Integrating Social Justice with Mathematics and Science: An Analysis of Student Teacher Lessons

Source: Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 25, Issue 3, April 2009, Pages 490-499

Student teachers have difficulty planning lessons that fully integrate social justice with mathematics/science content. The study was a content analysis of 26 poster presentations of mathematics or science lessons incorporating social justice issues made by student teachers (20F, 6M) at a mid-sized college in central New York State. The presented lessons applied four pedagogical approaches to integration (data collection followed by graphing analysis; discussion of text/video; modeling; library/internet investigation) and addressed three major social justice themes (diversity, system disparities in human communities, and in stewardship of earth). Deeper content knowledge, faculty lesson modeling/reflection and practice delivering lessons are recommended.