure development. Students in the school represent recent immigrant,
poor, and domestic ethnic minority groups. There were no proper classrooms to conduct science
experiments so Mary and Pa are building the resources and curriculum to fit the needs of these
students.

5. 60 UPADHYAY
Mary is a white, female teacher who grew up attending schools in the southern United States
that were not sympathetic to girls in science. In the last three years she has worked to establish
an after-school program for girls, in which she allows girls to explore the role science will play
in their future. Mary is driven to support her students in whatever way possible.
Pa is a female, Hmong teacher. She completed her high school in Utah and her undergraduate
education in Minnesota. Her schooling challenged her to rethink what teaching science to ethnic
minority and poor students meant. Pa’s school teachers, all Whites, did not truly believe that
Hmongs could learn science and be successful. Pa wanted to teach science to make a difference
in Hmong students’ lives.
METHODS
I present findings based on a two-year qualitative case study of Mary and Pa who had been
teaching science for the previous three years when I met them in 2006. Case study is an appropriate
methodology when a holistic, in-depth investigation is needed (Feagin, Orum, Sjoberg, 1991).
The case study method allowed me a comprehensive understanding and a way to document
teachers’ views about social justice science teaching and how they were able to enact the ideas
of social justice in their teaching.
Data Sources and Collection
I collected data for this study during the 2005–2007 school years. The findings presented in this
study are based on data collected in Mary’s and Pa’s science classrooms. These two teachers
were purposefully selected for this study because they practiced and promoted the views of
social justice during science teaching, and they were willing to take the risk of infusing students’
everyday experiences into their science lessons. I have known Mary and Pa as teachers since
2004. I have worked with them both to design and implement after-school activities that support
students from Hmong families, particularly Hmong girls, in science. When I asked Mary and Pa
if they viewed their science teaching practices as including components of social justice, they
believed that their teaching prepared students for civic engagements and built self-confidence in
their students. They also saw themselves as brokers who aided Hmong students in navigating the
American system of schooling.
The data for the study consist of individual semi-structured interviews with Mary and Pa,
observations of science teaching, reviews of lesson plans and student work, and informal con-
versations during lunch hours. I conducted six interviews (two hours per interview) with Mary
and Pa separately to unearth their conceptions of social justice, how they viewed their roles as
teachers of social justice, and how their teaching could be labeled as an act of social justice. I also
observed 12 science lessons taught by each of the teachers. I particularly focused on documenting
the inclusion of social justice in the science content as well as in the pedagogy of Mary and Pa.
Data Analysis
Data were analyzed as an iterative process (Strauss Corbin, 1990) throughout the study. I used
commercially available NVivo R
software to analyze the data. First, I developed general patterns

6. MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS 61
and themes, such as Hmong and science ideas, empowering science knowledge, and science for
communal justice. Later these patterns and themes were categorized into specific codes, such as
oppressive science teaching, lived experiences and social justice, and teachers’ views of social
justice based on the theoretical frameworks (Miles Huberman, 1984). Systematic coding of
interview data helped me match teachers’ views of social justice with Young’s (1990) views,
such as the impact of social and cultural affinity and social justice. The interview data, classroom
observations, and lesson plans were triangulated to develop a more complex and complete picture
of the teachers’ actions and their views of social justice. Member checking was completed with
Pa and Mary during the final codes and major themes development process. The codes and major
themes were shared with Pa and Mary to ensure that their views were accurately represented.
During the member checking process Pa and Mary also reviewed a portion of the transcript as
they didn’t have spare time from their regular school assignments to read all of the transcript.
FINDINGS
I present three findings of the study: how teachers work to infuse the views of social justice in
their teaching, what it means for them to teach science for social justice, and how they manage
internal and external tensions regarding teaching science for social justice.
