STEM Education Right-wing Populist Politicsbenczela/Bencze... · STEM Education in Right-wing Populist Contexts !2 of !19 INTRODUCTION In science education, as in societies

L Bencze & L. Carter !

STEM Education in Right-wing Populist Contexts ! of !1 19

STEM Education <--> Right-wing Populist Politics

A paper for presentation at annual conference of the

Society for the Social Studies of Science

Larry Bencze & Lyn Carter

ABSTRACT

All education enacts, implicitly or explicitly, some political agenda. This appears to be particularly evident in many ‘STEM’ (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) education initiatives. Emerging alongside — and, perhaps, influenced by — neoliberalism, many such initiatives appear to prioritize training of technical experts to develop and market for-profit commodities while de-emphasizing critical analyses of these fields that might lead to socio-political actions to address perceived harms linked to STEM fields, such as worldwide devastation from petroleum-fueled climate change. Production-oriented, apolitical, emphases in STEM education also, apparently, articulates with recent emergence of right-wing populism (RWP). Although definitions vary, many RWP movements tend to pit ‘good’ masses of people against ‘bad’ elites controlling governments. RWP leaders are, then, often seen as saviours for the people. Like magicians, however, such charismatic leaders appear to — in many respects — create illusionary images for a better world that can distract citizens from consciousness of further capitalist exploitation. Promotion of production-oriented, depoliticized, STEM education can, then, become increasingly normalized — perhaps contributing to predicted exponential wealth concentration by few capitalists and corresponding personal, social and environmental degradation. After elaborating and justifying claims above, we then present theoretical schema — with practical examples — enabling, respectively, teachers of science and technology and teacher educators to help learners develop critical conceptions of STEM fields and their relationships with many other entities and to develop expertise, confidence and motivation for creating and implementing socio-political actions to overcome harms of concern to them. We end with recommendations for mobilizing such approaches, emphasizing needs for actions on multiple fronts.

September 4, 2019



INTRODUCTION

In science education, as in societies more generally, there appears to be a virtual ‘paradigm war.’ Although there are many and varied issues, a particularly contentious area pertains to the level and nature of integration of science with other fields. A prominent — and, in some jurisdictions, hegemonic — set of initiatives involves integration and/or interrelationships among fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Although certainly not always the case, many STEM education initiatives appear to prioritize selection and education of relatively few professional STEM workers who will assist capitalists (and their supporters, including governments and transnational organizations) to compete (in various ways) for financial (and related) successes against other financial entities — not the least of which are those in competing economic blocs, like India and China. Associated with this agenda seem to be (possibly-intentional) avoidance of reference to relationships among STEM professionals, their financial backers, and others that appear linked to many significant harms for wellbeing of individuals, societies and environments — a particularly problematic one being diverse forms of devastation from climate disruption linked to fossil fuel uses. Competing with this pro-capitalist paradigm seem to be various initiatives that educate students about possibly-problematic ‘science-in-context’ phenomena (Bencze et al., in press) — such as relationships among fields of science and technology and societies and environments (STSE). Although these have made some inroads in the last 4-5 decades in raising citizen consciousness of such problematic relationships and, in some cases, in helping them to gain expertise, confidence and motivation to develop and take personal and social actions to address harms they perceive, pro-capitalist STEM initiatives seem to be winning the ideological (and financial) ‘war.’ And, as with most wars, there are many casualties — especially, of course, on the losing side. In this case, opportunities for students to gain critical conceptions of STSE relationships and wherewithal to address problems they perceive seem under significant threats — which, in turn, may generate further personal, social and environmental harms. Perhaps paradoxically, however, a kind of ‘positive’ feedback phenomena appears to have emerged from capitalist devastation; that is, rapid emergence of so-called right-wing populism — which seems to be guiding earth and its systems to even more dramatic destruction. In many ways, this phenomenon seems to align with Naomi Klein’s (2007) concept of disaster capitalism; that is, exploitation of natural and/or intentional crises to further implement capitalist perspectives and practices. Reminiscent of Kuhn’s (1970) claim that paradigm change can greatly benefit (if not require) from existence of alternative paradigms, she more recently (Klein, 2017) advises that successful revolutions generally have been made possible with existence of visions of alternative futures. Accordingly, in this paper, after elaboration of possibly problematic STSE relationships, STEM education and possible right-wing populist influences on STEM fields, we provide documentary descriptions of alternatives for school science and for science teacher education — that, upon analyses, appear to have much in common with ecojustice education.

(DIS-)ARTICULATION OF SCIENCE IN EDUCATION

Traditionally, school science has been taught in ‘silos’ separate from those of other subjects, a priority partly driven by claims that its focus on abstract, decontextualized knowledge makes it foundational to progress in related fields like technology and engineering (Ziman, 1984). Nevertheless, studies from history, philosophy and sociology of science have long indicated that fields of science and technology — while distinct in some ways — must be considered integrated, to varying degrees, with each other and, moreover, with general societies (Sismondo, 2008). Early recognition of this included studies of how Roman Catholic clergy had attempted to limit societies’ conceptions of a sun-centred (vs. earth-centred) solar system (Losee, 2001). In a similar vein, more recent studies of work of scientists and engineers suggest that financial arrangements many of them have with members of the private sector can sometimes compromise topic choice, research approaches and dissemination of results (Krimsky, 2003; Mirowski, 2011; Ziman, 2000). In light of findings of such studies, educational scholars and others have — for about the last half century — recommended and explored possibilities for education about relationships like those above among fields of science and technology and societies and environments (STSE).

