Teacher learning about the integration of energy and equity: A case study

Abstract

Multicultural education invites teachers to support students in critiquing the foundations of a given discipline, with the aim of reimagining that discipline and the purposes it serves. In this paper, we present a series of cases in which high school physics teachers who are enrolled in a summer professional development course expressed vexation as they tried to integrate equity with the physics concept of energy and in which one teacher made significant progress in this integration. These cases serve to illustrate what teacher learning about multicultural education might look like in physics and what resources may support this learning. These cases also point us to some of the ways in which physics as a discipline and schooling as a system make it difficult for teachers to critically examine the canon.

Full text

Teacher learning about the integration of energy and equity: A case study
Amy D. Robertson ,1,* Tr`aHu`ynh ,2,†Clausell Mathis ,3,‡
Lauren C. Bauman ,4,§ and Rachel E. Scherr5,∥
1Department of Physics, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington 98119, USA
2Department of Physics, Western Washington University, Belligham, Washington 98225, USA
3Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48825, USA
4Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98125, USA
5School of STEM, University of Washington, Bothell, Washington, 98011, USA
(Received 4 September 2022; accepted 23 February 2023; published 2 June 2023)
Multicultural education invites teachers to support students in critiquing the foundations of a given
discipline, with the aim of reimagining that discipline and the purposes it serves. In this paper, we present a
series of cases in which high school physics teachers who are enrolled in a summer professional
development course expressed vexation as they tried to integrate equity with the physics concept of energy
and in which one teacher made significant progress in this integration. These cases serve to illustrate what
teacher learning about multicultural education might look like in physics and what resources may support
this learning. These cases also point us to some of the ways in which physics as a discipline and schooling
as a system make it difficult for teachers to critically examine the canon.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.19.010136
I. INTRODUCTION
Critical Race Theory names that white supremacy1is
endemic to all aspects of U.S. society, from the law to
employment to schooling [2–8]. This endemicity means that
structures and institutions reify and uphold white supremacy,
embedding it not only in policies and practices but also in
ideas and values. We observe this in educational settings as
we examine the history of schooling, where enslaved
children were prohibited from schooling; schooling has
been and in many ways continues to be racially segregated;
school resourcing and discipline policies are racialized; and
the school curriculum valorizes and centralizes knowledge
constructed by white European men [9–11].
Critical scholars have responded to the reality and the
permanence of racism in education by developing a
framework for multicultural education, which recenters a
multiplicity of ways of knowing and being in the class-
room, rejecting the notion of (Eurocentric) epistemic
superiority [12,13]. Often misunderstood as limited to
curricular change [13], the framework for multicultural
education (MCE) developed by Banks and colleagues in
fact draws on five dimensions—content integration, knowl-
edge construction, equity pedagogy, prejudice reduction,
and empowering school culture—to recreate school culture
toward more equitable and just teaching. Some of these
dimensions focus on action at the classroom level, others on
the action at the school and departmental levels; both are
needed for change to happen. The goal of MCE is for “all
students—regardless of their gender and social class and
their ethnic, racial, or cultural characteristics—[to] have an
equal opportunity to learn in school,”acknowledging that
schools are “currently structured”to give some students
“better chance[s] to learn”than others. Consistent with
Critical Race Theory, MCE also acknowledges that due to
the permanence of racism, the full vision of MCE can never
be fully attained; MCE is something educators do and
continue doing, not something they accomplish.
Importantly, for this paper, MCE encourages teachers to
support their students in critiquing mainstream academic
knowledge—as Critical Race Theory has done for the
law—by situating knowledge in its historical context, con-
sidering whom mainstream knowledge serves and what
purposes it advances, and dreaming about how academic
*robertsona2@spu.edu, she/her/hers
†huynht29@wwu.edu, she/her/hers
‡mathisc8@msu.edu, he/him/his
§lcbauman@uw.edu, she/her/hers
∥rescherr@uw.edu, she/her/hers
1In contrast to a meaning of white supremacy that focuses on
overt acts of racialized hatred, when we use the term “white
supremacy,”we mean the everyday enactments of “the systematic
maintenance of the dominant position that produces [w]hite
privilege”[1]—the multitude of mechanisms by which whiteness
stays at the center.
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to
the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation,
and DOI.
PHYSICAL REVIEW PHYSICS EDUCATION RESEARCH 19, 010136 (2023)
2469-9896=23=19(1)=010136(19) 010136-1 Published by the American Physical Society

disciplines might be transformed for liberatory purposes.
Our project team is designing a professional development
(PD) experience that aims to support high school physics
teachers in coming to see energy in physics as a sociopoliti-
cally and historically situated concept. Although energy
seems to be among the most purely abstract concepts in
physics, in fact, the concept of energy, like all science
concepts, was constructed at a specific historical time and
place, for the advancement of specific causes [14–17].
Present-day physics energy concepts were shaped primarily
in the Industrial Revolution when Britain was establishing
coal-powered factories to process goods from its global
trading empire, which were brought to England on steam-
ships [18,19]. Thus, physics instruction about energy
emphasizes work, heat, power, and efficiency: those con-
cepts constructed to characterize and improve the engines in
those factories and steamships [19]. These concepts carry not
only the economic values that were prevalent in Britain in the
1800s but also the moral values [17–19]. Efficiency, for
example, was a theological concept, referring to the idea of
maximizing the usefulness (e.g., processing and manufac-
ture) of divinely provided natural resources [18].
The design and aim of our PD draw on elements of
multicultural education to support teachers in developing
“transformative academic knowledge”in the context of
energy, where “transformative academic knowledge”is
defined as understandings that “challenge mainstream aca-
demic knowledge and expand and substantially revise
established canons, paradigms, theories, explanations, and
research methods”[20].InBanks’theory, the development
of transformative academic knowledge is supported by all
five dimensions of MCE; here we highlight three (Fig. 1)that
allow teachers to make local, classroom-level changes to
their instruction:2
•Equity pedagogy “exists when teachers modify their
teaching in ways that will facilitate the academic
achievement of students from diverse racial, cultural,
gender, and social-class groups.”For example, “using
a variety of teaching styles and approaches that are
consistent with the wide range of learning styles
within various cultural and ethnic groups.