Crafting Social Justice: Recognizing Oppression and Teaching
for Empowerment
Mary and Pa understood that students needed a science classroom environment that was open
to students’ sociocultural experiences. They wanted students to participate in science activities
in ways that respected and valued each student’s knowledge and allowed them to be a part of
the science learning process. At the same time, Mary and Pa were concerned that administrators
would continuously disregard the impact of students’ race, ethnicity, gender, and language in
science learning through diminished acknowledgement of students’ cultural richness. For exam-
ple, according to Mary and Pa, the administrators asked elementary teachers in the school to
focus more on English language and math content competencies and spend less time on cultural
connections to promote learning. The teachers also knew that many students who came from
language or ethnic minority groups were more likely to receive less support in science classes.
The accountability system unrealistically emphasizes the need to prepare students for high-stakes
tests that are given only in English. This kind of discrimination disadvantages students within
and outside the school. Mary explained what her effort for equity included:
I focus on the needs of students who don’t speak English and view science to be an affluent children’s
subject. Hmongs and some Hispanic students are so diverse racially, culturally, and linguistically. In
my science class I try to bring equity through giving extra help to non-English speaking students. I
give [Hispanic students] handouts in Spanish and Hmong students translations of science concepts.
. . . Mostly these students are academically poor [perform poorly].
Mary views equity to be achievable through attending to students’ needs. Hispanic and Hmong
students are not unintelligent, but they are disadvantaged because they belong to an oppressed

7. 62 UPADHYAY
group that has very little power in the existing institutional arrangements. Additionally, Mary
also recognizes that the institutions have created a punitive test system that undermines students’
actual ability in science but highlights their race, language barriers, and cultural differences that
are associated with an oppressed group. For example, while teaching adaptation, Mary asked
students to bring a flu vaccine pamphlet to the class. Each student brought translated versions of
the pamphlets in their ethnic languages. The translations were in English, Hmong, and Spanish
languages as three separate documents—one for each of the languages.
Episode 1: May 12, 2006
01 Mary: Why do we get flu vaccine every year? Why not just once?
02 Neg (Hmong male): The bug change.
03 Mary: Vang. How to tell your grandparents they need flu vaccine?
04 Vang (Hmong male): Old medicine doesn’t help get well.
05 Mary: Does this poster to take flu vaccine help old people like grandparents?
06 Neg: We can change.
07 Mary: How?
08 Bella (Hmong female): Write again in my language [Hmong].
09 Mary: Do you tell it’s virus?
10 Bella: No. Like bug. Like not healthy.
11 Mary: How do you tell “get a vaccine”?
12 Neg: Medicine is vaccine.
In lines 01–04 students and Mary discuss why a new vaccine is necessary in every flu season.
The class discussed how the flu virus becomes different (mutates) and the old vaccine does not
work on the new flu virus. Mary did not stress to students that they needed to learn the science
word “mutation,” but she challenged students to use their science knowledge to convince their
family members to get the flu vaccine. In line 05, Mary wanted to connect the idea of disease,
mutation, and prevention to everyday people to whom students are connected and about whom
students care. The class further discussed if the grandparents would understand the pamphlet and
get the vaccine. Mary wants Hmong students to experience the usefulness of science knowledge
in their everyday lives. She challenged students to come up with everyday words (lines 08–12)
that would explain what caused flu and what prevented it. Students then rewrote the pamphlets
in the respective languages (English, Hmong, and Spanish) to give to their communities so that
elders and less scientifically educated members would understand. The students’ actions were
empowering and such activities may encourage them to be activists for their communities. In this
activity Mary allows students to use their knowledge of science and language for an action that
was pertinent to them and could help improve the lives of their family members. At the same
time Mary is challenging the school norm by helping students to come up with everyday words
that would make more sense to people who students care about rather than enforcing students to
use scientific words to express certain science concepts or content ideas. For example, Mary does
not correct Neg in line 2 when he says, “bug changed,” instead of “virus mutated.” Similarly,
in line 10, she allowed Bella to compare the mutated virus as “bad bug” or “unhealthy,” and in
line 12, Mary accepted Neg’s comparison of vaccine with any other medicine, including (line
12) merely symptom-suppressing medications, such as cough syrup or antacid. Mary’s actions in

8. MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS 63
this episode are risky as well as challenging to the norms of school culture and science culture.