Over the course of its decades-old practice, there has been considerable variation in perspectives and approaches of STSE education. Based on their major review of such approaches, Pedretti and Nazir (2011) suggested that these have featured at least six major ‘currents,’ such as, Historical, Logical Reasoning and Sociocultural emphases. Meanwhile, other scholars have used different categorizations of STSE-type education, including, for example, Callon (1999), who proposed three models of citizenship that it could promote; that is, the: i) Public Education (e.g., experts inform laypersons); ii) Public Debate (e.g., citizens discuss goals, activities, etc. with experts); and, iii) Co-production of Knowledge (e.g., experts and laypersons co-produce knowledge) models. Levinson (2010) proposed a similar framework but, drawing partly on Hodson (2003), suggested STSE-type



education may involve four types of citizenship engagement; namely, i) Deficit (e.g., experts inform laypersons); ii) Deliberation (citizens discuss goals, activities, etc. with experts); iii) Praxis (e.g., citizens engage in knowledge construction); and, iv) Dissent and Conflict (e.g., citizens design and implement social actions). Moreover, there are similar, but divergent in some ways, other ‘science-in-context’ (SinC) educational movements — such as socioscientific issues education and education involving socially-acute questions — compete for focus (Bencze et al., in press). With such variation in perspectives and practices, along with differences in classification of them, it is difficult to know well their nature and appropriate research and actions required. Using the principle of Ockham’s Razor, however, which posits that tests of simpler, rather than more complex and assumption-laden, conceptions are most prudent (Losee, 2001), we might learn much about STSE-type education from Fuller’s (1993) claim that studies of fields of science and technology (S&T) may be divided into two broad categories, which he labelled High Church and Low Church — the former emphasizing more ‘academic’ studies of S&T, including in terms of relationships with general society, while the latter prioritizing social actions that may lead to positive changes in the nature of S&T fields in ways that may improve societies (Sismondo, 2008). Such a conception seems to clearly distinguish, in other words, between SinC programmes that either promote or de-emphasize actions that, through changes in fields of science and technology, might make a better world. Needs for such actions, however, seem substantial. On the one hand, many people are grateful to fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (‘STEM’) for improving conditions for many living and nonliving things. Humans enjoy longer lifespans, for instance, through developments in medical and agricultural fields. Coincidentally, perhaps, contemporaneous with advent and progress of SinC education, however, has been development of neoliberal socio-economic programmes — which appear to have compromised the integrity of various aspects of STEM fields (Krimsky, 2003; Mirowski, 2011; Ziman, 2000). On the one hand, neoliberalism is a complex and, to a great extent, uncertain programme. Broadly, however, it appears to be a set of perspectives and practices that — rather than promoting freedom from government intervention in economic markets — promotes integration of many and varied living, nonliving and symbolic entities (including governments, tax evasion companies and transnational entities like The World Trade Organization) into a vast and complex network that, generally, encourages private wealth concentration (Cahill et al., 2018; Foucault, 2008; Harvey, 2005; Springer, Birch & MacLeavy, 2016). Clearly essential to functioning of neoliberalism are STEM fields, and through their associations (financial and otherwise) with capitalists, many products and services have been generated that have compromised (and continue to compromise) wellbeing of individuals, societies and environments. People are concerned about possible harms from a great range of commercial products and services, such as: genetically-modified foods, etc. (Kleinman, 2003); household cleaning and hygiene products (Leonard, 2010); pesticides (Hileman, 1998); tobacco (Barnes, Hammond & Glantz, 2006); and, pharmaceuticals (Angell, 2004). There also is considerable worry about possible (and apparently realized) serious personal, social and environmental harms associated with dramatic increases in average global temperatures that often are linked to excessive fossil fuel uses (Klein, 2014).

Given severity of STEM-related problems like those noted above, various educators and others have strongly recommended that school science (and perhaps other STEM courses) emphasize educating students about such power-related problems and also help them to develop motivation, expertise and self-efficacy for developing and implementing personal and social actions to address problems they perceive (Hodson, 2003, 2011; Roth & Désautels, 2002; Santos, 2009). Although there have been some reported successes in promoting more civic actions through school science (e.g., Bencze & Alsop, 2014; Birmingham & Calabrese Barton, 2014; Stetsenko, 2018), much research in SinC education suggests that they are largely oriented towards treating potential STEM-related harms as controversial and, consequently, perhaps doubtful — mainly urging students to learn about different ‘stakeholders’ (e.g., scientists’ vs. citizen activists’) positions on conclusions that may be drawn (e.g., climate change is/is not anthropogenic) and/or civic actions to be taken (e.g., whether or not to build a nuclear reactor in a particular location) (Levinson, 2013; Sadler, 2011). Although providing students with information about controversies and making personal, reasoned, decisions about them may be considered a form of conscientization (critical consciousness), which can lead to rectifying actions in and on the world (Freire, 1970), it is apparent that many educational situations that engage students in considering SinC controversies tend to err on the side of student deference to authority of experts and powerful stakeholders (Levinson, 2013).

Apparent resistance to moving beyond more High Church SinC approaches — particularly those encouraging, students’ personal, reasoned, choices about controversies — in school science, despite clear and present dangers associated with neoliberalism-influenced STEM fields, suggests there is some ‘invisible hand’ inhibiting moves towards more critical and activist science education. Although there are, undoubtedly, many potential agents in such limitations, neoliberal capitalism, by definition, works on the basis of rallying vast and diverse entities to its causes (which could act to oppose Low Church education). There are, indeed, pieces of evidence and arguments to link neoliberalism to such inertia. It has been claimed, for instance, that it is a major factor in school science’s tendency to minimize — if not completely ignore — problematic aspects of financial agreements



between scientists (and other STEM professionals) and capitalists (Carter, 2005; Hodson, 2008; Levinson, 2013). Most recently, this seems quite apparent in many ‘STEM’ (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) education initiatives. Although there is much promotion of merits of integrating and/or interrelating the four STEM fields in education (e.g., Rennie, Venville & Wallace, 2012), analyses suggest that many of them, perhaps ironically, de-integrate perspectives and recommended practices from fields of history, philosophy and sociology of science and technology in ways that appear to minimize critiques of STEM fields (and, presumably, rectifying actions) (Bencze et al., 2018; Gough, 2015; Zeidler, 2016). A related finding is that the latest US science curriculum (Next Generation Science Standards) appears, based on critical discourse analysis, to de-emphasize critical and activist perspectives while, in turn, significantly promoting neoliberal perspectives and practices (Hoeg & Bencze, 2017).