•Knowledge construction “relates to the extent to
which teachers help students to understand, inves-
tigate, and determine how the implicit cultural as-
sumptions, frames of reference, perspectives, and
biases within a discipline influence the ways in which
knowledge is constructed within it.”3For example,
students can ask questions about “whose point of view
or perspective does this concept reflect”and “how
might a (e.g., Lakota Sioux historian) describe this
period in U.S. history”and “what are other ways of
thinking about and describing”this.
•Content integration is “the extent to which teachers use
examples and content from a variety of cultures and
groups to illustrate key concepts, principles, general-
izations, and theories in their subject area or discipline.”
In Banks’framework, the construction of transformative
academic knowledge—knowledge that challenges and
expands established (Eurocentric) canons—is supported
by (and supports) content integration, or, as above, “the
extent to which teachers use examples, data, and informa-
tion from a variety of cultures and groups to illustrate the
key concepts, principles, generalizations, and theories in
their subject area or discipline,”by disrupting the
hegemony and centrality of Eurocentric content and
expanding what the discipline means (and thus what is
taught). The equity pedagogy dimension, which includes
using teaching strategies that support students in engaging
with multicultural, transformative content, encourages
critique and expansion of what is thought of as knowledge.
In this way, MCE is accountable to Critical Race Theory by
(i) making apparent the ways in which school knowledge
and knowledge-generating processes have reified white
supremacy and (ii) expanding the possibilities of what
instruction can look like, changing the kinds of knowledge
that are produced in classrooms and the opportunities that
students have to learn.
Banks and colleagues describe a variety of forms of
knowledge that can be cultivated by schooling (Table I) and
a variety of ways in which teachers have attempted content
integration (Table II). We would argue that the trans-
formation and social action approaches to content
FIG. 1. Mutually reinforcing nature of the knowledge con-
struction, content integration, and equity pedagogy dimensions
of MCE.
2Other professional development programs focus on supporting
teachers in working for structural change by, for example,
building networks of change (e.g., [21,22]). This has not been
our focus, though our theory of action does assume that teachers
will become change agents in their schools and departments.
3Notably, “knowledge construction”has had many meanings in
physics education research, including meanings that are consis-
tent with a cognitive interpretation of constructivism. Banks and
colleagues’interpretation of “knowledge construction”is con-
sistent with a sociocultural approach to learning, wherein learning
is influenced by social and cultural factors, including racialized,
gendered, and classed power dynamics [6].
AMY D. ROBERTSON et al. PHYS. REV. PHYS. EDUC. RES. 19, 010136 (2023)
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integration, which include critiquing and expanding what is
thought of as knowledge within the curriculum, provide a
context for the development of transformative academic
knowledge. In this way, content integration and knowledge
construction mutually reinforce and sustain one another.
Studies on MCE in STEM, including physics, have been
limited, largely focusing on equity pedagogy and content
integration [24–26]. In this paper, we explore teacher
learning about energy and equity in the context of our
summer PD, using MCE as an analytic lens. We noticed
that when teachers in the first iteration of our PD were
asked targeted questions designed to support them in
integrating physics energy concepts and notions of equity,
they often expressed confusion or vexation [27,28].
Because this integration was a central aim of our PD
program, we pursued this as a line of inquiry, asking
questions like, “What do teachers identify as vexing as they
try to integrate energy and equity and are there any clues as
to why teachers feel stuck?,”and, “When teachers get
unstuck or make progress, what does this progress look like
and what might facilitate it?”In the remainder of this paper,
we use case study methods to explore these questions using
the lens of multicultural education, situating teachers’
sensemaking about the integration of energy and equity
(including their vexation) as part of the development of
transformative academic knowledge. Our work adds to the
physics education research literature by illustrating dimen-
sions of multicultural education within physics, defining
TABLE I. Forms of knowledge in Banks et al.’s framework [20].
Knowledge type Definition, according to Banks and colleagues Example from energy
Personal or cultural The concepts, explanations, and interpretations that
students derive from personal experiences in their
homes, families, and community cultures.
We get energy from eating food.
“I have lots of energy right now!”
Energy is a life force.
Popular The facts, concepts, explanations, and interpretations that
are institutionalized within the mass media and other
institutions that are part of popular culture.
Alternative energy sources
Mainstream academic The concepts, paradigms, theories, and explanations that
constitute traditional Western-centric knowledge in
history and the behavioral and social sciences.
Conservation of energy
The first law of thermodynamics
Transformative academic The facts, concepts, paradigms, themes, and explanations
that challenge mainstream academic knowledge and
expand and substantially revise established canons,
paradigms, theories, explanations, and research
methods. When transformative academic paradigms
replace mainstream ones, a scientific revolution
occurred. What is more normal is that transformative
academic paradigms coexist with established ones.
Situating energy in its sociohistorical context
and understanding ways that this context
shaped the substance of the concept—e.g.,
the emphasis on work as a byproduct of the
Industrial Revolution
An expansive view where different notions of
energy can be in conversation without
needing to appropriate or exclude one
another—e.g., Western and Eastern notions
of energy as a substancelike quantity or as Qi
School The facts, concepts, generalizations, and interpretations
that are presented in textbooks, teachers’guides, other
media forms, and lectures by teachers.
Energy bar charts
Lists of energy forms
TABLE II. Types of content integration in Banks et al.’s framework [23].
Approach to content integration Description
Contributions approach “the insertion of ethnic heroes and heroines and discrete cultural artifacts into the curriculum
selected using criteria similar to those used to select mainstream heroes and heroines and
cultural artifacts.”
Additive approach “accomplished by the addition of a book, a unit, or a course to the curriculum without
substantially changing the curriculum.”