Mary seems to be less concerned about what mainstream science values—the correct scientific
words and terms—and more engaged in how science can be brought by students into their homes
to improve their families’ lives. In this episode, Mary is supporting students’ ways of knowing,
understanding, and communicating science knowledge to people who know less about science or
do not practice science as an everyday activity.
Similarly, Pa’s action during one science lesson underscored how science teachers could
provide an empowering experience to students. For example, Pa was teaching her class about
acids and bases. She used purple cabbage solution as an indicator because all her students were
familiar with purple cabbage. First, Pa filled three test tubes with three different liquids: purple
cabbage solution only (indicator), vinegar and a few drops of cabbage solution resulting in a pink
liquid, and soap solution with a few drops of cabbage solution resulting in a bluish green liquid.
She asked the whole class what they saw:
Episode 2: September 18, 2007
01 Pa: Are the liquids in these test-tubes [pointing to cabbage solution, vinegar,
02 soap solution] different or same?
03 Sandy [white female]: Colors are different.
04 Jim [white male]: Liquids are all same color.
05 Pa: Jim, are liquids’ color different?
06 Jim: [long pause] All same.
07 Pa: Name of colors? [long pause]. Nu?
08 Nu [Hmong male]: All [pointing to each of the test-tubes] blue color.
09 Pa: Really?
10 Silvia [Hispanic female]: Very different liquids because colors are different.
11 Purple, pink, and bluish.
12 Pa: I want all to write down what you see [observed] not what your friends say.
Pa believed that when students got the opportunity to share what they knew, they became more
willing participants in science discussions. For Pa it was important to “accept and blend” Hmong
students’ answers even when the students used the word “blue” to describe purple and pink
colored liquids. Pa gave Hmong students an opportunity to use their language to record and
describe the observations in acid and base activity. She knew that there was no word for the color
purple in Hmong. Purple and pink are all shades of blue in Hmong. Therefore, she understood that
the Hmong students were describing their observations correctly but in a non-standard way. Pa
deliberately presented this activity because she wanted to ensure that all students could describe
and talk about scientific concepts and observations in everyday language.
Furthermore, Pa challenges the school culture in which students are expected to learn “the
scientific” explanation so that they can excel on science tests. Pa (line 12) is encouraging her
students to be independent and express their understanding of acid and base. She tells students
to “write down what you see, not what your friends say.” The emphasis on the phrase “what
you see” was explicitly directed toward Hmong students because in Hmong culture sharing and
helping friends is an important and necessary social norm. However, in this case Pa was teaching
Hmong students to learn the expectations of the school as well as the dominant American culture

9. 64 UPADHYAY
where individual achievement is more valued than group achievement. Thus, on one hand Pa was
supporting and encouraging students to utilize knowledge gained from their lived experiences to
make sense of science, but she was also coaxing students to learn the science knowledge that is
valued by schools and the science culture.
However, an important social justice-oriented action that I saw in this science activity was
that Pa refrained from telling students that their answers were wrong when the answers did not
include science or scientific words. Pa’s actions were empowering for Hmong students and to
other students because they could use their knowledge and language to understand and participate
in science. Pa’s lesson not only challenged what teaching and learning science means to students
from disadvantaged groups but also provided an equitable environment for diverse groups of
students.
Crafting Social Justice: Recognizing Students’ Knowledge and Connecting
to Students’ Lived Experiences
Mary and Pa value the importance of respecting and infusing students’ knowledge and lived
experiences into their science teaching. They both believe that recognition of students’ knowledge
provides opportunities for students to learn better science and hence have better future lives. To
encourage students to learn science, Mary and Pa use students’ experiences and needs in different
ways. Mary and Pa agree that students need to understand science that enables them to actively
engage in everyday activities and understand how these activities are part of learning science.
Both of these teachers enact a conception of justice that underscores the importance of valuing and
incorporating diverse students’ experiences while teaching science. Mary believes that a major
part of teaching science for social justice includes culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings,
1995), which allows her to understand students’ lived experiences and deepens her interest in
teaching science.