RIGHT-WING POPULISM, STEM FIELDS AND STEM EDUCATION

Although educators and others have wanted to infuse more critical and activist perspectives and practices into science/STEM education curricula and pedagogy for several decades while generally facing many barriers to do so, prospects for such educational transformations seem even more dire in the last few years — in light of fast-emerging and influential right-wing populist (RWP) movements. While such movements have grown in many ‘Western’ democratic countries (e.g., Austria, Brazil, Denmark, France, Hungary, Turkey and UK), perhaps the most important of them — due to its overall wealth and election of an RWP leader — is the USA (Klein, 2017; Pelinka, 2013; Swank & Betz, 2003; Taibbi, 2017). Given their relatively rapid emergence, definitions and effects of such movements vary (Carter, in press). Nevertheless, there appears to be much direct or indirect support for associating them with Naomi Klein’s (2007, 2017) concept of disaster capitalism; that is, capitalists’ exploitation of crises (natural or engineered) to further implement capitalism-friendly policies and practices. Right-wing populist leaders have, undoubtedly, exploited many kinds of crises, but it is apparent that prominent among these have been various personal and social difficulties experienced by large fractions of their countries’ populations that may be linked to neoliberal globalization. While individual jurisdictions (e.g., cities and countries) have resisted homogenizing effects of globalization, perhaps combining foreign and local priorities and practices in processes of glocalization (Matusitz & Lord, 2013; Ritzer, 2004; Roudometof, 2016), many people in several ‘developed’ democracies have arrived at various states of crisis — particularly in terms of job losses and/or precarity (e.g., part-time, on-call, with no/few benefits), because companies have (often with government support) moved production to places in the world with inexpensive labour, lowest taxes and lax environmental laws (Bauman & Mauro, 2016; McMurtry, 2013; Rodrik, 2011). In many places in the world, particularly in the USA, such socio-economic policies and practices appear to have led to significant and dramatically-increasing differences between rich and poor (i.e., extreme wealth concentration) (Giroux, 2014; Hedges, 2017; Stiglitz, 2016). Oxfam (2019), for instance, recently reported that about 26 billionaires owned total wealth equal to about 3.8 billion people (the poorest half of the world’s population).

With so many people in crisis, RWP leaders have gained popularity by blaming governments and other elites for their destitution, presenting themselves as their saviours — claiming, like Donald Trump, to dramatically (perhaps miraculously) rework governments and lead citizens to a brighter future (Bauman & Mauro, 2016; Danner, 2016; Kelsey, 2016). Their promises appear, however, to be largely illusory. Apparently, a major part of their image management is to prioritize reactionary themes,

Figure 1: Pro-capitalist STEM Fields.



harkening back to a simpler, less globalized, past — about which it appears to be easier to romanticize than about uncertain futures (Laclau, 2005; Laclau & Mouffe, 1985; Lilla, 2016; Wullweber, 2015). Aligned with such scenarios are contentions that many, but not all, government leaders mainly serve as figure heads, creators of appropriate images of a good society — while, behind the scenes, real control over agendas is wielded by a so-called deep state; that is, a network of powerful individuals (e.g., Koch Brothers) and groups (e.g., General Electric™) (Lofgren, 2016; Mayer, 2016). With most people conditioned to hope for a better world, disaster capitalists can then declare a state of exception (from normal social contract arrangements) and implement radical socio-economic policies and practices to further enrich elite (Agamben, 2005; Giroux, 2014). In the case of Donald Trump, it is apparent the US has a leader who not only promises a better world (“Make America Great Again”) but also serves to distract the public from awareness of his pro-capitalist agenda through a series of often-unpredictable and unusual statements (especially on Twitter™) and actions (Taibbi, 2017). At the same time, in an apparently novel twist in disaster capitalism, the deep state appears to have surfaced — in the sense that Trump and many of his government leaders have direct (and overt) ties to large corporations (e.g., Exxon Mobil™, Goldman Sachs™) that have gained their wealth largely through successive cases of disaster capitalism (Klein, 2017). Having noted their emergence, it remains uncertain at the time of writing of this paper (Sept. 2019) the extent to which residual democratic structures and, moreover, general abhorrence to Mr. Trump’s controversial positions (e.g., on race and gender) may temper abilities of the deep state to rapidly achieve it ends.

By definition, there are many entities engaged in support of neoliberal capitalist goals (Cahill et al., 2018; Springer et al., 2016). Particularly key to their successes, however, are — as outlined above — many STEM fields, whose topics, methods, outcomes, dissemination of findings and uses of products/services may be compromised by private funding. Despite complexities of STEM financial arrangements and their effects, a prominent phenomenon in this regard is capitalists’ emphases on consumerism. Although beginning early in its history, capitalists have more recently greatly shifted away from production of physical goods and services — such as was needed by many people during post-war (WW II) re-building projects — towards generation of repeating cycles of desires for products and services in people with relatively few needs (Barber, 2007; McMurtry, 2013; Usher, 2010). Roles played by STEM fields in this regard may be understood in terms of the schematic in Figure 1 — which, very broadly, depicts relationships between ‘science’ (World —> Sign translations) and ‘technology/engineering’ (Sign —> World translations). Mathematics may be involved in both translations. Although developments of products and services (World), like cars, cell phones, perfumes and manufactured foods are important, emphases are placed on representations (Signs) — in order to encourage repeated consumption (and disposal) of such commodities. It may be more accurate, however, to say that emphases are placed on mis-representations. On the one hand, there appear to be natural/unavoidable inefficiencies — called ontological gaps — in humans’ translations between different ontological entities of the World (e.g., a tree) and Sign (e.g., a drawing of a tree). On the other hand, humans may intentionally mistranslate between World and Sign — creating what may be called ideological gaps — to serve certain purposes. Indeed, to encourage consumption, it is apparent that engineers (often with marketers) create designs that research suggests may cause people to envisage certain idealistic abstractions that may cause certain emotional attachments to commodities — such as certain ‘sleekness’ of cell phone design that may be associated with a higher social class. Additionally, or in concert with such designs, marketers may create advertisements — such as showing a well-dressed person, looking ‘sophisticated’, using such a phone — that reinforce such idealistic abstractions. Indeed, it is apparent that consumers can be convinced to strongly associate designers’/marketers’ idealized abstractions with commodities — thus creating various forms of brand identity and often very enthusiastic loyalty in commodity-consumer relationships (Klein, 2000). According to various authors (e.g., Barber, 2007; Usher 2010), who have drawn on foundational work of Baudrillard (1998), effectiveness of idealized abstractions derives largely from their relative detachment from the phenomena they are purported to represent, a hyperreal condition, which allows designers and marketers to continuously re-design abstractions without having to significantly re-design the commodity — which can convince consumers to discard commodities in favour of newly-designed/marketed idealized abstractions (Barber, 2007; Leonard, 2010). Although there is considerable generation of solutions to personal, social and environmental harms through technology <——> science (technoscience) developments, much innovation and entrepreneurship encouraged by capitalists, educators, government officials and others seems to prioritize creativity in development of sequences of idealized abstractions for promotion of cycles of consumption and disposal.

