Dimick - 2012 - Student Empowerment in An Environmental Science Classroom - Toward A Framework For Social Justice Science Education

Science
Education
Student Empowerment in an
Environmental Science Classroom:
Toward a Framework for Social
Justice Science Education
ALEXANDRA SCHINDEL DIMICK

Department of Learning and Instruction, Graduate School of Education, University at
Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA
Received 16 September 2011; accepted 22 June 2012

DOI 10.1002/sce.21035
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
ABSTRACT: Social justice education is undertheorized in science education. Given the

wide range of goals and purposes proposed within both social justice education and social
justice science education scholarship, these fields require reconciliation. In this paper,
I suggest a student empowerment framework for conceptualizing teaching and learning
social justice science education in classroom settings. I utilize this framework to analyze
the case study of a high school environmental science classroom in the United States where
the teacher and students created environmental action projects that were relevant to their
community. I examine how social, political, and academic empowerment were or were not
enacted within the classroom and argue for educators to give heed to all three simultaneously
to mediate student empowerment while working toward social justice science education.
!
C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 1 – 23, 2012
[The students] are feeling empowered to change something that affects them and they’re not
depending on other people to make the change. They’re the ones who are being affected;
they’re the ones that are trying to make the change.
Jack Carson, science teacher
Correspondence to: Alexandra Schindel Dimick; e-mail: aedimick@buffalo.edu
!
C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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INTRODUCTION
Social justice education is undertheorized in science education. Social justice educators
contend that schooling contributes to creating an unjust society and highlight the need
for educators to work toward social change by addressing a broad range of educational
inequities (Apple, Au, & Gandin, 2009; Nieto & Bode, 2008). Research to promote social
justice has addressed everything from teachers to students to the curriculum (see, e.g.,
Ayers, Hunt, & Quinn, 1998; Chubbock & Zembylas, 2008; Cochran-Smith, 2004; Cribb
& Gewirtz, 2005; Gutstein, 2003, 2006, 2007). Realizing the goals of social justice science
education1 is no less complex, as a variety of challenges—such as access and opportunity
for all students in science, helping students develop critical assessments of science, and
creating opportunities for students’ personal and social transformation and action—all need
to be met (Calabrese Barton & Upadhyay, 2010). Yet, the varied scope of research in these
areas makes it difficult for science educators to translate the goals of social justice science
education into classroom practice. Given this, there is a need to clarify the essential elements
of social justice education in the context of science education. In this paper, I argue that the
idea of student empowerment can provide a powerful framework for linking social justice
and science education scholarship while also providing a new perspective on teaching and
learning science.
An important tenet of social justice education is that students become “empowered”
when provided with opportunities to engage in learning that aims to rectify social injustices
(Chubbuck & Zembylas, 2008; Nieto & Bode, 2008; Shor, 1992; Upadhyay, 2010). Yet,
what it means for students to achieve the goal of empowerment has seldom been clearly
described. In this paper, I show that student empowerment can be understood in at least three
different senses—social, political, and academic. This analysis of the concept of student
empowerment bears some similarity to that of McQuillan (2005), but unlike McQuillan’s
focus on democratic education and school-wide governance, my framework centers on
social justice education and emphasizes classroom structures and processes.
This paper proceeds in the following manner: After characterizing the field of social
justice science education, I describe a theoretical framework for student empowerment. I
then use this framework to present a microlevel analysis of a high school environmental
science classroom in the United States where the teacher and students engaged in shared
curricular decision making to create environmental action projects relevant to their com-
munity. In particular, when the science teacher I worked with in my research made the
statement presented in the epigraph, it led to me to consider how empowerment was or was
not enacted within his classroom. This paper addresses the following questions: How does
student empowerment align with teaching and learning social justice science education?,
In what ways do students experience empowerment within the classroom?, and How does
the teacher facilitate experiences of empowerment for his students?
This analysis demonstrates the complexity of social, political, and academic empower-
ment within a classroom. My analysis finds that when students participated in the curriculum
design of projects that were relevant to their community, they thought of themselves as po-
litical actors who could influence their communities. Yet, high levels of student engagement
and participation, while fulfilling elements of social and political empowerment, failed to
achieve the promise of academic empowerment when both the teacher and students had
an unclear focus on science and how it could be used within the projects. Furthermore, I
1
I use the term “social justice science education” throughout the paper in an attempt to refer to this as
a field as opposed to a goal or action. For example, social justice in/as/for science education, socially just
science education, and science education for social justice each seem to imply specific purposes.
Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

STUDENT EMPOWERMENT IN SCIENCE CLASSROOM 3
suggest that the three dimensions of empowerment discussed here are intimately related
and educators must give heed to all three simultaneously to mediate student empowerment
for social justice in science education.
While the data within this article derive from an environmental science classroom, this
framework for student empowerment can be applied across many disciplines within and
beyond science education. However, environmental science has been described as moving
toward an “empowerment approach to issues [that] promotes frames for students’ in-depth
investigations of environmental issues—those they have had a hand in identifying them-
selves, that they have reason to be concerned about, and which are actionable” (Brieting,
2009, p. 205). Accordingly, the nature of the field of environmental science education
makes it a particularly ripe area for examining students’ social, political, and academic
empowerment in classroom practices.
BACKGROUND IN SOCIAL JUSTICE SCIENCE EDUCATION

Although no single conception of social justice education exists, various features of
it have been characterized. At the core of social justice education is a recognition that
society often operates unjustly through institutions and power relationships that promote
or reinforce (and some may argue thrive upon) different forms of social inequalities, such
as race, class, income, or gender inequalities.
Various models or frameworks have been proposed for social justice education (see, e.g.,
Cochran-Smith, 2004; Gutstein, 2006; Lynch & Baker, 2005; North, 2009). Within these
frameworks and other social justice education scholarship, a variety of goals and purposes
are frequently highlighted. I identify the following three characteristics and discuss them in
relation to science education below: issues of equity, social justice curricula and pedagogy,
and socially just interrelations.
Issues of Equity
Social justice seeks to address and redress “issues of equity, power relations, and insti-
tutionalized oppression” (Goodman, 2001, p. 4) by actively working to change the systems
and structures that cause and maintain injustices (Gutstein, 2006; Lynch & Baker, 2005;
North, 2009). Science educators recognize that issues of equity within their field include
creating more equitable access and opportunity for students, particularly among students
from communities that have been marginalized from participating in science education
and pursuing science careers (Calabrese Barton & Upadhyay, 2010). Analyses of power
relations in science education have revealed the ways in which traditionally marginalized
students make meanings about science, negotiate spaces for legitimacy, or cross borders
within science classrooms to find ways to succeed (e.g., Aikenhead, 1996; Aikenhead &
Jegede, 1999; Calabrese Barton, Tan, & Rivet, 2008; Moje et al., 2004; Tan & Calabrese
Barton, 2010). Some researchers have looked for ways to support student engagement with
science by examining the various ways and contexts within which students use and identify
with science in low-income, urban communities (see, e.g., Basu & Calabrese Barton, 2007;
Calabrese Barton, 2003; O’Neill, 2010; Tan & Calabrese Barton, 2010; Upadhyay, 2010).
Social Justice Curricula and Pedagogy