One of Mary’s classes was about factors that would impact plant growth. She particularly
wanted to connect students’ knowledge about their local environment and plants to science
concepts, such as control and variable, measurement of growth, and seed germination. She asked
students to share their ideas in the group and then with the class. I observed that students actively
talked about what they had seen their parents and relatives do in a garden or on a farm. Hmong
students shared their knowledge about plants and herbs and why these plants and herbs are an
integral part of Hmong life:
Episode 3: January 21, 2006
01 S1 [boy]: . . . we grow basil, cilantro . . .
02 Mary: Good. What are others? [showing herbs: knotweed, pennywort, etc.].
03 Do you know how you eat them?
04 S3 [girl]: That one [pointing to pennywort] for when you [have] cold . . .
05 Mary: Cough and cold. I didn’t know that.
06 Mary: Is cilantro native to Minnesota?
07 S4 [white boy]: No. It needs warm weather.
08 S5 [white girl]: In our garden we grow cilantro in summer only.

10. MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS 65
In this episode, students shared their lived experiences, and Mary valued their knowledge about
plants, herbs, and weather. In line 05 Mary acknowledged that she learned from students about the
herbs and how they are used to cure minor ailments. In this episode Mary recognized and respected
the knowledge that the students brought into the classroom based on their social, cultural, and
community groups. Similarly, Mary dismantles the notion that knowledge based on the dominant
culture is superior to that of non-dominant cultures; she places greater value on what students bring
into the classroom to learn science. She creates a bridge between the dominant science knowledge
and the knowledge from students’ own cultures. Students commuted between the science culture
and their own culture as they engaged in learning science content and concepts. Similarly, on
one occasion, I observed Mary teaching a physics concept of speed as the relationship between
time and distance travelled by an object. During this class she gave the analogy of time required
to embroider ethnic stories (flowers) on a piece of cloth and the speed at which the needles are
moved across the piece of cloth. Mary wrote on the board for the class that traditional Hmong
“costumes are called paj ntaub [or] flower cloth.” Many girls in traditional families learn this
skill early in their lives. Here Mary was able to aid Hmong girls to see a connection between
a physics concept and Hmong cultural identity and tradition of making flower cloths. Thus,
according to Mary, many Hmong girls are able to link experiences at home by “relating physics
to an important Hmong cultural trade.” Mary engaged in science teaching and learning activities
where she affirms the cultural values, practices, and identities of students from oppressed groups.
Therefore, in Mary’s class we see cultural justice (Fraser, 1998) enacted where knowledge and
values of minority groups are valued and respected.
From Pa’s perspective, to be a science teacher who believes in attaining social justice through
science teaching, she has to be able to create a bridge between in-school science and students’
knowledge from home. One of the major challenges for Pa has been to help her students understand
that they do not need to immediately abandon their knowledge from home in order to learn and
engage with science. In one class on disease and health, Pa wanted to show students how the
idea of “spirit” in Hmong culture was similar to the idea of “theory” in science. Traditionally,
Hmongs view illness from a holistic perspective. Good health is a perfect balance between the
spirit and the body. When a Hmong is sick, the first task is to find out if the sickness is because
of the imbalance in the spirit world or the mundane world (living body). They seek help from a
shaman for this determination. Hmongs believe that the soul(s) living within a human body can
be lost during illness or an invasive procedure, thus spiritual healing is necessary to get better and
bring back the lost soul. Spiritual causes, therefore, require spiritual healing methods. Similarly,
many Hmongs do seek Western medicine when the sickness is determined to be not from the
spirit world. Younger generations learn these practices as a part of their culture.
Episode 4: October 22, 2007
01 Lee: We write spirit . . .
02 Liam: No. We can write virus because virus gives flu.
03 Pa: We Hmongs believe in spirit and spirit makes us sick.
04 Liam: We can write spirit and virus in the answer. Both cause flu.
05 Pa: In science virus makes us sick. You can say that virus is like the bad spirit. In science
06 we use science answers. You need to remember this—in science class it is science answer
07 and at home you [referring to Hmong and other students] can explain in different way.