With people mainly focusing on idealized abstractions linked to cycles of consumption and disposal, capitalists can be free to externalize (arrange for others to fund) their associated costs in order to generate profit (McMurtry, 2013). This can mean, for instance, reductions in costs for labour at stages from resource extraction through transportation, sales and marketing and on to disposal (e.g., lower wages, benefits and working conditions) and materials (e.g., less expensive ingredients in foods, sometimes lacking in nutritional value). Such reductions can, in turn, lead to numerous compromises to the quality of goods and services



generated through fields of technoscience that can contribute to many personal, social and environmental harms (some of which were described above). Exacerbating such compromises appears to have been legal decisions (e.g., in 1980 in the USA) to allow contracts between university-based technoscientists and companies/financiers, a move that tended to shift their foci from knowledge generation for general wellbeing to those prioritizing private interests (Krimsky, 2003; Mirowski, 2011; Ziman, 2000). The pharmaceutical industry, although generating many well-functioning medications, represents an excellent illustration of adverse neoliberal capitalist effects on efficacy of its products. Potential problems appear to apply to: areas of focus; methods of knowledge building and testing; and, dissemination of findings. In contrast to senses of abundance and successes that drug companies may portray through, for example, large displays of medications in stores and in media advertisements, pharmaceutical companies often take steps to minimize efforts to develop new medications. Angell (2004) reports numerous steps taken by companies along these lines: changing one or more atoms in a drug compound (without changing its active site) so that it can receive a new patent; testing drugs against placebos, which means they need only be better than no treatment; and, avoiding drug development to treat diseases, such as those in poor countries where people cannot afford to purchase medications or where the number of disease cases is very small. Greenberg (2003) adds that companies have promoted repeat publication of research reports, with similar data but shifting authorship, as a way of implying an active drug development programme. Once drug research and development begins, meanwhile, there are numerous for-profit compromises. Often through research companies under contract to drug companies (Mirowski & Van Horn, 2005), clinical trials of drugs may, for example, cut corners by: minimizing subject sample sizes; using younger subjects less prone to side-effects; testing lower doses than to be prescribed and/or testing higher doses of the new drug than doses that had been used for the older drug; and, reducing drug trial test periods to reduce chances of emergence of negative side-effects (Bodenheimer, 2000). There are suspicions that such practices are widespread, given that high percentages of journal reports of drug trials have pharmaceutical company sponsorships (Kleinman, 2003; Krimsky, 2003). Combined with the possibility that patients may not be fully informed of medications’ negative side-effects, compromises to the integrity of pharmaceutical research and development may be sacrificing patient safety for the sake of company profits (Weinstein, 2007). Exacerbating this situation is the possibility, which has been documented, that companies may take various steps to prevent release of results of drug trials that indicate negative side-effects and/or sponsoring publications contradicting other authors’ such findings about their medications (Angell, 2004; Kleinman, 2003).

Based on arguments above, consumers are, in a sense, purchasing (and frequently discarding) ‘Trojan horses ,’ commodities 1

that, through idealized abstractions (e.g., ‘sexy’) on the surface mask harmful effects from within (Bencze & Carter, 2015). Such harmful effects are, indeed, extensive and growing. As discussed earlier, dramatic wealth concentration is associated with increases in human illnesses and death, such as through food additives (e.g., sugar, salts, fats, preservatives, flavourings/colourings, pesticides, etc.), war and malnutrition. An important way to think of consumerist Trojan horses is through actor-network theory (‘ANT’) (Latour, 2005), which posits that single entities do not exist, but, rather, are composed of elements of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Horse 1

Figure 2: ANT Analysis of GM Salmon.



networks of living, nonliving and symbolic ‘actants’ (entities) to which they are connected. A specific concept in ANT that is helpful with regards to consumerism is punctualization; that is, making a network of relations appear as a single entity (Callon, 1991). As indicated in Figure 2, for example, genetically modified salmon can be seen as wonderful sources of food compared to wild salmon, perhaps distracting customers from possibly-problematic actants — such as “Government Regulation Policies (FDA)” and “sea lice” (which harm fish and attract viruses, leading to great pesticide uses) (Pierce, 2013).