Social justice educators draw on curricula that are both academically rigorous and contain
counterhegemonic and empowering content and pedagogies (Gutstein, 2006; North, 2009).
Given this, pedagogies that support active learning and draw upon students’ prior knowledge
and resources are frequently stressed for students, who learn to critically assess curricula
4 DIMICK
and take actions to transform both their personal and public environments (Chubbock &
Zembylas, 2008; Cochran-Smith, 2004; Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008). As an example,
Seiler and Gonsalves (2010) draw from the work of Freire and Shor to suggest “liberatory”
science pedagogies that create spaces in classrooms for students to put forth their own
themes for learning science. Science educators have also used a social justice lens to
view curricular content, such as by raising students’ awareness about environmental and
sociopolitical issues in science through the use of critical, place-based pedagogies (Buxton,
2010) and by building connections to students’ lived experiences (e.g., Bigelow, 2009;
Hodson, 2003; Pelo, 2009; Stone, 2009). Science educators also suggest critically assessing
the role and authority of science and scientists in the lives of students and their communities
(Cross & Price, 2002; Hogan & Craven, 2008; Love, 2008).
Socially Just Interrelations

Beyond just striving for higher academic achievement, social justice educators also
highlight the need to build antioppressive interpersonal relationships between students and
teachers as well as among students (Antrop-González & De Jesús, 2006; Lynch & Baker,
2005; North, 2008; Valenzuela, 1999). It is significant to bring attention to the relational
aspects of working toward social justice in science education in particular, since these
aspects are too often overlooked and underrepresented in both science classroom practice
and academic scholarship. Yet, social relations are perhaps the most fundamental level from
which social justice may be built and students may begin to engage with science learning
(e.g., Emdin, 2011). Emdin (2007), for example, suggests pedagogic practices, such as
“co-gens” and “student-led co-teaching,” that help ameliorate feelings of alienation from
peers, teachers, and science for urban youth.
In addition to these characteristics, it is important to draw attention to the question of au-
dience. In which classroom settings is social justice education most appropriate? Although
students from less advantaged backgrounds are typically viewed as the primary audience
for and social studies as the typical school-based discipline where social justice might be
addressed, this portrayal unnecessarily limits the scope and possibilities of this field. Social
justice education occurs and is needed in classrooms within various disciplines and with
students from racially and economically diverse backgrounds (Chubbuck & Zembylas,
2008).
The three characteristics described above provide a conceptual understanding of vari-
ous classroom-oriented purposes and practices in the field of social justice education. Yet,
despite ongoing research, various gaps remain when applying these characteristics of at-
tributes in science education. For instance, there are relatively few examples of attempts to
teach with social justice–oriented pedagogies or curricula within science education school
settings. Moreover, science educators continue to question the science classroom–based
purposes and practices for teaching and learning social justice science education. Finally,
there are no examples within the science education literature that bring together all of
the aforementioned characteristics of social justice education within a science classroom
setting. This raises a series of questions in need of pursuing: How can various goals within
social justice science education be reconciled? How can one teach with a social justice
perspective in science education?, and, perhaps most fundamentally, what are the teaching
and learning experiences of the participants involved in a classroom pursuing social justice
science education? In the paper that follows, I attempt to resolve some, but not all, of these
questions by proposing a theoretical framework and using it to analyze a case study of a
science classroom in which a primary intended goal was teaching and learning science for
social justice.
STUDENT EMPOWERMENT
Student empowerment is frequently equated with increased student participation in the
learning process. Although researchers have provided examples of pedagogical approaches
to “empowering education” that aims to rectify social injustices (Gutstein, 2007; Shor,
1992; Upadhyay, 2009), little research has focused specifically on what students learn, do,
and experience within such education.
The framework presented below distinguishes between three dimensions of student
empowerment, which I label social, political, and academic empowerment. Each dimension
is necessary for students to be challenged academically while also preparing them for the
responsibilities of citizenship2 and the creation of a more just society. Distinguishing
between these categories of student empowerment provides a useful way of synthesizing
the disparate aspects of social justice education in the literature, while at the same time
deepening our understanding of them. Finally, although social, political, and academic
dimensions of empowerment mutually constitute one another in practice, separating them
analytically provides an opportunity for exploring the complexities involved in establishing
and maintaining classroom structures that support each dimension.
Before describing this student empowerment framework, I must address an important
criticism of the term. Perhaps the most significant critique of empowerment is the sug-
gestion that, as found in even the very etymology of term (where “em” means “to give”),
empowerment implies one person giving power to another (Fielding, 1996). This appears
to subject the practice and concept of empowerment to an irresolvable tension—namely
that if power can be given only by another, then such a practice can only reinforce rela-
tions of domination and subordination, which are exactly what this pedagogical tradition
claims to overcome. Furthermore, not addressing or even realizing this tension suggests a
lack of self-reflection and willful ignorance about educational contexts. Gore summarizes
this paradox by questioning, “how do we help others feel empowered when we have to
rely on our authority and privilege to do so, which sets us in a specifically contradictory
position?” (as quoted in Fielding, 1996, p. 409). While this tension may seem irresolv-
able, making this problem a central feature of teaching and researching empowerment in
social justice education may actually lead to a stronger rather than weaker understanding
of it. Teacher–student relationships, as they are currently enacted in most U.S. schools,
are hierarchical. So much so, in fact, that it sometimes limits our abilities to conceive of
possibilities for achieving social justice in and through education. Yet precisely because
teachers and researchers occupy such relationships, they provide a constant occasion for
conscious reflection upon, as well as pervasive opportunities for directly addressing, and
perhaps challenging and changing, relationships of power.
Social Empowerment
Social empowerment refers to classroom social relationships and interactions between
teachers and students and among students that are safe, supportive, nondiscriminatory,
2
My use of the term “citizenship” here is not without significant reservations. Citizenship in the United
States is a fiercely embattled political issue that pits people and their legalized statuses against one another
as though in competition for limited resources, such as education and health care. Some problematically
suggest that undocumented persons threaten the preservation of American culture and way of life. I
wholeheartedly reject such arguments and contend that human rights (including education) must extend to
all persons regardless of their legal status within a country. Thus it is with reservation that I use the term
citizenship in this paper to engage in the dialogue created by McQuillan (2005) and others in environmental
education scholarship (e.g., Reid, Jensen, Nikel, & Simovska, 2008), who use it to signify educational
outcomes for students who engage in social and political processes.