Transformation approach “changes the basic assumptions of the curriculum and enables students to view concepts, issues,
themes, and problems from several ethnic perspectives and points of views.”
Social action approach “includes all elements of the transformation approach but adds components that require
students to make decisions and take actions related to the concept, issue, or problem
studied in the unit.”
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and illustrating teacher learning about energy efficiency
within a multicultural education framework, identifying
what may support physics teacher learning in this frame-
work, and discussing ways in which physics teaching and
learning reify white supremacy.
II. RESEARCH METHODS AND CONTEXT
A. Professional development context
The data for this analysis come from the first offering of
a one-week-long, virtual teacher PD workshop designed to
support high school physics teachers in integrating physics
energy content and principles of equity education. The PD
designers were guided by a principled epistemological
stance: that science concepts are neither culture-free nor
socially neutral ideas, but rather are concepts created and
sustained by people in specific times and places for the
purposes of (i) addressing specific social needs and
(ii) empowering or oppressing people or groups of people.
The primary goals of the PD include supporting teachers in
building an understanding of energy as a historically and
politically situated science concept and supporting them to
develop instructional materials that teach energy to their
students in this way.
1. Participants
Twenty-three high school physics teachers enrolled in
the PD course which is the focus of our analysis. Twenty-
two were from the United States and one from Canada.
Fifteen participants identified themselves as female, six as
male, and two as nonbinary. Eighteen teachers used the
descriptors White or Caucasian, two Black or African
American, one Asian, three Latinx or Hispanic, and one
multiracial to characterize their race and/or ethnicity. Ten
teachers taught in Western states (including one teacher
from British Columbia, Canada), seven in the Northeastern
region of the United States, three in the Midwest, and three
in Southern states. Fourteen of the teachers described their
student population as majority Students of Color while the
other nine teachers described their student population as
majority White. These educators applied to take part in the
PD and all were eager to incorporate equity into their
classrooms. Though not a representative or even a typical
sample, case studies that examine specific local contexts for
the purposes of defining and illustrating broader frame-
works such as MCE do not require representative samples;
in fact, case studies like ours are especially good for
identifying features of the particular context that may
shape local instantiations of theory [29–31].
2. Overview of the workshop
The PD included both synchronous and asynchronous
parts. Teachers met synchronously for three hours each
day on Zoom and worked asynchronously on activities
designed by workshop facilitators that were posted on a
learning management system. Asynchronous activities were
a mix of (i) recorded presentations and public lectures that
teachers were asked to watch and (ii) written assignments
and prompts that teachers were asked to complete and
submit. Synchronous Zoom sessions included presentations
from workshop facilitators, whole group discussions, and
smaller breakout discussions and activities. There was a
different featured guest facilitator each day of the workshop.
Three regular facilitators—one physics faculty, one equity
and organizational leadership facilitator, and one teacher
facilitator with substantial experience integrating equity into
physics teaching—were present every day.
The workshop was designed to support teachers in
learning to integrate physics energy content with equity
education frameworks. As detailed in Table III, day 1
focused on introductions and definitions of equity; day 2
focused on our team’s model for energy; day 3 on energy
equity and climate justice; day 4 on identity and inter-
sectionality; and day 5 on parts of the Underrepresentation
Curriculum [32].
B. Data collection, selection, and analysis
1. Data collection and selection of cases
Synchronous Zoom meetings of the PD course were
observed in real time by researchers, who took field notes
and video recorded both large group and breakout room
conversations. The video recordings were transcribed by an
artificial intelligence transcription service and corrected
by research team members. Asynchronous activities were
archived in a project database, and pre- and post-surveys
designed by the research team and external evaluators were
collected.
Throughout the PD, researcher and first author A. D. R.
was particularly attentive to teacher discourse during
activities designed to support the integration of energy
and equity (e.g., “explore a new vision…” on
Day 1), as this was a central goal of the PD (and a central
interest for A. D. R. as an original co-author of the grant
funding the PD). In the breakout rooms and large group
conversations that A. D. R. observed in real time, she noticed
that teachers were often overtly stating their confusion about
how the physics concept of energy—and in particular,
canonical definitions and formulas—could be integrated
with equity. In these same conversations, teachers named
places where they could see the integration of energy and
equity (e.g., energy resources and their distribution), the
integration of equity and their energy curriculum (e.g., in the
examples used), and the integration of equity with their
science or physics lessons more broadly (e.g., in images of
who becomes a physicist). A. D. R. was captivated by a
sense in which the physics canon seemed “untouchable”
with respect to equity frameworks—as though the canon
were “above”or “separate from”equity considerations—
which connected to her understanding of theory from MCE,
particularly the knowledge construction dimension.
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After the PD, A. D. R. and the author team searched for
segments of discourse in which teachers discussed their
uncertainty or confusion about the relationship between
physics energy and equity frameworks and selected the
examples in Sec. III from these cases. Additional selection
criteria for the examples in Sec. III included that the
dialogue between participants include more than one talk
turn, offering more opportunity for analytic depth and
situating of participant perspectives than brief comments
made by single participants that were not taken up by
the group.
As we discussed and identified examples of teachers
expressing confusion, we recalled one teacher participant,
pseudonymed Rebecca, who on day 5 described a lesson
she planned to implement that did integrate the energy
concept of efficiency with principles of equity education.
TABLE III. Structure of professional development.
Day Theme Synchronous discussion prompts Asynchronous activity themes
1 Introductions, equity •Introductions •Introduction to the energy model
•Large group: What is equity to you? How do you
think about equity?
•Energy Tracking Diagrams [33]
•Breakout: Compare and contrast equity and anti-
racism. Explore a new vision of energy
instruction that connects energy and justice.
2 Physics model for energy •Large group: Overview of model for energy and
Energy Tracking Diagrams (ETDs)
•Sociolcultural nature of energy
model
•Breakout: Advantages and disadvantages of this
model for energy for your students. Are there are
any other questions or concerns?