As challenged as humanity has been in recent years by a plethora of personal, social and environmental problems associated with influences of powerful people (e.g., financiers) and groups (e.g., governments) on STEM fields, matters could (acknowledging residual democratic urges, as noted above) get much worse in at least the near future. Like a Trojan horse, having hoodwinked much of the US public regarding his claims to bring increased prosperity to their lives, President Trump and his team of very rich former corporate executives and war heroes (Taibbi, 2017) have taken steps — among many, in various domains — to dramatically further orient various STEM fields (and industries using them) towards for-profit activities that greatly de-emphasize wellbeing for many individuals, societies and environments. Such problematic subterfuge is depicted in Figure 3, indicating how a capitalist coupe in the USA is now manipulating ‘science’ and ‘engineering’ (and technology) in ways prioritizing profit over wellbeing of living and non-living environments (Faturechi & Ivory, 2017; Rushe et al., 2017). Fields of ‘science’ (World —> Sign) may, for example, be muzzled (e.g., prevented from releasing findings incriminating certain commodities) or terminated (through funding cuts), such as was the case in Canada under its former conservative leader (Turner, 2013), and/or scientists may be paid to conduct science (or affix their names to articles written by company scientists) that purposely generates ‘alternative facts’ (findings denying problems with commodities and/or celebrating their merits), as has been the case for science regarding

Figure 3: Disaster Capitalism & STEM Fields.



many commodities in the past (Oreskes & Conway, 2010; Taubes, 2017), and/or fields of science that promise to generate knowledge directly applicable to development of for-profit commodities will be preferentially-funded, as has commonly been the case for decades (Krimsky, 2003; Mirowski, 2011; Ziman, 2000). As a consequence of such changes in knowledge production about the world, it is apparent many potentially harmful industries will be (and now are) supported, including those for: petroleum-based energy systems (e.g., coal and natural gas); weapons of mass destruction (e.g., drones); private schools and (private) health care (e.g., charter schools and health insurance providers); toxic chemicals-laden products (e.g., carcinogens in cleaning products); and, technologies of surveillance (e.g., increased legal corporate access to social media contents). Adverse effects from such industries may include, but may not be limited to, such harms as: more human disease, more war deaths, more species losses, further habitat destruction, less privacy and, apparently linked to all of this, greater rich-poor divides. Perhaps the most dramatic of such effects, while perhaps misleadingly slow and invisible to many people, are harms from STEM fields involved in fossil fuel extraction, processing, transportation, uses and disposal (Klein, 2014; Lynas, 2008; Methmann, 2010). Forzieri et al. (2017), for instance, recently predicted a 50-fold increase in deaths by 2100 in Europe due to climate change. As suggested by Naomi Klein (2017), such harms are likely to escalate to planet-threatening proportions if right-wing populists like Donald Trump succeed in creating a dramatic crisis, such as a war, to justify further states of exception that would give them a license to further implement pro-capitalist policies and practices that often disregard such potential harms.

VISIONS OF ECOJUST STEM EDUCATION

By definition, disaster capitalism functions largely by exploiting citizens’ states of crisis that involve confusion and worry — and that make them particularly susceptible to Trojan horse visions of idealized futures (Klein, 2007). Challenging such systems of doom may seem hopeless, given progress of right-wing populists (as described above). Nevertheless, in No Is Not Enough, Naomi Klein (2017) notes that many social action groups have been enraged, although invigorated, by emergence of right-wing populists — drawing, for example, unprecedented numbers at public rallies in opposition to perceived injustices. This may be explained in terms, particularly in the USA, of ‘surfacing’ of the deep state — in the sense of Trump’s wealth and that of most of his cabinet members (many with ties to companies like Goldman Sachs™ and Exxon Mobil™) and, moreover, their apparently overly aggressive and transparent set of steps to further concentrate wealth into their own hands and that of relatives and friends/associates (Jilani, 2017; Rushe et al., 2017; Taibbi, 2017). Although some private sector members have railed against some of Trump’s more radical stances on cultural matters (e.g., regarding, race and gender), it is as if the deep state ‘iceberg’ has risen, exposing more of itself for public scrutiny.

Although we may have greater awareness of possible harms from emergence of RWP, as Klein (2017) also notes, most successful counter-movements have not just critiqued regimes but also have provided one or more visions of a better possible world. This seems aligned with Kuhn’s (1970) claim that revolutionary change thrives on existence of alternative paradigms (if only emerging ones). Clearly, there are myriad right-wing populist perspectives and practices that could be critiqued and re-visioned. A prominent aspect of this, as argued above, seems to be STEM education — many initiatives of which appear to significantly downplay self-critique and sociopolitical actions for their revision (e.g., Bencze et al., 2018; Gough, 2015; Zeidler, 2016), and which may — as argued above — get much worse in right-wing populist contexts (Figure 3). Although there are, likely, various alternatives to mainstream, neoliberalism-inspired, STEM education programmes, we offer descriptions of two programmes of which we have been part in at least the last dozen years. From our engagement in these programmes, we have published numerous reports in professional outlets (e.g., teacher magazines and blogs) and refereed academic conferences, journals and books. It is our hope that the following short documentaries may inspire and support progressive educators in developing STEM education approaches that may contribute to a better world.

Science & Technology Education Promoting Wellbeing for Individuals, Societies & Environments [STEPWISE] (Larry Bencze) STEPWISE is a curricular and pedagogical framework for organizing science (and/or STEM) teaching and learning to help students develop

expertise, confidence and self-efficacy for self-directing research-informed and negotiated action (RiNA) projects that may overcome harms they perceive in relationships among fields of science and technology (and, likely, engineering and mathematics) and societies and environments (‘STSE’). A very brief overview of such a project is shown in Figure 4. Although a major goal for students’ RiNA projects is for them to design and conduct projects independently from authority figures, which arguably they may do as critical and activist citizens, we have found — in using this framework with teachers, student-teachers, community youth and others — that many or most students benefit from preparatory lessons and



activities mainly led by their teachers. A schema for such preparatory lessons and activities that may prepare students to self-direct RiNA projects is shown in Figure 5. This approach consists of three constructivism-informed ‘phases,’ which can vary in duration, direction, repetition and blending of phases. Broadly, these can be summarized as follows: • Students Reflect: Generally, the teacher provides stimuli