6 DIMICK
and antioppressive (Antrop-González & De Jesús, 2006; McQuillan, 2005; North, 2008).
Facilitating social empowerment requires ongoing examinations of the power dynamics
occurring between members of the classroom as well as the ways in which pedagogic
practices influence social interactions. For example, the use of democratic deliberation
in classrooms (Gutmann, 1990) and the practice of teaching students the skills and tools
needed to work effectively and to build nondiscriminatory relationships within groups both
contribute to student social empowerment.
Because unequal power relations exist between teachers and students, it is necessary to
explore the kinds of relationships that contribute to social empowerment for students in
schools. Drawing on the work of Ladson-Billings, McQuillan (2005) suggests that initiating
school policies and structures, such as student counsel, influences students’ opportunities to
care about and support one another. Some scholars argue that students require a supportive
and safe social and emotional environment to achieve their full academic potential (Lynch
& Baker, 2005; North, 2009; Valenzuela, 1999). Students will, for instance, experience
academic achievement more readily when their cultural and linguistic assets are valued
within schools (Valenzuela, 1999). In its most ideal sense, when teachers develop respect-
ful relationships built on trust and sharing in real responsibilities in the classroom, “students
see and feel teachers treating them with respect and, in turn, leave their classrooms with
a paradigm of compassionate human relationships” (North, 2009, p. 107). Moreover, the
particular racial, class, sociopolitical, and historical contexts of the school and its commu-
nity may influence the ways in which caring relationships are practiced (Antrop-González
& De Jesús, 2006).
Political Empowerment
Political empowerment is defined as students’ recognition and intentional, critical ex-
amination of the structures and forces that establish and maintain power inequities within
the sphere of political participation. This includes “having students enact power and influ-
ence, either formal or informal” (McQuillan, 2005, p. 642) within and outside of schools.
Perhaps the most frequent usage of the phrase “student empowerment” in social justice
education scholarship is a call for political empowerment, where students learn to “work
for a more socially just society themselves” (Chubbock & Zembylas, 2008, p. 284). In
addition, student participation must be accompanied by critical reflections on students’
access to and degree of participation (Bühler, 2002; Reid, Jensen, Nikel, & Simovska,
2008).
There are several examples of political empowerment. Within schools, political em-
powerment is associated with school-wide governing or classroom structures. Classroom
political empowerment can be informal, such as when students have space to voice their
opinions and needs within the classroom, or formal, which occurs when students take part in
decision making for classroom structures, pedagogy, and curriculum design (e.g., Schultz,
2008). A formal shift in curricular decision making brings about political empowerment,
because it demonstrates that educators recognize the curriculum is not neutral and “that
knowledge is socially constructed, that it is produced and disseminated by people who have
particular values, interests, and biases” (p. 15).
Political empowerment over curricular material provides students with first-hand ex-
perience with the real responsibilities associated with having control and influence over
one’s own learning. Such control opens up space for shared authority with the class-
room and school (Oyler & Becker, 1997). Along with this responsibility comes trust.
While adults must entrust students with real responsibilities and trust that they will

accomplish them, students must be able to trust that their political power is real
(McQuillan, 2005).
Political empowerment can also take place outside the classroom, and environmental
educators have engaged in critical explorations of such forms of student participation.
Indeed, the field of environmental education is generally concerned with finding human
behavioral solutions and (less often) causes to environmental problems that transcend the
school and sometimes even the community (Posch, 1993). This concern often identifies,
if not always explicitly, an underlying connection between individual or collective human
behaviors and real environmental problems. With this emphasis, political empowerment
moves beyond a focus on knowledge and attitudes about the environment and toward a
more active engagement with environmental problems (Breiting, 2009). When participation
extends outside a school’s walls, it can provide students with first-hand experience in civic
processes and help them understand the ways that youth can (or perhaps cannot) influence
political structures.
Academic Empowerment
Academic empowerment within social justice education requires that students be taught
competitive academic knowledge and skills so they can succeed in today’s educational,
social, and economic structures, while also being taught to think critically about the ways
these structures affect their lives (Gutstein, 2003; North, 2009). Students who are academi-
cally empowered have the knowledge and abilities to participate in school competently and,
as Cummins argues, to “develop the ability, confidence, and motivation to succeed academ-
ically” (as cited in McQuillan, 2005, p. 642). In addition, academically empowered students
examine power inequities through critical analyses of the science being learned and of the
relationships of power between science, society, and the students (Freire & Macedo, 1987;
McQuillan, 2005; Shor, 1992). Critical analyses of science can also lead to “curriculum
integration,” which loosens the bonds and structures of disciplines of knowledge (Beane,
1995). Schultz (2008) contends that an integrated curriculum more adequately prepares
students for daily life and “improve[s] the skills of children in the disciplines of knowledge
as well as in critical thinking, social, and problem-solving skills that can be leveraged and
transferred for ensuing purposes” (p. 137).
Teaching for academic empowerment in this way is without question a contentious
topic—no less so in science than in other subjects. Science educators realize that for many
people school science is their primary mode of learning what it means to learn and do
science, and thus the outcomes of school science reflect particular forms of a scientifically
literate citizenry. Should school science teach students to read and understand the scien-
tific content in major newspapers and to support scientists through legislation for federal
funding, or should they be taught that science is a source of power in society and how this
power can be accessed? Roth and Désaultels (2002) suggest that “instead of making the
focus on the teaching and learning of disciplinary knowledge, the empowerment of citizens
to become critical social actors is now conceived as the goal towards which we should
strive” (p. 4). Yet, some question whether the interdisciplinary content of such teaching is
better left to studies of politics, sociology, or economics (Jenkins, 2006). Of course, any
examination of academic empowerment must take content-specific goals into considera-
tion. For the purposes of this article, I simply want to note this complexity and suggest
that social justice educators should strive to find the most appropriate balance between
these sometimes competing objectives of learning disciplinary knowledge and skills and
using scientific knowledge to act as social actors in private or public scientific decision
making.
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STUDY METHODS
The data in this paper derive from a qualitative case study (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003) of an
environmental science class in an urban public charter3 high school located on the East Coast
of the United States conducted between September 2009 and January 2010. The broader
study from which this paper draws sought to inquire into the possibilities and tensions in
social justice science education by seeking to understand the ways in which participants
co-constructed meanings of teaching and learning science for social justice. One goal was
to discover the perspectives and voices of all the actors involved in the classroom. The
environmental science class consisted of a middle-class White, male teacher, Mr. Carson,4
who was in his fifth year of teaching, and approximately 24 African American or Black
American5 students in primarily 11th and 12th grades. Of these students, nine participated
in my research.
The nine participating students included five girls and four boys. Each of the students
declared ambitious life goals, such as becoming a chef, business owner, and artist. Aside
from one girl who wanted either to become a psychologist or to own a bakery, none of the
students intended to pursue science-related careers at the time of this study. Each noted
a particular desire to attend college, and each student chose to attend this charter school
because of its highly regarded academic reputation and ability to garner 100% college
acceptance rate for its graduates.6 The students’ desire to attend college was particularly
emphasized by one student, Vanessa, who recognized the value that her teachers’ cultural
capital (Valenzuela, 1999) played in securing her own access to college when she stated,
“a lot of the teachers have like connections, so like for the college process, they can help
you out.”
In many respects, the nine participating students in this study were representative of
their class as a whole in terms of social and academic skills: They ranged from having low
to high academic performance in the class, and their social skills and ability to form peer
relationships varied. One student, for example, worked hard but struggled both academically
and socially due to his speech (he frequently added syllables and did not enunciate words).
Students came from varied backgrounds (e.g., low and middle income households, single
and dual parent households, and households headed by grandparents or other adults), and
issues that are common among students in low-income urban areas were concerns for the
students in this study as well. Participating students expressed dismay at what they saw as
police apathy and mentioned people selling drugs in their community. One of the students
missed a few weeks of school when her brother was killed. Yet, in some respects, the
students were not representative of low-income urban school students. In the city where
this research took place, charter schools have had a significant influence upon the public
school system with well more than 30% of public school students attending charters. Thus,
any research taking place in this district will be shaped by students’ and parents’ choices
and by the schools’ practices within this system. Because students in this study chose to
3
Working in a charter school presented me with participants who either choose or had adults in their
lives who choose for them to attend this particular school. This skewed my data as compared with a similar
makeup of students in urban high schools, because school choice tends to self-select for parents with higher
levels of education and parents who are more proactive in their student’s schools. Of note, nearly one third
of all students in this city attend charter schools.
4
All teacher and student names in this paper are pseudonyms.
5
The students identify as both African American and Black American. Many students in the class
identify with multiple cultures and histories, including African American, Filipino, Haitian, Dominican,
West Indian, and Puerto Rican, to name a few.
6
Note the high college acceptance rate is for graduates rather than seniors, and the school does not offer
data on the percentage of entering seniors who graduate from the school.