•Additional ETDs
•Breakout: Teacher-generated questions ranging
from modeling time in ETDs to energy in
communities
•Energy equity and climate justice
•Student ideas about energy
3 Energy equity and climate
justice
•Large group: Difficulties in integrating energy
and equity
•Energy tracking
•Large group: Climate and energy •Efficiency (traditional and novel
definitions)
•Breakout: Discuss and compare teachers’ETDs
for two different cars
•Positionality introduction and slide-
making
•Large group: Discussion of the sociocultural
nature of energy efficiency
•(Personal) philosophies of education
•Breakout: The energy idea came from a time and
place. If this idea were developed in the present,
would likely focus on energy renewal. How
would you re-situate the energy concept,
knowing energy inequity is an issue?
4 Positionality or identity •Large group: Positionality introduction •Positionality and teaching
philosophy
•Breakout: Share intersectionality slides •Resources for positionality and
identity
•Large group: You see things differently based on
your positionality. How do you work with
students who see things only one way, or who
see things differently?
•Underrepresentation curriculum and
racism
•Breakout: Which parts of your identity (SES,
race, gender, religion, education) play the
biggest role in your life? Which parts impact
how you see energy?
5 Underrepresentation
curriculum, wrap-up
•Large group: Next steps, Energy and Equity
Portal
•Implementation plans for classroom
instruction
•Large group: Is physics objective or subjective?
•Breakout: Definitions of racism, intent vs.
impact, individuals vs systemic
•Breakout: Goals moving forward
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(This is not to say that Rebecca was the only participant
who accomplished this during the workshop.) This con-
trasting case [30,31] felt like it had the potential to help us
articulate what we, as a project, might do to support the
kind of teacher learning that the PD was designed for. Thus,
we searched the video transcripts and asynchronous activity
records for Rebecca’s utterances and submissions through-
out the week and constructed an arc of her thinking, from
expressing confusion about the integration of energy and
equity to articulating a clear plan for her students’engage-
ment with it.
2. Data analysis
Our research questions and claims in this paper draw on
multiple concepts and frameworks, including dimensions
of multicultural education (MCE), sensemaking, and cog-
nitive theories of learning. In particular, we focus on the
following:
1. Teacher confusion about the integration of physics
concepts of energy with equity frameworks. We
draw from the literature on sensemaking to analyze
our data, claiming that the confusion teachers ex-
press reflects their reaching a vexation point [27],an
important step in the sensemaking process. We
highlight that though teachers are expressing vex-
ation as they are invited to develop transformative
academic knowledge about energy, they do reach for
and use other dimensions of knowledge in the MCE
framework.
2. Progress in teacher thinking about the sociopolitical
nature of the concept of energy efficiency, toward
transformative academic knowledge and a social
action approach to instruction. In investigating this,
we draw extensively from the literature on MCE, and
we layer on cognitive theories of learning to define
learning within MCE and to hypothesize about what
resources may have supported one teacher’s learning.
In this section, we briefly describe each of these
(italicized) concepts and frameworks, as relevant to our
analysis, and we name the positionalities we each bring to
this work.
Identifying discourse as sensemaking.—Literature on
instructional reform frames sensemaking as triggered by
ambiguity and uncertainty and as a process that aims
toward resolution [34–38]. Resolution need not be a
definitive or final stance on an issue; it may be more a
feeling of clarity or a step in the “continued redrafting of an
emerging story”[38]. Sensemaking is further framed in this
literature as an active process of meaning construction that
involves selecting relevant features of a situation to attend
to, and interpreting and creating meaning from these
features in interaction with existing ideas, prior experi-
ences, etc. In science education, sensemaking is repre-
sented as a (cognitive) process of trying to “‘fit’new
knowledge into our existing knowledge frameworks, which
are built out of ideas that we have learned or gathered from
our experiences”[28]. Odden and Russ [27] argue that “[w]
ithin this sensemaking process, a critical moment occurs
when students attend to and articulate an inconsistency or
gap in their understanding, the thing that doesn’t‘make
sense’to them.”Odden and Russ define such moments as
“vexation point[s].”
Many of the uncertainties teachers expressed about the
relationship between (i) the energy concept as defined in
physics and (ii) equity frameworks were expressed as
confusing, not making sense, or inconsistent. That is, in
expressing confusion, teachers spoke in ways that sug-
gested that equity frameworks do not or cannot “fit”(or be
integrated) with their understandings of physics definitions
and representations of energy. In most cases, these vexation
points triggered more sensemaking, which often led teach-
ers to other forms of integration that they seemed to feel
more clear about—e.g., integrating equity frameworks with
physics instruction more broadly, such as by introducing
female scientists or Scientists of Color to their students. In
Rebecca’s case, the vexation became “resolved”over the
course of the PD, in the context of energy efficiency.
Operationalizing dimensions of multicultural education
and learning within MCE.—In Sec. I, we gave an overview
of three dimensions of MCE that are relevant to our
analysis: equity pedagogy, knowledge construction, and
content integration. We use Banks and colleagues’defi-
nitions of these dimensions to code selections of Rebecca’s
discourse and course submissions, for the purposes of
illustrating her learning. For example, we coded as equity
pedagogy instances in which Rebecca describes efforts to
make her classroom practice or lessons more inclusive.
We coded as knowledge construction instances in which
Rebecca is situating an energy concept in its sociopolitical
history or issuing critiques of mainstream definitions of
energy concepts. In each case of knowledge construction,
we sought to identify the type of knowledge Rebecca was
discussing, using the definitions in Table I. We coded as
content integration instances in which Rebecca described
efforts to include in her curriculum examples or content
outside mainstream white, masculine culture. As with
knowledge construction, we sought to identify what type
of content integration Rebecca was describing, using
definitions from Table II.
Identifying resources for teacher learning.—For the
purposes of this analysis, we define learning in terms
consistent with cognitive theories [39–41], situated within
MCE: evidence that Rebecca has learned is in her deploy-
ment of more dimensions of MCE as she discusses energy
and energy instruction and in her deployment of dimen-
sions of MCE consistent with more transformative instruc-
tion. In Sec. IV B, we hypothesize about some of the
resources that may have supported Rebecca’s learning.
