As editors of the Innovations in Science Teacher Education journal, we stand united with the Minneapolis community and with individuals across our nation calling for accountability and justice. We also echo the sentiments of the ASTE presidential team toward the need to disrupt systemic racism, to promote social justice, and to increase our organization’s commitment and focus on equity (https://theaste.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Letter-from-ASTE-Presidential-Team.pdf).
As a community of science teacher educators, we hold a special responsibility to condemn the violence against people of color and other marginalized groups. It is up to all of us to lead, to model civility and respect, and to hold true to our values of equity, diversity and inclusion that support our community to thrive. Together as agents of change, we can help to address systemic/institutional racism by preparing and providing preservice and inservice teachers with opportunities to integrate social justice into the curriculum so that we can collectively help to create a more humane and equitable world.
In support the ASTE’s commitment and focus on equity, we invite and encourage you to share your expertise with our community by submitting manuscripts that provide detailed descriptions of how to address systemic/institutional racism in science teacher education and how to integrate social justice into the curriculum of inservice teacher preparation course or inservice teacher professional development programs. We also encourage members to submit manuscripts that describe resources and tools that they have created and/or used that have been valuable in their efforts to address historical and social inequities in your work as a teacher of science.
As a reference, the following links are articles in the Innovations journal that center on inclusive science teacher education, the preparation of teachers for diverse classrooms, the integration of culturally relevant practices, and the preparation of English language learners:
https://innovations.theaste.org/innovative-inclusive-science-teacher-education/
https://innovations.theaste.org/preparation-of-teachers-of-science-for-english-language-learners/
We look forward to receiving your innovative work on social justice! For more information about how to submit a manuscript to the Innovations in Science Teacher Education journal, please visit our website: https://innovations.theaste.org/about/