attend their charter school and chose it based upon academic prestige, it is possible that
they were more likely to be motivated to graduate from high school and enter college than
a random sampling of their peers within their school district. As one example of this, aside
from the exception noted previously, all of the students in my study had consistent, high
attendance records.
I collected data from multiple sources to triangulate my research findings. I acted as a
participant observer in the class for 2–3 days each week for one semester—the class met
every other day on a block schedule, so I attended nearly every class during the semester.
In addition, I examined the curricular texts chosen by the teacher and conducted pre- and
postinterviews and ongoing discussions with the teacher and, separately, a focus group
with students throughout the semester. Biweekly focused discussions with the teacher
explored how he put his understanding of teaching science for social justice into practice,
the complexities revealed by various experiences within the classroom, and constraints
or positive influences related to his curricular and pedagogic choices as he put different
aspects of social justice in science into practice. Part of my work with the teacher also
involved sharing relevant findings throughout the research process so that they might
influence his understanding of his students and his classroom, and offering ideas and
support related to teaching science for social justice. I conducted a series of five focus-
group discussions during lunch and after school with student participants in an attempt
to discover and record their voices and understandings of their classroom experiences.
For the focus groups, I examined data from observations and then asked questions based
upon classroom experiences. I also examined students’ written work when applicable to
the research questions.
When I recruited potential participants for this research, I sought out teachers who
self-identified as interested in teaching science for social justice. As a researcher and
former science teacher, I recognized that there were a myriad of ways that teachers put
social justice into practice and tried not to impose my own definitions of social justice on
Mr. Carson’s practice. Nonetheless, I did want to study a classroom where a conception of
social justice seemed to significantly impact the teacher’s curricular and pedagogic choices,7
such as with a critical perspective of the ways sociopolitical issues influence science (see
Bigelow, 2009), and this influenced my choice of teacher. However, I recognize that in
my ongoing conversations with Mr. Carson, my inquiries about his teaching influenced his
praxis—that is, my presence likely influenced both his reflections upon his practice and his
subsequent actions as a teacher. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) describes this act as
both “intervention” and “solidarity” where our research “can disturb the natural rhythms
of social reality and encounter” (p. 11).
In interviews, Mr. Carson expressed a desire to use his position to educate his students
not just on the science content itself, but on the ways students could alleviate some of the
environmental injustices they experienced outside of the classroom. His view of teaching
and learning science for social justice included aspirations for active learning as well
as active participation in advocacy outside the classroom, and his views were similar to
environmental science educators’ concerns about the role of students as future leaders and
decision makers regarding environmental sustainability (Breiting, 2009). These concerns
connected his ideas to those of critical educators who support student advocacy about issues
of injustice.
As described in this article, Mr. Carson engaged his students in an experiential learning
activity on the Green River, one of the most polluted rivers in the United States, which he
7
Social justice concepts influenced the lives of other teachers I interviewed, but they could not describe
if or how it impacted their teaching and did not identify as a social justice educator.

10 DIMICK
hoped would raise student consciousness about the environmental problems and, by exten-
sion, social injustices they experienced living near the river. Throughout the school year,
Mr. Carson also tried to help the students develop critical literacy in science by demon-
strating the complicated nature of environmental justice (examining how environmental
pollutants disproportionately affect people of color and poor communities) and cultivating
feelings of connectedness to the students’ environment and food through storytelling and
experiential activities (see also Pelo, 2009; Stone, 2009).
Mr. Carson’s environmental science class was an elective course and the only one of
its kind in the school, two points that he stated provided him with significant curricular
autonomy. Furthermore, the school’s administration provided him with significant financial
support first to design the environmental science course and later to carry out costly field
trips and experiments, such as those described below.
I must also note here a limitation in my role as researcher. During most class periods,
I situated myself at the boundaries of the class to take fieldnotes. However, during the
curricular unit described in this paper, the boundaries of the class changed. The class
divided into three working groups that congregated in separate work areas. I attempted to
listen to their conversations and document their progress, but I found it too intrusive to sit
with groups and take notes on their intimate conversations. I either made observations of
the groups and documented from a distance or sat near a group to observe and then recorded
my observations away from the group. This limitation influenced my ability to carry out
detailed descriptions of social dynamics within groups and to analyze within group social
empowerment.
Analysis
In this study, data analysis began at the start of my research because it influenced
the questions I asked of participants in discussions. I wanted to understand the ways
in which participants made sense of their experiences with social justice in science and
focused on issues raised during preliminary reconstruction analysis of the data to be used
as the context to discuss their experiences (Carspecken, 1996). Ongoing discussions and
purposefully selected audio recordings from classroom discussions were transcribed for
analysis, and NVivo (qualitative analysis software) was used to sort and organize the data.
For the purposes of this paper, I analyzed multiple sources, including fieldnotes, student
work, focused discussions with the teacher, and focus groups with students. After using
open coding to assign initial meaning reconstructions to the data, I narrowed my focus
on particular segments of the data for deeper analysis (Carspecken, 1996). Through my
analysis, I began to see tensions between the ways the students discussed their project
generally and the ways they related their project work to their ideas about science.
FIELD TRIP ON THE GREEN RIVER

Green River Academy, the school where Mr. Carson teaches, is located in an extremely
impoverished and racially segregated area of a large city and lies within a mile of the Green
River. Recognizing the significance of the Green River to the students and the community,
Mr. Carson wanted the students to experience the river’s pollution, beauty, and potential
firsthand by canoeing 4 miles along the river and then studying the causes and effects of
the pollution. When the class began studying the Green River, it was late October. The
students had not yet had a test or quiz as a traditional evaluative assessment in the class,
and they often had some measures of freedom to choose their own partners or groups for
daily activities or projects.
Arriving at a local park with a boat launch where they would embark on their canoe trip,
the students were met with a particularly filthy sight. One of the primary pollutants in the
Green River is soil runoff, causing the water to appear murky brown in color limiting depth
visibility. A thick layer of foamy bubbles coated the surface of the water near the dock, along
with a dense layer of garbage, including styrofoam pieces, plastic bottles, candy wrappers,
balls, and a pumpkin. Perhaps because it was tangible and noticeable, the garbage left a
stronger impression on students than any other pollutant, and many students talked about
the garbage in subsequent classes. Two guides from a local advocacy organization that
works on the river provided canoes and led the class on the tour. After an introduction from
the guides, students loaded into eight canoes near the dock and spent the day paddling. The
group stopped at a few locations along the river where the guides explained different aspects
about the Green River’s pollutants, ecology, and restoration projects. Mr. Carson collected
water samples from a few different locations using plastic bottles he found floating on the
surface. The samples were used a few days later in class for water quality experiments.
During the first half of the canoe trip, the tide was receding carrying with it the excessive
amounts of garbage from the river. On the return trip back up the river to the park, the tide
had turned and students observed distinctively less garbage littering the water. The garbage
had been carried out to a larger river, and in a few miles it would be emptied into the
ocean.
CO-CREATING RIVER ACTION PROJECTS