Cohen, Raudenbush, and Ball [42] describe resources as
“facilitators or inhibitors”of (learning about) particular
instructional aims or approaches. Believing that learning is
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shaped by context [43,44], we expect these resources will
include both personal resources that teachers activate in
given situations and environmental resources present in
different contexts. This sense of “resources”is consistent
with but broader than what PER has called “resources
theory”—a framework that asserts that “resources”are
cognitive elements that are activated in and by context and
serve as input for learning and growth [39,45]. In the case
of Rebecca’s learning within MCE, we claim that she
brings and activates cognitive resources and also that there
are environmental resources that facilitate her learning.
Using a process theory of cause [46,47], in which cause is
inferred from a sequence of events—event A precedes B,
which preceded C…, where the events have a plausibly
causal link—we identify resources using analytic markers
such as proximity (e.g., resource xprecedes the emergence
of a new idea for Rebecca) and what we call fingerprints
(e.g., we see evidence of resource y’s impact in the
language Rebecca uses).
Positionalities of author team.—Robertson (first author)
is a chronically ill and disabled, physics-Ph.D.-holding,
straight and cis-gendered, thin wealthy white woman.
Robertson spent most of her life ignorant of the current
material landscape of white supremacy, an ignorance encour-
aged by white supremacy and enabled by her dominant
position as a white woman. She approaches equity analyses
centered on race with the positionality of a learner theoreti-
cally informed by Critical Race Theory, and her writing
necessarily reflects (at least in part) the scaffolding she
needed (and still needs) as a learner. At the same time,
Critical Race Theory (which motivated MCE), while center-
ing race and the dismantling of racism, has a “larger goal of
eliminating all forms of subordination”[48] and thus speaks
broadly to the experience (and dismantling) of systemic
marginalization. Importantly, Critical Race Theory has
informed Robertson’s analysis of ableism in her own life,
and her experiences of marginalization as a disabled and
chronically ill woman inform her understanding of Critical
Race Theory. She sees her scholarship, including scholarship
on the impacts of white supremacy in physics teaching and
learning, as deeply personal and as part of a collective
struggle for liberation [49,50].
Hu`ynh is an able-bodied, physics-Ph.D. holding, Asian
migrant woman who was born and raised in a middle-class
family in Vietnam and is the first generation in her family to
go to college and pursue higher education. Growing up,
while sexism, classism, and colorism were central to her
lived experiences, she was not conscious of global white
supremacy and racism, in part due to her living in a racially
homogenous geography and her privilege of identifying
with the majority ethnicity. Not until she came to the United
States did her lived experiences start centering around
racism and discrimination against Asian migrants. Entering
PER work around physicist identities, Critical Race Theory
and antiracist work by Scholars of Color have helped her to
define and make sense of her experiences. Her learning
journey is filled with struggles to abolish her assimilated
mindset, unlearn what has been normalized, and make a
connection between western scholars’work and her expe-
riences as a Vietnamese migrant. The work in this paper
intimately resonates with her own experiences where she
found that it has been made very difficult to begin to
uncover systemic structures and epistemologies that uphold
social hierarchies and to battle assimilation.
As a researcher, Mathis’experience as a former physics
teacher from a multicultural population gave him insight
into issues of multiculturalism and equity within physics
teaching. As an African American male who is a former
high school and community college physics teacher,
Mathis’experiences helped him analyze physics teachers’
approach to implementing equitable practices in the class-
room. As a Person of Color, Mathis has experienced
aspects of whiteness projection that impact how he views
and navigates physics spaces. In the past, he has taught
physics to students of various cultural backgrounds and
used different forms of instruction. Through his experience,
Mathis believes most physics teachers disregard issues of
equity in their development and assessment of curricula.
Through this study, Mathis seeks a better understanding of
ways to help teachers maximize students’resources to
effectively teach physics.
Bauman is a young, cisgender, white woman. She was
born and raised in a privileged, upper-middle-class family
in Canada. She grew up in a homogeneously white, race-
evasive context where positionality, privilege, and oppres-
sion were rarely discussed. She has been heavily shaped by
her positive experiences in educational spaces and her
insatiable curiosity. She received her bachelor’s degree
from a small liberal arts college that valued an interdisci-
plinary curriculum because she wanted to be embedded in
an extremely tight community and wanted to learn as much
as possible about a little bit of everything. Although she
primarily studied physics, it was during this time she took
courses and was immersed in a community that encouraged
her to think more critically about her own positionality,
privilege, and marginalization across dimensions of race,
gender, ability, and class in a deeply unjust world. She
recognizes her position as primarily a learner in this space
and strives to approach this role with curiosity, honesty,
commitment to reflection, and self-awareness. She sees this
work as part of her continued commitment to learning,
amplifying the voices and lived experiences of others, and
supporting equity-oriented work in all parts of life.
Scherr is an able-bodied cisgender woman. Her identity
as a white-passing Jewish person has contributed to her
awareness that schooling and popular culture normally
ignore or tokenize nondominant cultures. As a leader of the
Energy and Equity Project that provides the context for
this paper’s research, her efforts include creating a model
for secondary science teacher development centered on
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understanding energy as a historically and politically
situated science concept, as well as striving to support a
culturally diverse team to construct knowledge that inte-
grates their race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, religious
commitments, social class, ability status, and other features
of social identity that may be important to them.
III. INTEGRATING ENERGY AND EQUITY:
TEACHER VEXATION POINTS
This section explores the question, “What do teachers
identify as vexing as they try to integrate energy and equity
and are there any clues as to why they feel stuck?”We offer
a number of examples of vexation points, and we speculate
about some of the ways in which physics culture and the
U.S. system of schooling reify these vexation points,
making it difficult for teachers to critically examine
canonical definitions and representations.