(e.g., pictures of STEM products) to get students to reflect on and express their existing ‘ASK’ (attitudes, skills & knowledge) about STSE relationships, STEM knowledge and actions that may be necessary to address problems. It has been helpful, for example, to show them various products of STEM fields, such as: hamburgers and French fries, cell phones, drugs, clothing fashions, cosmetics, weapons, etc. Students can say or write about they like and dislike about these, and discuss people and groups who may like (e.g., companies & advertisers) and dislike (e.g., citizen activists, some government representatives) such products. Often, students’ responses to such activities vary considerably — often because of differences in their experiences (e.g., culturally) and basic abilities (e.g., knowledge related to their families’ wealth);

• Teacher Teaches: To avoid difficulties with inquiry (discovery) learning, the teacher provides lessons and activities to help students to learn very important ASK (relating to STSE and RiNA projects) that may be helpful to them. Using a general framework depicting various possible relationships among fields of science and technology and societies and environments, the teacher may teach students about how governments often allow food companies to add sugars/sweeteners, salts, fats, chemical colourings, flavours and preservatives to foods and that research suggests such additives are linked to human illnesses, like heart disease, diabetes and cancer. The teacher also could show them a video that describes how other students researched food industry problems and developed and carried-out a campaign to educate citizens about possible harms from manufactured foods. We suggest such teaching should mainly be led by the teacher, mainly because some students may struggle with learning such ASK through their own inquiries due to above-mentioned problems like family poverty and cultural and language differences; and,

• Students Practise: To deepen students’ expertise, confidence and motivation for them, students are asked to develop and implement RiNA projects (e.g., like that in Figure 4) to address harms they determine in STSE relationships — obtaining help from the teacher, as needed and/or requested by them. Typically, the teacher will encourage small groups of students to choose an STSE issue/problem to explore and then ask them to complete a RiNA project to address it — providing them with deadlines for separate parts (e.g., issue/problem; research methods; actions) and help as requested by students. At the end of one such cycle of lessons and activities, the teachers may ask students to reflect again on their conceptions of STSE

relationships and RiNA projects. The teacher may then decide either to provide at least one more 3-phase cycle of lessons and activities or, if students seem ready, to self-direct (“SD/OE”) RiNA projects.

Once the teacher believes that most (if not all) the students have expertise, confidence and self-efficacy to self-direct RiNA projects to overcome harms they perceive in STSE relationships, the teacher should then ask students to develop, conduct and report on such projects. Typically, this means that the teacher will provide students with a formal assignment — often with a broad description of projects, deadlines for

Figure 4: ANT Sample Student-led RiNA Project.



smaller parts of them (e.g., topics, methods, results, actions, etc.) and an assessment/evaluation scheme. Also, as a culminating event, teachers can ask students to give presentations about their projects in public fora (e.g., an STSE-Action Fair).

To learn more about approaches outlined in Figure 5, refer to the STEPWISE website at: www.stepwiser.ca. The detailed summary article about STEPWISE at goo.gl/OT8Ygk also may help.

Since 2006, teachers and other educators have used the framework in Figure 5 (or variations of it) to develop and implement lessons and student activities in school science, in after-school science clubs, and in science teacher education. In most cases of such uses, qualitative data (e.g., samples of teacher lessons and completed student activities) have been collected and analyzed — using constant comparative methods based on constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) — to develop categories and themes that may help understand the nature of student projects and factors influencing students’ expertise, confidence and self-efficacy for such critical and activist science education. In many of these cases, students have been able to develop and implement interesting and effective RiNA projects. Evidence for this claim is provided in different publications, including in an issue of the journal JASTE (goo.gl/N00b3s) edited by a teacher and featuring RiNA reports written by students and an edited book (Bencze, 2017 [goo.gl/q98JRv]) featuring teachers’ reports of CASE pedagogy and student projects and academics’ analyses of CASE (i.e., ‘STEPWISE,’ its former name) frameworks.

‘Science literacy,’ a common goal in science education throughout the world, is a contested construct — often varying according to ideological perspectives of dominant individuals/groups in communities. Accordingly, perhaps a broad version of this would be prudent — such as that provided by Hodson (2003), who suggested science students should:

Figure 5: STEPWISE Pedagogical Schema.



• Learning Science and Technology: acquiring and developing conceptual and theoretical knowledge in science and technology, and gaining familiarity with a range of technologies.

• Learning About Science and Technology: developing an understanding of the nature and methods of science and technology, an awareness of the complex interactions among science, technology, society and environment, and a sensitivity to the personal, social and ethical implications of particular technologies.

• Doing Science and Technology: engaging in and developing expertise in science inquiry and problem solving; developing confidence and competence in tackling a wide range of ‘real world’ technological tasks.

• Engaging in Sociopolitical Action: acquiring the capacity and commitment to take appropriate, responsible and effective action on matters of social, economic, environmental and moral-ethical concern (p. 658). Over the decade or so of our work with educators in various contexts — as illustrated, for example, in reports of teachers, graduate

students and me in our recent edited book (Bencze, 2017) — it seems that we can confidently say that many students experiencing lessons and activities based on the schema in Figure 5 have developed significant achievements in each of the four learning domains noted above (Hodson, 2003). Our research also suggests, very broadly, that students’ abilities to achieve such outcomes depends on myriad factors, as would be predicted by actor-network theory (ANT) (Latour, 2005) — which suggests that any one entity (e.g., a teacher) is in dynamic tension with many other living, non-living and symbolic entities. The summary in Figure 6 provides brief descriptions of many (but certainly not all) pedagogical practices that our research suggests may promote effective projects.