In dialogues I had with Mr. Carson at the beginning of the unit, he expressed a strong
interest in creating a student-centered curriculum. This interest came through in the ways
the curriculum developed after the river trip. In the two class periods following the trip,
the class learned about the primary causes of the Green River’s pollution and tested the
water samples collected. Mr. Carson’s goal was to engage students in a project in which
they would demonstrate their knowledge about the river’s pollution. On a few different
occasions, he engaged the students in discussions, asking about their reactions to what they
saw, and what to do about it. Many students responded enthusiastically that they wanted to
take immediate action, as exemplified by De’Kendrea, who stated, “like once a week, we
should just do something.”
On the third class period following the river field trip, the class took a surprising turn.
Mr. Carson had planned to ask the students to take notes about river quality and pollutants
in order for students to learn more before discussing projects. The students, however, were
particularly energetic this day, and Mr. Carson decided midlesson to utilize their energy
by facilitating a discussion about things the class could do to help the river. Although the
students came up with the project ideas, as shown below, it is also important to note that
Mr. Carson’s role significantly shaped the purpose of the projects. He did this by stating
explicitly in class on two occasions that the purpose of the unit was to use science to educate
other people about the river. Notably, educating others was a point Mr. Carson highlighted
as one of the ways he viewed teaching and learning science for social justice.
Thus, when Mr. Carson asked the class what they should do about the river, students
offered the following suggestions: sign a petition, call the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, make a public service announcement, get a boat to clean the river, make a music
video, plant trees to slow soil runoff, organize a river cleanup, stop littering, clean the
watershed, and clean up algae. Students then voted and narrowed their ideas to the following
three, which became the river action projects: organize a cleanup, make a music video, and
make a mix tape. With the projects determined in this manner, the purpose of the projects—
to teach others about the polluted river—became solidified.
12 DIMICK
TABLE 1
River Pollution and River Action Projects
Class Period Topic Student Activity
1 Field trip Students canoe on Green River for whole school
day
1 Green River Note taking on Green River pollutants: nutrient,
pollutants toxic, sediment, thermal, and trash pollution
1.5 River water quality Chemical experiments on river quality: dissolved
experiments oxygen, acidity, alkalinity, hardness, and CO2 .
Raw number data discussed in class but
disconnected from understanding of how
numbers affect river quality
0.5 Create river action River action project brainstormed and voted upon
project ideas by students
2 River quality and Students read packets on the following topics: acid
pollution rain, plant nutrients, water for people/dams.
Students summarize on poster papers then take
notes on each other’s posters
5 River action Students work in groups to plan and carry out
project work projects
3 Societal influence Multiple activities: waterfront activity; indicators of
on rivers and creek health activity; causes and effects of trash
oceans in ocean
Note. Numbers in first column represent numbers of class periods devoted to each topic.
Classes were taught in block scheduling; each class period lasted approximately 90 minutes.
After students brainstormed ideas for their projects, Mr. Carson spent two class periods
teaching students about river and water pollution and then devoted five class periods to the
students’ projects. The primary assessment of whether students had learned the intended
content was to be demonstrated through their river action projects. However, Mr. Carson did
not enforce the requirement to incorporate the scientific information they gathered through
note taking and water quality testing into their projects. More specific details about the
class periods in this unit are described in Table 1.
On project days, class started with an activity used to scaffold student learning about
particular aspects of the projects. For example, Mr. Carson wanted the students to use
scientific evidence to support arguments in their song lyrics. After Mr. Carson and I
discussed Lee’s (2006) use of cultural data sets to parallel specific modes of reasoning, he
brought in two hip-hop songs (by Mos Def and Talib Kweli) for the students to listen to,
read, and critically analyze using evidence from the lyrics and their experiences in their
arguments. On other days, Mr. Carson talked about the groups’ goals and problem-solved
ways to accomplish them. He provided them with handouts to help them structure their
work and guided each group on a daily basis. Throughout the project, student participation
was high and students expressed strong interest in their projects. Unfortunately, through a
variety of circumstances, none of the groups completed their projects. These issues will be
examined in the ensuing analysis of empowerment.
ANALYZING EMPOWERMENT
Given this background, I will now analyze the river projects in terms of how they
achieved, or failed to achieve the three elements of empowerment described in the theory
section of the paper.
Social Empowerment
One aspect of social empowerment includes the classroom occurrences that influence
whether all students’ voices are heard and valued justly in the classroom. Analyzing student
participation provides a context for examining how the students’ ideas and voices were
expressed and valued. When the projects were created, students had opportunities to voice
their opinions and suggestions in several class periods. Mr. Carson primarily used discussion
techniques to elicit student responses. For example, he walked to different areas of the
room, initiated quiet side conversations with students, and called on students by name to
encourage participation from many students. Yet my fieldnotes reveal that the students who
were typically more vocal in the classroom were also the most vocal during this process. In
this instance, students’ speech making became the only legitimate form of participation that
contributed ideas for the river action projects. While this was problematic, requiring students
to speak more in class cannot rectify it, as this “could ratify speech as the privileged form
of human communication” (Li, 2004, p. 70). As Li contends, although silencing within the
classroom can often be viewed as oppressive and reflective of power differentials, requiring
speech, or “silencing silence” (p. 70), can also be problematic. For example, “silenced
people’s reclaiming of their voices often relies upon their mastery of the dominant groups’
languages” (p. 80). In classrooms such as the one in this study, where not all students had
mastered the language of their White, middle-class teacher, discomfort with the language
or with the dialogic structure could play a role in maintaining silences among students.
This points to the significance of reflecting on classroom dialogue structures by examining
who talks and gets heard as well as on the various pedagogic structures that can be used to
elicit both verbal and nonverbal participation.
Attention to whether all students’ voices are valued in just ways must also be examined
within group work. While students worked on their projects, the ways their voices and ideas
were valued was contingent upon group dynamics. A closer look at the cleanup organizing
and music video groups highlights this point. The cleanup organizing group had the most
struggles in making decisions and cooperating as a group. The four girls and four boys in
this group attempted to organize the cleanup to occur a few months later by seeking approval
from school administrators, seeking guidance from the organization that led the field trip,
and creating posters to advertise the cleanup at school. However, the group struggled with
their goals for the cleanup (e.g., clean the water while in boats or clean along the riverbank),
the date and time (e.g., during school or after), what they should provide during the cleanup
(e.g., snacks, supplies, transportation, educational pamphlet), who to invite and how many
(e.g., students from their school and/or other schools, people in the community), and which
students would accomplish which tasks. Although this group worked continuously, they did
not work effectively together and their discussions were occasionally marred by personality
conflicts. In addition, the magnitude of organizing a cleanup was more complicated than
the other river action projects and demanded specific tools and social skills. Social action
projects, such as organizing a river cleanup, must intentionally teach the organizational,
leadership, and intrapersonal tools and skills needed for social activism and organizing
(Epstein & Oyler, 2008).
Overall, this group’s struggles suggest they lacked the skills to facilitate discussion or a
clear structure for deliberating about the significant decisions for their project. They were
unable to move to subsequent action steps without clear goals. Rather than creating their own
cleanup, this group participated in another organization’s cleanup a few months later. Their
experience suggests more attention needs to be placed on facilitating social empowerment
throughout group work by teaching equitable deliberation skills and techniques (Gutmann,
1990) and attempting to participate in “domination-free discussions” (Parker, 2006, p. 16),