A. Vexation points
As reflected in Table III, teachers were asked multiple
times over the course of the PD to reflect on the relationship
between energy and equity. On day 1, they were invited to
explore (together) a new vision of energy instruction that
connects energy and justice; on day 3, they were asked to
resituate the energy concept, given what they were learning
about its sociohistorical roots and present-day inequities;
and on day 4, teachers were encouraged to consider how
their positionality shapes their energy instruction. What we
noticed is that as teachers engaged with these questions,
they often expressed confusion or vexation, particularly in
relation to canonical energy definitions and representations,
and their conversations often then moved in a direction of
connecting equity to curricular examples, energy resources
(e.g., distribution of energy), or representation of women
and people of color in physics or science. We reflect on
these examples in terms of Banks and colleagues’frame-
work for MCE and the science education literature on
sensemaking.
The first example comes from a discussion on day 3, in a
breakout room with three teachers: Tim, Elena, and Josh.4
The teachers have been asked to resituate the energy
concept. This group of three expresses some confusion
about the task and then begins discussing their student
populations and some of the things they do in their schools
and classrooms to try to make instruction inclusive. Tim
eventually jumps in, saying:
Tim: It also feels, so like it’s still energy, but like, I don’t
under—, I don’t know yet. I don’tseeyethowtouse
the energy imbalance in the developed versus the
developing world, or use the, uh, where do I get my
energy from? How do I take that content—,which
does feel valuable, but at the same time, I don’tsee
myself getting kinetic energy equals one-half mv
squared out of that discussion or that project. And
that piece is where I—, I flounder, I suppose.
Elena: Yeah. I’ve been having the same, like how do you
actually incorporate this stuff into the curriculum?
Because the things within, like a lot of the stuff
that’s been discussed [in this PD] would fit really
well in like an environmental science context, or
even within a unit of biology, but—, or even within
the context of what’s discussed in physics. You
know, like we talk about gravitational potential
energy or whatever it is, you know, like these
different things and the, how does that incorporate
into the things that we’ve been discussing? Like the
curriculum doesn’t lend itself so much to connect
the things that we discussed in our [physics] class
with what we’re discussing right now [in this PD].
Tim leads this exchange by referring to a variety of
discussions and activities the teachers have been engaging
with: energy access across the globe (“energy imbalance in
the developed versus the developing world”) and energy
backtracking, where teachers consider whose ancestral
lands provide the energy that they use in their homes
(“where do I get my energy from”). He acknowledges that
these are “still energy,”but also that he is struggling to see
the connection to canonical representations of energy
(“one-half mv squared”), which he is accountable to.
Elena affirms Tim’s feeling, saying that this PD content,
which integrates energy and equity, seems more relevant
to environmental science or biology. She hedges a bit,
saying “even within…physics,”but proceeds to name that
she does not see how these things are tied to “gravitational
potential energy”—again, the canonical concepts she is
accountable to.
In this example, we hear Tim and Elena expressing a
vexation point: they can sensemake about the relevance of
equity to certain aspects of energy, but they cannot make it
fit with canonical representations and definitions. In the
context of the types of knowledge in Table I, it is relatively
easy for Tim and Elena to see the relationship between
equity and popular knowledge about energy (i.e., equity
and energy resource distribution), but it is more difficult for
them to see a connection between equity and school
knowledge about energy. They seem willing to integrate
popular knowledge into their curricula (approximating an
additive approach, Table II), but unsure as to how to
participate in a transformation approach to content inte-
gration, and/or how to develop transformative academic
knowledge in the context of energy. Importantly, though,
they are naming this uncertainty; they seem to be aware that
there is something just outside their grasp.
Similar to the dialogue between Tim and Elena, Lori and
Maggie have an exchange on day 1, in a breakout room
with four teachers, including themselves, Megan, and
4All teacher names are pseudonyms.
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Leslie. The group has been prompted to both (a) compare
and contrast antiracism and (b) explore a new vision of
energy instruction that connects energy and justice. The
teachers begin sharing ways that they are already connect-
ing energy and justice in their astronomy instruction,
including highlighting female scientists and scientists of
color and discussing the injustices of the Thirty Meter
Telescope on Maunakea in Hawaii [51]. Lori brings up the
inequitable distribution of energy resources as one direction
they could go, saying
Lori: …Um, when I was thinking about this question,
I was thinking about just energy, you know, that
by the law of conservation, that there’s a fixed
amount of energy, like, is that kind of how we
look at our, um, our resources, right? That’sa
fixed amount. So everybody is a part of energy
resources. Um, I was trying to put those two
together in my head about how, um, how do we
distribute energy according to need, how do we
[inaudible]. Do you have any thoughts about
what a new vision of energy education would
look like?
Maggie: That part? I honestly didn’t really know where to
go with, like energy in particular. I can kind of
think about how to incorporate some equity and
justice issues in physics teaching in general, but
energy in particular. I guess if you think of
energy in a more practical way, like they were
talking about. Well, I was thinking about like,
who has the energy resources? Like, where does
your energy come from? Where do they build
the power plant? And which people are the most
affected by the power plant or the pipelines or all
of that infrastructure that’s involved in getting
electrical energy to different places? I was
learning recently—,I’m up in Northern
California, and there’s a project I hadn’t heard
about until recently that is a natural gas pipeline
that they want to get from Colorado through to
the Oregon coast. And when they, I guess there’s
a, the hub that they need to build. And when you
look at which town they pick to build it in,
you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s, that sounds about
right.’It’s the, like, a poor5community, um, all
the, all the usual criteria that you figure of who’s
on the margins and whose—, whose commun-
ities aren’t as respected by the people who make
those decisions.
As with Tim and Elena, Maggie names that she reaches a
vexation point when she tries to connect equity and “energy
in particular,”which we interpret as school energy (Table I).
In conversation with Lori, Maggie identifies that she can
see connections between popular energy—in particular, the
distribution of energy resources, which she narrates as
“energy in a practical way”—and equity, in terms of which
communities are impacted by the energy industry, offering
an example from her local context.