In light of ANT, pedagogical factors like those in Figure 6 likely would, however, be insufficient for effective RiNA projects. Such factors are only part of the ‘story.’ Although ANT does not encourage discussion of single entities/factors, from our studies of many educators over

Figure 6: CASE Pedagogical Perspectives & Practices.



numerous years, some prominent other factors — many beyond of a pedagogical nature — that appeared particularly helpful in promoting students’ projects include: an official curriculum mandate for education in STSE relationships, student-led science inquiries and citizen actions; the teacher’s knowledge of and support for Naturalist-Antirealist (vs. Rationalist-Realist) positions on Loving’s (1991) Scientific Theory Profile ; 2

administrators’ (e.g., principal, department head, etc.) support for, at least, teacher innovation and reflective practice; students’ ages, abilities and experiences (e.g., with RiNA); and, supports from an action research facilitator (a role often played by graduate students and me).

Science Education Guided by Social and Ecojustice Principles: A Story of Professional Collaboration (Lyn Carter) I can find no better example of alternatives to corporatised STEM education than to narrate approaches my wonderful colleagues have

adopted in their preparation of preservice science teachers. Over the past two decades, the women with whom I have shared my professional journey, Drs. Caroline Smith, Mellita Jones, Jenny Martin and Carolina Castano Rodriquez have made a formidable science education team at the Melbourne and Ballarat campuses of the Australian Catholic University (ACU). ACU is a unique multi-campus public university across five states and territories in Australia. On the Melbourne and Ballarat campuses (hereafter ACU Vic, as both these campuses are located in the state of Victoria), we have worked with sociocultural and political conceptualisations of science education, rather than the mastery of reductive science knowledge and skills commonly associated with narrow STEM education schemes. Despite pressures of curriculum and standards frameworks of various types mandated or otherwise, ACU’s Mission Statement has enabled a conceptual space to embrace fundamental questions about human experience and meaning. We have adapted the statement’s focus on ‘enhancing the dignity and wellbeing of people and communities, especially those most marginalised or disadvantaged’ and ‘to be guided by social and eco justice principles’ in developing our teaching and researching projects.

My story begins with Caroline Smith, a science and education for sustainability (EfS) preservice teacher educator, a classroom science teacher in multiple national contexts, an author of scholarly and other manuscripts, an organic farmer, permaculturalist and committed environmental activist (Smith 2007; Smith & Dawborn, 2011). Caroline was instrumental in establishing ACU Vic’s science education direction in the early 2000s, as her diverse interests provided her with unique insights into how best to foster ecological literacies that are essential for life in the 21st century. At that time, my own scholarship was concerned with the impact on science education of radical social and epistemological injustices consequent upon 21st Century globalisation. Focusing principally on educational policy and curriculum studies, and utilising a methodology of critical philosophical inquiry and other textual analyses, I examined ways in which postcolonialism, indigenous knowledge and ecological sustainability could act as counter discourses to globalisation and resource new approaches to teaching and learning in science (Carter, 2005, 2008, 2010). As colleagues for more than a decade and a half, our work coalesced into a shared vision that believed science education should not only work towards a deeper understanding of our planetary systems, but also towards the explicit goals of creating a more just, equitable and sustainable world (Carter & Smith, 2003).

During the early and mid-2000s, Caroline, Mellita, and I implemented student units (courses) whose organising framework drew from literatures of science studies, cultural diversity and sustainability science to depict development of science as cultural stories reiterating themes of recognition, difference and localism. In a departure from what would be regarded as typical science content, our major core unit began by exploring cosmologies from various cultures to show that human societies have always tried to understand and shape their world; sciences and technologies are as old as humanity, and that there are as many sciences as there are contexts/cultures. Western science could thus be understood as a particular form of localised ethnoscience, shaped by and reproductive of, political, economic cultural and social forces of the times. Through its epistemological robustness, reliability and usefulness, Western science was shown to have transcended its immediate determinants, eclipsing other ways of knowing and ensuring its universal acceptance as the powerful way of understanding our world. Reviewing precepts of energy and matter conceptually and within their historical context as necessary precursors for potent technologies of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, our unit explored how Western science has been responsible for much human flourishing. But enmeshed as it is in the global capitalist progress paradigm, Western science was also shown to have been co-productive of hegemonic interests resulting in much ecological devastation and many forms of imperialism. This ‘warts and all’ approach to teaching about science at the same time as developing its concepts and skills was our attempt at working within politics of the practical (see Carter, 2008).

Caroline’s departure from ACU in 2010, coupled with growth in the university, enabled new colleagues in Carolina Castano Rodriquez and Jenny Martin to continue the evolution of our sociocultural agenda, despite increasing popularity of STEM in Australia and overseas. Carolina’s

The STP is a square grid, with two axes each intersecting at right angles at the other’s mid-point. Its horizontal axis spans a continuum ranging from 2

Rationalist through Naturalist positions regarding the nature of theory negotiation in the sciences. Rationalists tend to believe in highly systematic methods of science, including logical judgements about theory. Naturalists, by contrast, assume the conduct of science is highly situational and idiosyncratic, depending on factors including psychological, social, cultural and political influences. The vertical axis depicts a continuum reflecting the truth value of knowledge, from Realist through Antirealist positions. Realists believe that science knowledge corresponds to reality, while (extreme) Antirealists claim that each person’s constructions are valid. Moderate Antirealists believe in useful knowledge.



experience in South America using empathy with animals as a way of mitigating violence within disadvantaged communities brought a new perspective to our work (Castano, 2008, 2012). A committed environmentalist and outdoor educator, Jenny’s interest in student agency and a unique methodological approach from discursive psychology (Martin, 2016), along with Mellita’s strength in reflective pedagogies (Jones, 2014; Jones & Ryan, 2014), added further insights. Our newly minted team was just as like-minded in its desire for science education to promote eco-social justice rather than corporatised/neoliberal agendas. Our collective scholarship somehow seemed to coalesce around an interest in facilitating sociopolitical activism, both our own and that of our preservice teachers.