14 DIMICK
such as by utilizing Parker’s three stances: humility, caution, and reciprocity. Following
deliberation, youth may also need assistance to deal with the emotional consequences that
can occur when participating in projects that represent a negotiated vision.
A second instance of the way group dynamics influenced student voice came from the
music video group. In this case, comments made by members of the group demonstrated
that they did not always value each other’s contributions. For example, when one student
who was normally silent during class spoke up within her group, her peer offered this praise:
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you talk in class!” Yet two girls in this group critiqued
their peer, Denzel, during a focus group. Referring to the rap Denzel created for the music
video, Vanessa contended, “Like our group, they shouldn’t rap. They can’t. So, that’s what
I think. If you can’t do it, don’t do it.” Although there were instances of peer-to-peer
support seen within this group, the girls’ criticism of Denzel’s work suggests their group
did not fully establish caring or supportive relationships for one another. Yet supportive
peer relationships must be achieved for social empowerment to flourish, as they can disrupt
the norm of competitive individualism so pervasive in schooling practices. Ladson-Billings
(1994) argues that developing supportive relationships helps students “to care, not only
about their own achievement but also about their classmates’ achievement” (p. 69).
One final example illustrates another limitation in the attempt to create equitable social
interactions and achieve social empowerment. After students selected projects, Mr. Carson
showed the class a short video about the river and other scientific issues made by students
from a neighboring high school and asked the students to analyze how effectively science
was used in the video. In the first few minutes of the video, many students in class poked fun
at the hair, clothing, accents, and grammar of students in the video. Students’ comments
became so distracting that Mr. Carson stopped the video and told the class to note that
other people would be critical of their work too. Although Mr. Carson heard comments
about the video’s science content from the front of the room, I heard comments that were
critical of people and not academic content from the back of the room. I wrote, “What type
of criticism is appropriate?” in my fieldnotes. The students in the video attended a high
school in the same neighborhood as the students in Mr. Carson’s class and appeared to be
from similar racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. With this incident, students
expressed the harshest criticism I witnessed while at the school toward their neighbors,
which suggests that efforts can be made to address justice concerns within communities,
and not just across communities of difference (Brickhouse & Kittleson, 2006).
Still, it is important to recognize that teachers contend with multiple competing goals
in their classrooms as they balance macroforces such as national and local policies that
often push them to focus on narrowly defined academic competencies. While macroforces
influence teachers’ capacity to see the building of socially just relations as necessary or
worthy of attention, public discourses simultaneously influence educators’ beliefs about
what is possible and doable (Barrett, 2008). Working toward a more just society requires
attention to both the microsocial interactions between people—whether they share the same
classroom space or communities—and the macroinstitutional structures and discourses that
maintain inequities.
Political Empowerment
Examining the formal and informal ways students’ enacted power within their work
on the river action projects demonstrates the depth of their experiences with political
empowerment. One aspect of political empowerment can be seen in the ways students
formally influenced important school structures within the classroom by sharing authority
with their teacher when they created the river action projects. Mr. Carson felt positively
about the students’ role in curricular decision making, stating: “I think it’s so much more
valuable to have . . . that struggle with the kids where they have the freedom, they’re making
bad decisions or good decisions, but either way they’re learning from them.” He contrasted
this with teacher-directed learning and suggested that shared curricular decision making
for the projects and student choice for project groups gave students a sense of ownership
over what occurred during the projects. A member of the cleanup group corroborated this
when she grew frustrated with her group during this project. She voiced in class that she
should have chosen a different group, which demonstrated a level of personal ownership
over her decision.
However, when the students did not complete their projects within the five class periods
they were given or by a set due date, Mr. Carson felt discouraged and questioned whether he
would let students help design projects in the future. Furthermore, he expressed a feeling of
vulnerability and noted the project was “more emotionally difficult” than any other project
or unit he worked on with this class. Although he felt he was ultimately responsible for the
incomplete projects, he added, “I’m also expecting them to sort of step up and, you know,
deliver. Um so it’s been, it’s been frustrating.” Thus, there were emotional consequences
for Mr. Carson when, after providing space in his class for student-driven curricular design,
he felt the students did not take their projects seriously enough to complete them.
No single event in the classroom can be blamed for the students’ unfinished projects.
However, Oyler and Becker’s (1997) analysis of classroom authority illuminates one pos-
sible explanation. Prior to engaging in the river action projects, Mr. Carson’s class had a
more traditional authority structure in which he directed the class and student input was
small. The river action projects altered that structure by creating more shared authority,
which can be difficult to navigate. Recognizing the potential pitfalls of this shift, Oyler
and Becker describe the struggle for educators to define and embody a “different place”
“between the authoritarian concept of the hard place of traditional teaching. . . and the ab-
dication of authority inherent in the soft place of progressive teaching” (p. 453). To move
beyond this dichotomy, they suggest creating a shared authoritative space that involves the
teacher acting as a co-contributor in organizing and understanding the overarching structure
of knowledge, skills, and tasks, and student–teacher collaboration on evaluative criteria.
Drawing attention to the importance of power in the shared space, they note,
In this way we do not seek to “empower” our students by denying ourselves the power
that we achieve through our own knowledge. Instead, we seek to reveal its problems, to
make explicit the limitations we see, and to invite our students to show us limitations we
had not yet considered. It is when we consider this sharing that we as teachers can feel our
own silenced emotional involvements, our own vulnerability. . . . What is involved in the
encounter defining the different place is a shared authority and a shared vulnerability for
teacher and students together. (p. 456)
Although Mr. Carson shared authority with students in creating the river action projects,
he struggled to enact a shared authority while the projects were underway. After the initial
project creation, Mr. Carson became the guide on the side and fell into the familiar role of
the “soft place,” characterized by temporarily relinquishing authority, in which he guided
students’ daily process on projects without engaging as a colearner and without frequent
and much-needed ongoing assessments of their academic learning and project progression.
This struggle limited the possibilities for political empowerment for students and limited
their ability to complete their projects. In addition, finding the balance of authoritative
structure was made more complex in Mr. Carson’s class because authority shifted from one
unit of study to the next and this made navigating authority difficult for all participants.
16 DIMICK
Another aspect of political empowerment can be seen in the ways students anticipated and
described their roles as participants in their community. For instance, political empowerment
was demonstrated when the students in my focus group portrayed their participation in the
projects as a means to effect change in political processes outside the classroom. Yet while
they saw themselves as capable of influencing their community, their statements suggest
different ideological conceptions of political participation.
For example, Erika, a member of the cleanup group, thought the projects’ potential to
engage a wider community was beneficial. She stated,
By doing this project, we can do somewhat of a outreach and really get other people involved
and everything. Making you knowledgeable about what’s going on with the environment
and the things they can do to improve it. . . ‘cause it’s not only you being aware of what’s
going on with the river. You let other people be aware through music, through video, through
planning and organizing to clean up for people to get involved.
She went on to suggest the students’ work could serve as seed projects, influencing other
community members to start their own projects. Erika also addressed the limitation of a
one-time cleanup in relation to the political context in which a new sewer system8 is needed
to stop the overflow of raw sewage into the river during rainfall. She contended,
Because the water, regardless if you do—if you clean up the river, you could clean it up a
thousand times, but it’s still going to be dirty because the whole sewer backed up when it
rains. The rain’s not gonna stop, so irregardless of what we do, we could clean up the river
forty times a year, but it’s still gonna be dirty, so focus on something that you could change
or work to change.
Here Erika argued that their efforts would be better focused on root causes, such as building
public support for a new sewer system.
Taking a different view, Sean believed that participating in the river cleanup could impact
participants to be more environmentally responsible. He stated,
I mean, well, the activity, the actual partaking in cleaning up the river—it actually teaches
you compassion, because you just cleaned up a whole lot of people’s trash. So next time
you think about throwing something on the ground, throwing something in the river, you
probably going to think about it and you gonna think back to how you felt when you had
to clean up everybody’s trash.
Sean focused on trash pollution and suggested the key to resolving this problem is changing
individuals’ behaviors.
Erika and Sean’s ideas differ significantly, yet their ideas show similar features to scholar-
ship on environmental and citizenship education. As Westheimer and Kahne (2004) discuss,
citizenship education programs in schools foster differing conceptions of what it means to
be a “good” citizen and the kinds of civic participation that go along with it. Programs that
foster the “personally responsible citizen” might engage students in volunteer activities to
engender compassion and teach “personal responsibility by emphasizing honesty, integrity,
self-discipline, and hard work” (p. 241). In contrast, the “participatory-citizen” programs,
which emphasize understanding how to utilize and act within governing structures, seeks
to produce individuals who “actively participate in the civic affairs and social life of the
8
Sewer overflow is released into the watershed when rain falls more than 0.1 inches in some areas of
the city.