11. 66 UPADHYAY
In line 03, Pa explained to the students that Hmongs believed in spirit and that spirit causes people
to get sick. She used the pronoun “we” to refer to herself, Hmong students, and the larger Hmong
community that accepts the view that spirit is the root cause of sickness. The pronoun “we” also
establishes group recognition and Hmong identity in the class. An important aspect of social
justice-oriented science education is to positively recognize and value knowledge and identities
associated with individuals based on their ethnic group affiliation and associations (Fraser, 1998;
Power Gewirtz, 2001). The pronoun “we” also allows Pa to establish that non-Hmong students
do not have to believe in this idea of spirit, thus they can disregard the conversations about
spirit. Pa further explained in lines 05–07 that Hmong students need to utilize contradictory yet
important knowledge based on the context, home or school. She made it very clear to students
that there is science knowledge, and there is cultural knowledge. In line 06 she used the phrase
“in science” to stress that there is a specific science knowledge that is acceptable to the science
community. She additionally qualifies the importance of science knowledge in line 06 with the
phrase “You need to remember this.” Here, Pa is telling all students that in order to succeed in
science, they need to remember classroom science knowledge. However, in line 07, Pa stresses
that students could use the knowledge gained from their social and cultural backgrounds at home
when they engage with their community members.
Working for Social Justice: Managing Internal and External Challenges
Mary and Pa do not believe in an egalitarian view of learning science whereby all students,
irrespective of their sociocultural and linguistic preferences, must learn science content so that
they can accept the Western views of science. Mary believes that there is a constant challenge
to make sure that students know science content as required by the state standards and also to
make science relevant to students. However, if students are disinterested in learning science, state
standards do not matter to them. Therefore, Mary brings the school principal and others into her
class to show how engaged students are and also to help the school showcase students’ work for
visitors and parents. This allows Mary to teach science in a just and equitable manner. For many
students in Mary’s class, therefore, the enthusiasm to learn science comes from Mary’s desire to
infuse and respect students’ lived experiences in her teaching:
I wonder if my students would have liked learning science without that connection to community.
. . . I’m amazed by the knowledge and resources that Hmong and Hispanic students bring to science.
Some of their life examples are so intertwined with who they are. I learn from them a lot. They need
to learn science to make a difference in their lives, not just [for] learning science.
Mary noted that the resources and everyday knowledge that students bring are rich and complex.
Her students’ ability to give examples relevant to science concepts learned in a particular class
is a testament of their desire and capacity to learn and do science. These students were using
science to make sense of their lives.
Mary argued that the school sometimes frames learning science as mastering content knowl-
edge rather than students’ ability to, for example, critically judge the accuracy and reliability
of a newspaper article on health and environment issues. Mary shared with me the story of a
parent-teacher meeting during which a parent wanted Mary to teach her child science so he could
get a good job because of good grades. The parent basically told Mary that getting a good job

12. MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS 67
and supporting the family was more important than “questioning what a newspaper writes about
the health issues in their community.” Mary found herself negotiating between what she views
as an authentic science teaching and learning experience that makes a difference in students’
lives versus enculturation of students into an oppressive and biased system. Pa believes that
science teaching should prepare students to participate in science-related discussions and also
in discourses of science beyond the scientific community. According to Pa, as students engage
in doing science, they gain knowledge that enables them to critically discuss scientific issues. In
doing so, students may also understand the scope of science in very personal ways. In addition,
students might be able to appreciate the potential of science for the good or bad of a community.
For example, Pa showcased students’ work that integrated their home knowledge and required
science content by putting posters in the halls. Parents and the school supported this as a way to
gain parental and community support when necessary. Pa believes that this kind of knowledge
is not rewarded in traditional schools and through high-stakes tests. As her students struggled to
show huge gains in tests, she was constrained by needing to teach for curriculum completion and
good test results. Pa acknowledged that the tension between teaching science for better test results
versus conceptual understanding will not disappear from the present school system because many
stakeholders like “parents, politicians, and corporations believe that tests are reliable” indicators
of students’ academic achievement as well as teacher effectiveness.
In summary, enacting social justice-oriented science teaching practices is challenging as
teachers are asked to fulfill competing expectations. Both teachers worked to combine their
extracurricular activities, students’ knowledge from home, and parent-teacher interactions to
manage and implement social justice education in science teaching.
