Today I received a NARST list email from Angela Calabrese Barton (acb@msu.edu) & Bhaskar Upadhyay (upadh006@umn.edu) requesting research papers for submission for an issue of Equity & Excellence in Education on the theme teaching and learning science for social justice.  Requests are due by November 1, 2008.

I thought what be interesting to readers on this weblog for me to identify the kinds of questions that the co-editors of this special issue deem important.  Here they are:

• What does it mean to teach science for social justice, specifically in settings that serve racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse populations?
• What does it mean to attain social justice through school science?
• How might school science prepare students for social justice beyond the science classrooms?
• What issues are critical for educators, teachers, parents, and students in teaching and learning of science for social justice?
• What are the processes and challenges involved in building socially just teaching and learning environments?
• In our classrooms, how do we incorporate social, political, economical, institutional, and cultural dimensions?

The editors also are looking for research that centers on one of the following perspectives:

• Classroom-based research (classroom practice, teachers and teaching, students, and learning) in K-12 classrooms and in higher education
• Community-based research (research on science education and community settings, after school programs, and parents and families)
• Science teacher education research (research on the preparation of teachers to teach science in diverse settings)

If you have seen a copy of our book, The Art of Teaching Science, you will find that Mike Dias and I have integrated issues of social justice in our thinking of science teaching.  Throughout the book, but in particular, Chapter 2: Science for All.  The issues implicit in either the “science for all” slogan, or the notion of social justice are fundamental to science teaching, and should be at the heart of science education reform.  In the last post, I referenced the rural education research of Steve Oliver, of the University of Georgia.  Social justice is not limited to urban education, but includes vast rural areas as well.