community at the local, state, and national level” and will “plan and participate in organized
efforts to care for people in need” (pp. 241–242). Finally, the justice-oriented citizen shares
a concern for the community and focuses on “root causes of problems” by “critically ana-
lyzing and addressing social issues and injustices” (p. 242). Whereas Erika contemplated
the root causes of pollution and the influence of civic participation, Sean wanted to give
the community an experience that would change their habits. Similar to the personally
responsible citizen, Sean’s statements about participation suggest a highly individualized
approach to dealing with civic responsibilities. Conversely, Erika’s statements aligned more
with the participatory and justice-oriented citizens when she suggested collective modes of
participation and offered a critical analysis of structural problems.
Placing the students’ understanding in the sociopolitical context of citizenship education
demonstrates the importance of learning what students think about civic participation, as this
helps educators and students critically reflect on the ways their efforts work toward a more
just society. Sean’s emphasis on behavioral change mirrors that of environmental educators
who seek a healthy environment by raising awareness about environmental issues and
by promoting environmentally friendly consumer practices, such as using energy-efficient
products and eating local and organic foods (Breiting, 2009). However, as Westheimer and
Kahne (2004) discuss, civic education for personal responsibility may be inadequate to
achieve the collective and public action needed to address the gravity of our environmental
problems. This example clearly demonstrates why social justice science education must
combine both critical assessment and participatory action to pursue political empowerment
for students. Indeed, as Erika and Sean’s comments powerfully demonstrate that enacting
a student-created curriculum does not necessarily lead to an understanding of political
participation that adequately addresses the concerns of social justice. Instead, differing
conceptions about participation influence the ways students’ negotiate their roles in social
environments—as environmental educators and activists or as independent social actors or
as students who think of themselves as doers of science—and taking up identities such
as these will influence students’ future roles and participation in environmental and other
political causes. It is not enough for students to participate in creating the curriculum; they
must also be encouraged to think critically about how to participate in the world around
them.
Academic Empowerment
One facet of academic empowerment can be realized in creating integrated curricula that
draw upon students’ knowledge and skills as assets in a learning community. The students’
engagement in the river action projects drew upon their “funds of knowledge” (Gonzalez,
Moll, & Amanti, 2005) by accessing skills and interests (e.g., producing songs or video) not
commonly associated with school success. Mr. Carson thought it was beneficial for students
to “see how those two worlds meld. . . . That you don’t just do stuff in the classroom and
that stays in the classroom. You can actually use that in the real world.” Research suggests
that when students’ funds of knowledge are valued in the science classroom, students
are positioned to participate more readily (Tan & Calabrese Barton, 2010). One student’s
participation during this project is particularly noteworthy. Denzel, a member of the music
video group, had put his head down on his desk and slept for lengthy periods of time during
the weeks preceding this project. However, once the project started, he became deeply
engaged and worked consistently during nearly every class period during the project. He
created the lyrics for a song, practiced, and recorded it. At the end of the school year,
Mr. Carson noted that this was the only assignment Denzel completed all year. Denzel’s
participation drastically improved with the project, which correlates with other research
18 DIMICK
that suggests urban minority youth develop sustained interest in science when it draws
upon their funds of knowledge (Basu & Calabrese Barton, 2007). Finally, the integrated
curriculum also helped students develop deeper understandings of their world (Beane,
1995). For instance, in a focus-group discussion, students engaged in a thoughtful debate
about the effectiveness of their projects by questioning whether listening to hip-hop music
(produced by the mix tape and music video groups) or participating in a river cleanup would
have greater impact. In this discussion, students “acquire[d] knowledge by both studying
external sources and engaging in complex activities that require[d] them to construct their
own knowledge” (Apple & Beane, 2007, p. 17).
Another facet of academic empowerment involves developing the school-based compe-
tencies needed for academic success. In this case, the river projects did require specialized
knowledge and skills needed to integrate science into the projects as well as those needed
to complete the complicated tasks of video and music production and organizing a cleanup.
However, although Mr. Carson tried to build structure into the groups’ work by providing
individual project-task completion charts, he did not scaffold scientific concepts or make
specific requirements for the integration of science knowledge and skills in the projects. The
lack of visible science content in the projects and the inability to complete some projects
are evidence of this shortcoming. Mr. Carson was frustrated with both of these results. He
stated at the start of the unit that he anticipated a lot of science content and later lamented:
“Actually there’s not a lot of content; it was just a lot of them sort of working together
to achieve this project. A little bit of content, but not as much as I want.” He offered the
following explanation for this:
I didn’t set them [up], I didn’t give them the information I think they probably needed to
be engaged with it. Like I don’t think they ever really knew what was so bad about CO2
being in the water and what the affects of that were and they didn’t really know like how
much CO2 was bad and how much CO2 was good and so there wasn’t enough frame. . . I
didn’t set up a framework for them to sort of use that science information to make sense or
sort out the problems in the river and come up with solutions.
Referring to the water quality experiments, in which CO2 and other factors were tested
from river samples, Mr. Carson suggested that the students’ understanding of the ef-
fects of these factors on river pollution was too limited to be applied in the projects
due to the lack of a “framework.” Students learned science content about river pollu-
tion in a teacher-directed, or “banking” (Freire, 2000), method of instruction yet were
then asked to utilize science in their projects with loosely guided instruction, a form
of instruction that some contend results in less effectual learning (Kirschner, Sweller,
& Clark, 2006). Because the projects’ successes hinged on the development of particu-
lar skills, students needed structured support to scaffold their inquiries. Such “scaffold-
ing” is characteristic of problem-based and inquiry learning where extensive guidance
supports students’ learning across complex domains (Hmelo-Silver, Duncan, & Chinn,
2007).
Students also voiced a critique of their learning as not being academically empowering
within their understanding of the discipline of science. After Mr. Carson showed the class
a science video made by students at a nearby high school, he elicited comments about the
use of science in the video. One student commented that the students in the video were not
“doing science.” I reintroduced this comment in my focus group by asking the student who
had made the comment and others their opinions on this. I then asked the group whether
they thought they were “doing science” with their projects. In this discussion, five of the
seven students present stated that they were not doing science in their projects. The other
two did not comment. The projects, they contended, helped the environment but did not
study it or experiment upon it. Sean elaborated,
But it’s still to me not science, because, yes, it’s environmental science, but we just doin’
stuff to help the environment. We’re not like necessarily studying the environment or, um, I
guess looking at the environment under a microscope or deconstructing the different types
of things of the environment.
Sean distinguished between helping and studying the environment and, in so doing, cri-
tiqued their work by suggesting that merely “helping” would not add to their scientific
understanding.
Erika, who was particularly reflective in this conversation, sought to engage in environ-
mental problem solving by using science. She elaborated upon this understanding when
she explained,
Cleaning the river is not necessarily experimenting; it’s like an experience. You know what
I’m sayin’? Basically they need to call it Informational Science, because that’s what it
feel like, like we just givin’ people information and we’re not doin’ nothin’ about it, or
we’re not experimenting. Because we know the river’s dirty, but what good is it. . . Like
[Sean] said, we could test the water, we can, you know form hypotheses, experiment with
different things, take different temperatures and do stuff for the environment to know what
the average degree to have is, and what’s, you know, is normal.
When she stated, “we’re not doin’ nothin’ about it, or we’re not experimenting,” she
suggested that the most authentic way to help the environment was by using scientific
experimentation. Interestingly, although Erika drew on a positivist view that science creates
new knowledge through experimentation, she did not ask for a reductive form of science.
Her critique seems to suggest that students can use the high-status knowledge and skills
found in scientific experimentation to add to her own and others’ existing knowledge by, in
her words, “doing something” rather than “nothin’ about it.”
The students’ critique of their work as not “doing science” is a reminder of the com-
plicated nature of social justice in science education. Neither the students nor the teacher
intended to sidestep science in these projects. Yet, the purpose of the projects—to teach
others about the polluted river—became more about building public support to restore the
river than on investigating the science of river pollution. Nevertheless, the lack of science
in the projects cannot be seen as mere resistance to doing them, because students shared in
curricular decision making and were very active participants throughout the project work.
Furthermore, the lack of science should not be taken as a demonstration of the “failure”
of social justice science education. Rather, if anything, the students’ critique in the focus
group provided a space for them to reflect on and make meanings about their projects
and demonstrates the need for reflective dialogue about the intentions, understandings, and
further possibilities that arise in learning processes.
In their critique, the students “shed the passive role of knowledge consumers and assume
the active role of ‘meaning makers”’ (Apple & Beane, 2007, p. 17). They voice this
critique from a position that has been facilitated by their participation as cocreators of
the curriculum. Situating knowledge in relation to power, Gaventa and Cornwall (2001)
contend,
Knowledge, as much as any resource, determines definitions of what is conceived as