Our third and final example comes from a discussion
between Rebecca, Lisa, Tim, and Kelsey—answering the
same prompt as Lori and Maggie—to explore a new vision
of energy instruction that integrates energy and justice.
Rebecca says:
Rebecca: I feel like—, I feel like I’m woefully ignorant in
this and it’s always been something that I’ve
been wanting to do. Like I think often I teach
content and then like, like social justice, kept
almost separately by like bringing up, um,
hidden figures and like talking about women
in physics and, um, People of Color in physics
and LGBTQ in physics and space travel and that
sort of thing. Um, but it’s not like interwoven
into the curriculum. So I’m like, here’s these
people and then here’s physics. And I’m really
excited to learn ways to, to like actually engage
students in—, through learning physics, while
also talking about social justice and I think
that’d be really, really cool.
Lisa: Yeah. I feel the same in terms of having social
justice and physics as two separate schools of
thought in my mind. And I feel like, I don’t know
why I never thought to put them together. And,
um, I was thinking about this, I read an academic
paper, I can’t remember the name of it . Um, but it’s
on culturally relevant pedagogy and it was talking
about having, like, your goal to be that students—,
like, they feel welcome, and their culture is
welcome in the class, but then also they’re ques-
tioning systems and it kept talking about that. And
I was like, what can we question in energy? And I
like—,there’s such an energy, um, like, inequity
issue in America. And I feel like we have a big
space to talk about that in physics. Um, and you
can talk about the structures that are in place and
the history of it. I think I just don’t really know
how to like, tangibly turn that into lesson plans for
high schoolers, but I’m like, I have the big ideas I
think. That’s kind of where I’mat.
Tim: Yeah. Similar—, similar to both Rebecca and
Lisa, uh, the exposure piece, I feel very com-
fortable with, um, working to bring alumni back
5The word “poor”is value-laden; it uses language of quality to
describe a group of people, often cues a charity model, and
evades structural analyses. Though not the way it is being used
here, “poor”has also been reclaimed, sometimes in intersections
with other marginalized identities, as an act of resistance. For
example, Chicano art scholar Ybarra-Frausto reclaimed the term
“rasquache”, historically used as a classist slur, to develop a
“rasquachismo”aesthetic and a worldview—“the view of the
underdog, which combines inventiveness with a survivalist
attitude”, a view that is both “defiant and inventive”[52].
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into my classroom, giving them exposure to
women in physics or in engineering so that they
have those—, those role models. But I don’tknow
how to bring it into like the lesson plan as you
said. And that—, that—, that’s the part that I’m
really interested in and why I’m so curious as to
why they picked energy, which is such a difficult
topic. And I find so interesting that they—, they
use that—, they want to tackle it through energy.
Um, and that that’s really what I’m excited for,
because I don’tknowhow—,howthey’re going
to do that. Um, I’m really curiousto see if—,what
the expectations are in terms of, what does it look
like to have an equitable classroom that is learning
energy? Is it—, is it changing the—,how,you’re
just—, how you’re presenting the physics? Is it
changing the language you’re using, how the
students are interacting? What—, what is it that
brings that equity through energy?
In this exchange, Rebecca discusses her dissatisfaction
with her (current) additive approach to content integration
(Table II), saying that it feels like in this approach, the content
and social justice are “kept almost separately,”whereas she
would like to do something where equity content is “more
interwoven in the curriculum.”She describes herself as
“woefully ignorant in this”but very eager.
Lisa follows up, drawing on theory from culturally
relevant pedagogy [53] to lay out a vision consistent with
the development of transformative academic knowledge,
which “question[s] systems,”and with a transformation or
social action approach to content integration. Lisa then
names a vexation point, saying, “What can we question
in energy?”Though it does not seem like she reaches
resolution—she says that “she doesn’t know how to tangibly
turn that into a lesson plan”—she does begin to speak about
the integration of popular knowledge and equity when she
brings up energy inequities in the United States.
Tim then affirms both Rebecca and Lisa’s commentary,
describing his comfort with the contributions approach to
physics instruction (“I feel very comfortable with…work-
ing to bring alumni back into my classroom, giving them
exposure to women in physics or in engineering”)but
names vexation in integrating school knowledge and equity
(“I don’t know how to bring it into the lesson plan”). As
with Rebecca and Lisa, he is eager to resolve this vexation
and begins imagining possibilities consistent with equity
pedagogy and knowledge construction, though the group
does not explore these possibilities in depth.
B. Connections to broader literature, culture
of schooling, and discipline of physics
In all three of the exchanges we presented in this section,
high school physics teachers express vexation as they try to
fit equity with school energy, particularly with canonical
definitions and examples. In all three cases, teachers name
ways that they do see a fit between energy or physics
instruction and equity—in integrating popular knowledge
about energy with equity or in changing the curriculum to
highlight the contributions of marginalized groups. They also
express dissatisfaction, feeling that there should be a way to
integrate equity and school knowledge about equity. This
was not only evident in thevideo but also in the course, post-
survey responses: only ∼15% of the participants report
feeling very confident in their ability to explain how energy
concepts reflect culturally specific values.
These conversations reflect themes from the literature on
multicultural education. In particular, the contributions and
additive approaches to content integration—where teachers
insert “ethnic heroes/heroines and discrete cultural artifacts
into the curriculum”and add “a book, unit, or course to the
curriculum without substantially”changing it, respectively
[23]—are often more accessible than the transformative and
social action approaches. For example, teachers in our PD
describe including women and People of Color in their
examples of scientists—bringing in alumni, highlighting
“hidden figures”—but name difficulty when it comes to
integrating equity with the energy canon. Integrating popular
knowledge into the classroom (e.g., around the distribution
of energy resources) is intuitive, but developing transforma-
tive academic knowledge is countercultural [54–58].