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
Social justice has a central place in science education because justice and equity help create
scientifically literate and activist individuals. In order to achieve these two goals, Mary and Pa
frame their science teaching methods to be inclusive of all students’ knowledge from home or
community experiences. In addition, both teachers also understand that science is taught and
learned in a school context. Schools are social institutions that are based on mainstream social
structures and values (Anyon, 1997; Bourdieu Passeron, 1977; Foley, 1990). The present social
structures of school and schooling emphasize content mastery, achievement in tests based on
content mastery, and compliance with the cultural norms and expectations of those who are in
power (Oakes, 1990). Therefore, students from low-income and ethnic minority communities
who do not fit these norms are either excluded or marginalized in science classes.
Mary and Pa challenge this kind of exclusionary view of teaching and learning science through
infusing students’ language and experiences—particularly those of Hmong students—into their
teaching. For example, Pa used Hmong students’ knowledge of color to teach about acid and
base. Pa stressed that observations and interpretation of those observations were more important
science concepts than using the right English word to describe the color of a liquid. This example
illustrates Pa’s view of social justice at three levels. First, she valued and utilized students’
knowledge in science instruction. Second, she challenged institutional oppression by allowing
students to use their language instead of requiring English in science class (Lee Fradd, 1998).
Pa not only provided equal opportunities to all the students to participate in learning the concepts

13. 68 UPADHYAY
behind acid and base, but her actions also created an environment for the students from non-
dominant groups to more actively participate in subsequent discussions, sharing their results and
providing appropriate reasons to support their answers in whole class settings. Additionally these
students exhibited independence in extending the acid and base activity to find out how often
they consumed more acidic food in their diet, which the students then presented to the rest of
the class. Through her actions, Pa gave greater opportunities to the students from non-dominant
groups to gain the most out of this experience, thus tipping the balance in favor of non-dominant
groups in her class. Pa valued and positively recognized Hmong students’ knowledge in a way
that gave the students a sense of belonging to the class. Cultural justice (Fraser, 1998) recognizes
and positively values cultural identities and knowledge of individuals from minority groups. By
recognizing Hmong students’ knowledge emanating from their cultural experiences at home, Pa
actively engages in building a social justice-oriented science learning environment. Third, she
attends to the needs of those students who require greater support and time to learn science
because they were learning science as well as the culture of science that was valued in the tests.
One important aspect of Pa’s conception of social justice is about connecting a conception of
“spirit” and the scientific conception of “theory.” Even though those two concepts are incompatible
at many levels, Pa found a way to illustrate similarities and differences between them. We know
from social theories of learning (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978) that students are resistant to change if
the scientific understanding of the world contradicts their understanding of the world. One way
to support new learning in science is to engage students in science activities and discussions
that allow them to accommodate both cognitive structures—one learned at home and one at
school. Therefore, in her science class Pa was blending the culturally deep-rooted understanding
of “spirit” to explain the scientific understanding of “theory.” Pa’s hope was that her students
would be able to work with both the spiritual world, which is personal, and the scientific world,
which is impersonal to many of her Hmong students. Here, Pa’s conception of social justice
incorporated what students brought to the class and also actively used that knowledge to teach
science and build students’ ability to accommodate and utilize both conceptions in appropriate
contexts. Pa also stressed that there are school and science cultures that value certain knowledge
and knowledge structures. Pa recognizes that students need to understand that the present school
system rewards scientific knowledge, not knowledge that Hmong students bring to the classroom.
Pa helps students to separate these two and learn where and when to use each. Pa’s science
teaching practices are respectful of students’ identities and their rich cultural knowledge.
Another important aspect of Mary’s and Pa’s view of teaching science for social justice is
about empowering students for change. In order to empower students, teachers need to situate
the teaching and learning of science in students’ lives and communities.