important, as possible, for and by whom. Through access to knowledge, and participation
20 DIMICK
in its production, use and dissemination, actors can affect the boundaries and indeed the
conceptualization of the possible. . . . [A]gency in the process of knowledge production, or
co-production with others, can broaden these boundaries enormously. (p. 72)
Placing the students’ critique within this perspective on knowledge, I argue that the students’
awareness about their work was heightened by their role as participants in the production
of the projects. When students reflected on their work, the “boundaries” of what they
thought possible for their projects broadened into deeper understandings of what they
could accomplish by doing and using science. That is, their recognition of the “lack of
science” in their projects showed them just how much more was possible in their projects.
CONCLUSION
In this paper, I have sought to bring student and teacher experiences to the front of
a discussion about the complexities involved in enacting student empowerment in an
environmental science classroom. My hope in writing this is to learn from both the successes
and struggles this analysis draws attention to. Empowerment is not a fixed process, but
working toward it as a goal of social justice teaching and learning in science intentionally
directs much-needed attention to power relations within science education. This includes
social and political relations among actors within and outside the classroom as well as the
relationship to knowledge engendered in science learning.
Social, political, and academic empowerment “can be mutually reinforcing” (McQuillan,
2005, p. 664), and this analysis suggests they may also be codependent. For example,
students in Mr. Carson’s class participated readily and reacted positively to the opportunity
to work on projects when they took on participatory roles in creating them, which is an
aspect of political empowerment. Yet this proved insufficient in balance with academic and
social struggles that interfered with project completion, such as shortfalls in deliberation
skills (for the cleanup group) and scaffolding for academic knowledge and skills.
This analysis suggests the need for ongoing group reflections about social justice-oriented
classroom experiences and for teachers and researchers to listen to students’ assessments
of their work. When group reflections are done with the intention of reducing power differ-
entials between participants, they can open up meaningful spaces for students and teachers
to explore authoritative structures and relationships, seek curricular alternatives, create
new knowledge and understanding about both scientific content and student participation,
and collectively pursue next steps. Such critical dialogues and reflections open spaces for
teachers and students to “reassess their assumptions and reform their values and knowledge
about each other as agents in a raced, classed, and gendered world” (Calabrese Barton,
1997, p. 161).
Science acts as a gate-keeping subject, and access to science skills can lead to higher
status knowledge and socioeconomic success (Dance, 2002; Delpit, 1986). When students,
whose communities—urban Black American and African American—have traditionally
been marginalized from science in school, higher education, and employment, contest their
science projects as more “Green Club” than science class, we must take seriously their
critique. It would not be socially just to deny them access to the knowledge and skills
they need in science to succeed. As Gutstein (2006) argues, educators must simultaneously
teach students “the various competencies needed to function appropriately within a given
society” (p. 5) (and a given disciplinary field) and the ability to critically examine the
knowledge they learn by examining whose interests are served as well as the sociopolit-
ical, economic, or cultural-historical contexts in which they occur. Erika’s critique offers
up a potential perspective for moving forward: to use science as a tool to investigate the
environment. Coupling scientific investigations with social action projects may provide
spaces for students to experience academic empowerment alongside political empower-
ment.
This project can serve as an example of a growing body of research that tries to imagine
what teaching and learning for social justice embodies in science education (see also
Buxton, 2010; Calabrese Barton, 2003; Emdin, 2011; Pelo, 2009; Tan & Calabrese Barton,
2010; Upadhyay, 2010). Continued research is needed to simultaneously investigate the
practices of teachers engaged in teaching science for social justice and the experiences and
understandings of students who learn and participate in these settings.
The author would like to thank Jack Carson and his students for their energetic and willing participation
in this research, and the following people for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article: Michael
Apple, Wayne Au, Matthew Dimick, Connie North, members of the Friday and Science Education
Seminars, and the anonymous reviewers of Science Education.
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ALEXANDRA SCHINDEL DIMICK

Received 16 September 2011; accepted 22 June 2012

ABSTRACT: Social justice education is undertheorized in science education. Given the

Correspondence to: Alexandra Schindel Dimick; e-mail: aedimick@buffalo.edu

Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

BACKGROUND IN SOCIAL JUSTICE SCIENCE EDUCATION

Social Justice Curricula and Pedagogy

Socially Just Interrelations

Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

FIELD TRIP ON THE GREEN RIVER

CO-CREATING RIVER ACTION PROJECTS

Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

Knowledge, as much as any resource, determines definitions of what is conceived as

Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

Science Education, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–23 (2012)

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