While Jenny (with a little help from me) continued her investigation of student agency (Carter & Martin, 2017; Martin & Carter, 2015), Carolina, Mellita and I worked with transformative learning theory (TL), attractive for its focus on promoting action. First described by Jack Mezirow in the late 1970s, TL argues that critical reflection and emancipatory education practices (which was perhaps where our earlier emphases lay), are necessary but not sufficient conditions for transformation. Individuals must experience their own conflict/disorienting dilemmas /triggering event to make the learning transform into action (Cranton, 2006). Accordingly, we developed and implemented an elective unit for preservice teachers to explore whether TL could become pedagogical for socio-political activism within science education (Carter, Castano & Jones, 2014, 2016). Challenged with the proposition that ‘any sort of egg/chicken consumption contributes to animal cruelty,’ designed to create the required disorientation or conflict, our results showed that preservice teachers’ reflections on what supported their assumptions were critical to generating awareness of their own choices and actions.

Our efforts, of course, continue and are, as always, a work in progress. More recently under Carolina’s leadership, we have begun exploring ethics of care (EoC) as an approach to science education jointly developed by Carol Gillian (1982), Nel Noddings (1992) and other feminist scholars. EoC furthers our focus on action, as it shifts the moral/ethical question from ‘what is just?’ to ‘how to respond,’ while it works to enhance positive relations and recognition of affective needs. We have already completed a small EoC in science project at an outer suburban Melbourne primary school with low socio-economic students typically with first generation migrant and refugee backgrounds (Castano & Martin, 2015; Carter, Castano Rodriguez & Martin, 2019). With a focus on development of collective practices and participants’ personal senses of science education, we found invention and construction of new tools and patterns of practice philosophically grounded in an EoC. Our team is also busy implementing EoC in teaching our preservice science education units. Who has time for STEM?

Of course, the preceding documentaries, arising from our respective life/work experiences cannot and, likely, should not be perfectly aligned with each other. Nevertheless, in our reflections on these documentaries (and other aspects of our work), it seems to us that our perspectives and practices are congruent with ecojustice education — which, as its name may imply, are sets of orientations and approaches that strive for increased social justice and environmental sustainability (Martusewicz, Edmundson & Lupinacci, 2015; Mueller & Tippins, 2012, 2015). Although there are various interpretations of ecojustice education, the work of Lowenstein, Marusewicz and Voelker (2010) seem helpful. Drawing on claims by Bowers (1997), industrialized societies have long been affected by several root metaphors — words and other signifiers (e.g., indigenous people as savages) that, often subliminally, guide society members’ thoughts and actions. Subliminal characteristics of distribution of such assumptions seems aligned with Foucauldian (2008) biopolitics — influences on populations’ subjectivities that often travel through various discourse practices. In this case, Lowenstein, Marusewicz and Voelker (2010) suggested modern industrialized societies often are characterized by discourses like the following: • Anthropocentrism: the belief that humans are superior to everything else on earth and have unchecked dominion over it; • Ethnocentrism: belief that some “races” or cultures are morally or intellectually superior to others and therefore hold the

right to exploit and oppress the “lesser” ethnicities; • Androcentrism: the belief that men [are] superior to women; • Consumerism: the idea that consuming material objects will create fulfillment and success and therefore is a major purpose

for living; • Commodification: the “market value” of things determines their worth (turning living things into property that can be bought

and sold); • Individualism: human self-centeredness to the point of detriment to the com munity fostered by the belief that competition is

a natural human characteristic; • Mechanism: belief that the earth and all living beings are working as pieces of a machines; • Scientism: reason and rationalization as the one true and superior way of knowing and therefore disregarding all indigenous

knowledge that is thousands of years old; • Progress: belief that “change is linear and good” and that progress requires tossing out the old and bringing in the new (p.

102).



We suggest that discourses antithetical to those above (and others) may serve at least as starting points for development of forms of education involving STEM (and, perhaps, other) fields that prioritize social justice and environmental sustainability. Given focus in our mini-documentaries above on eco-centrism, for instance, it seems clear the two of us have been providing educational experiences that oppose anthropocentrism (along with other general ideologies above). An example of this is drawn from the STEPWISE project outlined above is illustrated in Figure 7. In analyzing certain commodities, colognes in this case, students developed alternatives to them that they believed not only functioned (e.g., as a cologne) but also attempted to promote wellbeing of (other) individuals, societies and environments (‘WISE’).

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Although the two ecojust pedagogical situations summarized here may serve as alternatives to hyper-capitalist STEM education initiatives, perhaps supported by the depth and widely-disseminated nature of our work, we also have concluded that — on a larger scale — such counter-hegemonic educational situations are relatively rare. As stated above, extreme capitalists seem to be winning the ‘war’ against those who would prioritize social and environmental justice in and through (science) education. Having admitted to challenges (if not ‘defeat’), realization of ecojust outcomes in the two documentaries reported here offer hope for a more just and ecologically sustainable world. As Naomi Klein (2017) said, they — essentially — offer visions of a better possible world. Nevertheless, we are left wondering how such approaches may infiltrate into mainstream educational perspectives

Figure 7: Students’ WISE Technology Design Project.



and practices. Given their successes, however, perhaps tactics used by neoliberal capitalists offer insights into a mechanism for mobilization of more ecojust science (and others) education. In this vein of thought, Evans (2012) has suggested that such mobilization may be possible if ecojustice actors systematically work to rally many and diverse living, non-living and symbolic (semiotic) actants in ways that an ecojust dispositif (Foucault, 2008) emerges/develops. Indeed, as illustrated in Figure 8, a small-scale version of such a counter-hegemonic dispositif seemed to emerge in the case of citizens’ efforts to eliminate (what they determined to be) toxic dust (containing many heavy metals, such as lead and cobalt) dispersal from the local port onto their neighbourhood (Bencze & Pouliot, 2017). Although the local ‘development’ dispositif (which seems to promote growth of port activities, regardless of possible environmental hazards) seemed quite powerful, reductions in dust dispersal that did occur in this context offers some hope for those wanting a more ecojust world.

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STEM Education Right-wing Populist Politicsbenczela/Bencze... · STEM Education in Right-wing Populist Contexts !2 of !19 INTRODUCTION In science education, as in societies