For example, Mary’s attempt to connect students’ native language and science content through
flu vaccine pamphlets was about empowering students to positively influence their lives. Through
this activity, students not only felt empowered but also worked as community activists who could
affect change in the lives of community members. Science textbooks tend to define concepts and
theories from a Western perspective; other cultural viewpoints are either omitted or presented
as footnotes. Even though this may not be problematic at the surface level, deep down it tells
Hmong students that they are not included in defining which knowledge or practices are scientific
and acceptable in science communities. At a deeper structural level this devaluing of Hmong
knowledge assigns lower status to Hmong students and the knowledge derived from their cultural
practices.

14. MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS 69
This kind of caste-like status creates a backdrop on which other distinctions are placed. There
were a number of ways in which Mary dissolved the subordinate status of Hmong students in her
class. Whenever Hmong students in her class gave examples from their cultural experiences, she
listed them on a permanent school board for all to see and learn from. In another instance, Mary’s
class created a wall-sized periodic table where Hmong students were asked to write the names of
the elements in Hmong. She also asked students to list under each element the names of things
that Hmong people made, such as rattle hoop (made out of iron) that a shaman uses and ncas
(pronounced “njaa”), a brass instrument. Mary’s practices in her science class can be interpreted
in terms of breaking the cultural norms of standard science classes, improving the status of Hmong
knowledge, and dismantling the subservient status of Hmong students. Inclusion and acceptance
of Hmong knowledge made the students activists. In one class, a Hmong girl commented that this
was the first science class where the teacher told them the value of Hmong knowledge, and this
action increased her confidence as a Hmong. Mary and Pa argue for science education that creates
activism in students (Freire, 1970) and empowers them to help transform their lives as well as the
lives of those who are disadvantaged by institutional prejudices (Cochran-Smith, 2004). Mary
and Pa understood that academic success in science positions students in a powerful place in our
society. Furthermore, knowing science gives agency to students to participate in everyday events,
such as health, environment-related issues, business, and toxic regulations.
Despite the strengths of social justice-oriented science teaching as documented by this study,
the teachers were constrained and challenged when implementing the conceptions of social justice
in science classrooms. Yet their actions indicate that science teachers can enact social justice at
three levels based on the school context. The three conceptions of social justice in Mary’s and Pa’s
science classrooms were (a) attending to individual students’ needs; (b) valuing and recognizing
an individual’s experiences; and (c) working against institutional oppression and inequities. In
most instances, schools manifest inequity by controlling students through actions such as framing
students’ participation and achievement in purely cognitive and metacognitive terms (Gilbert
Yerrick, 2001). Mary and Pa attended to social justice by confronting the issues of oppression
and structural inequity that exist in their school and in the science curriculum. Most science
teachers are more inclined to engage in the distributive nature of social justice whereby taking
the view that giving equal opportunity to participate and provide equal resources to do science
counts as attaining equity (Lynch, 2000). This view of equal opportunity and equal resources as
a benchmark of distributive justice is much easier to implement in science class because most
teachers can easily meet these requirements with little extra work, but it fails to address much
more complex issues of institutional injustices. In order to better serve poor and ethnic minority
students, teachers need to adopt a view that recognizes broad social inequities and oppression
that exist in schools.
CONCLUSION
This qualitative study documented how two science teachers conceptualized and enacted social
justice in science classrooms. The study showed the larger purposes and goals of science teaching
and learning when teaching poor and ethnic minority students. The study also revealed the need
to constantly negotiate and realign classroom actions to aid the integration of social justice and
science teaching. In addition, the two teachers highlight the importance of context and social
structures, such as high-stakes testing in English-only and only measuring learning through

15. 70 UPADHYAY
high-stakes tests, in the implementation of social justice in science classrooms. Thus, Mary’s and
Pa’s cases offer us more complex views of social justice than the equality of resources and the
equality of opportunity-based social justice.
This study focused on two teachers who were committed to taking risks to implement social
justice in their teaching despite internal and external pressures. In order for science teachers to
teach science for social justice, they need to understand broader social structures that influence
students’ lives and the kind of science students want to learn and incorporate these into their
lesson planning.
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Bhaskar Upadhyay is an assistant professor of Science Education at the University of
Minnestoa, Twin Cities. His research interests include equity, diversity, and social justice in
teaching and learning science in urban settings.

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