Refusing “Back to Normal”:

The Role of Science Education in Enacting More Just and Joyful Futures

Conference Theme: We continue to experience the reverberating and devastatingly uneven effects of a worldwide pandemic as well as its similarly devastating and uneven emotions and affects. In this difficult time, Science Educators for Equity, Diversity and Social Justice (SEEDS) recognize the powerful role that science, science education, and science education research must assume in both re-imagining and enacting practices that lead to more just and joyful futures. As an organization, we are deeply outraged by historic, ongoing, and distinct yet related forms of violence against Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, LGBTQIAA+, disabled, and migrant communities, as well as additional marginalized groups. We are also outraged by the intense suffering across the globe caused by uneven distributions of resources, dignity, and care. It is imperative now, more than ever, that we move immediately and decisively beyond traditional and impoverished frameworks and practices that have served to overly-determine and police, oppress, and narrowly define knowing and doing in science and science education. As such, we stand in solidarity with our global community and refuse any calls for going “back to normal”. In partnership with communities, we seek to interrogate, problematize, and move beyond what has been deemed “normal” in order to dream and boldly live out what else is possible.  Further, we know that teachers, researchers, and community members have more power than they realize to contest and/or do otherwise than what is dictated by these oppressive, received narratives. Accordingly, we welcome proposals that take up the challenge of recognizing this power to move forward with social, personal, and political actions for equity, justice, and joy in our field and in the broader global community.