The difficulty of constructing transformative academic
knowledge and enacting the transformative and social
action approaches to content integration may be even more
pronounced in physics, which is often storied as objective,
neutral, and value-free [14,16]. In fact, it is on the basis of
its objectivity, neutrality, and aculturality that physics
considers itself epistemically superior. Grosfoguel argues
that though the canon is “based on the knowledge produced
by a few men from five countries,”and thus is “based on the
social/historical experiences and sensibilities as well as
world views of particular spaces and bodies…,”the situated-
ness and cultural specificity of the canon “is disguised under
a discourse about ‘universality.’” Grosfoguel [11] argues
that this disguise is made possible in part by Cartesian
thought—“I think, therefore I am,”or the notion that the
“mind [can be] undetermined, unconditioned by the body”
and thus can produce a “God’s-eye-view”of the world
through careful thought. Cartesian epistemology produces a
“‘subject-object’split,”where “objectivity [is] understood as
‘neutrality’” and a body can “produc[e] unbiased knowledge
unconditioned by its body or space location.”To question the
physics canon, then—to situate physics content in bodies,
times, and places, and to critique the role it has played in
power relations—is not only to challenge hundreds of years
of Westernized thought but also to challenge the basis on
which physics considers itself epistemically superior. This is
less true of popular knowledge, which, though deeply
entangled with the canon, is often framed by physicists as
“applications”of physics knowledge and “not physics itself.”
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Layered on to this, schools play a central role in the
reproduction of power relations. According to Bourdieu
and Passeron [59], educational systems produce and
maintain power relations by instilling values and knowl-
edge that align with the dominant culture and by perpetu-
ating the conditions under which the arbitrariness (as
contrasted with meritoriousness) of this dominance goes
unrecognized. Further, they create institutional structures
that support this work, such that the arbitrariness is further
hidden in policies and practices that become “the way
things are”in school and thus in society more broadly.
Teachers, in this model, are the “agents recruited and
trained to carry out”the instilling of mainstream knowledge
and values; Bourdieu argues that teachers must “operate
within institutional conditions…[that] preven[t] them from
performing heterogeneous or heterodox”schooling, and
that this prevention happens through “standard training and
standardized, standardizing instruments”[60]. In other
words, the system is deeply invested in constraining
teacher agency, in service of reproducing existing power
structures. To challenge school knowledge is to challenge
the very nature of what it means to be a teacher, in
Bourdieu’s analysis.
All of this is to say that it is no wonder that teachers
struggle to see the fit between equity and canonical defi-
nitions and representations of energy; there is so much in the
way, so much that would need to be challenged, and such big
consequences for doing so. At the same time, the teachers in
our PD, including Tim, Elena, Maggie, Rebecca, and Lisa are
identifying vexation points as they sensemake, and we know
that vexation (even frustration) is a critical and generative
part of learning [61]. This was indeed the case for Rebecca;
we will turn to her learning next.
IV. INTEGRATING ENERGY AND EQUITY:
TEACHER PROGRESS IN THE
CASE OF REBECCA
In this section, we return to the question, “When teachers
get unstuck from vexation points or make progress, what
does this progress look like and what might facilitate it?”
We present a case study of Rebecca’s learning, detailing her
progress through the week of PD and then hypothesizing
about some of the resources that may have supported her
learning. As we go, we highlight the dimensions of MCE
that we observe in Rebecca’s written reflections and
discourse. Equity pedagogy is abbreviated as EP, content
integration as CI, and knowledge construction as KC.
When possible, we identify the specific types of knowledge
construction shown in Table Iand the types of content
integration shown in Table II.
A. Rebecca’s progress
Over the course of 5 days of our summer PD, Rebecca
moves from a place of expressing vexation around the
relationship between energy and equity; to beginning to
question the objectivity of physics and wondering about who
shaped the development of canonical energy concepts; to
critiquing the energy concept of efficiency; to designing a
lesson plan that invites her students to construct transforma-
tive academic knowledge in the context of energy.
We describe this development in chunks to highlight
Rebecca’s learning, not to suggest that transformative
academic knowledge of this type develops along a predict-
able progression.
1. Day 1: Rebecca expresses vexation
At the very start of the PD, as teachers were asked to say
what equity means to them, Rebecca shared that for her,
equity is not only about ensuring her students have access
to the curriculum but also about creating a classroom space
where they feel included and heard. She says
When I first started teaching, I think I thought
equity was more about content and making sure
that every student had access to the material or
access to being able to learn the material. And I
think, um, some evolution in my thoughts since I
started teaching have been that equity is also about
getting kids to that table. I really liked that table
analogy of everyone has a seat at the table with
dignity and their voices are heard. And I think, um,
every kid needs something different from me to get
them to that table sometimes. Um, and whether that
looks like just reaching out to a student more than
another, or not more than another student, but like
noticing the kid who’s sitting in the corner and
reaching out to the kid, that’s sitting in the corner to
fold them into the, the table.
Here, Rebecca describes a shift in her thinking, from a
more equality-focused lens where all students are given
equal access, to a more equity-focused lens where she
differentiates her approach based on specific needs [62].
Though she does not share specific pedagogical strategies,
her teaching principles reflect the equity pedagogy (EP)
dimension of MCE.
Later on day 1, Rebecca joins the discussion we captured
in Sec. IV, describing her current approach to integrating
physics and equity, which we interpret as a contributions
approach to content integration (CI contributions):
I feel like—, I feel like I’m woefully ignorant in this
and it’s always been something that I’ve been
wanting to do. Like I think often I teach content and
then like—, like social justice, kept almost sepa-
rately by like bringing up, um, hidden figures and
like talking about women in physics and, um,
People of Color in physics and LGBTQ in physics
and space travel and that sort of thing. Um, but it’s
not like interwoven into the curriculum. So I’m
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like, here’s these people and then here’s physics.
And I’m really excited to learn ways to—,tolike
actually engage students in, through learning
physics. We’re also talking about social justice
and I think that’d be really, really cool.
Later, she added
Um, [doing this] has made my kids recognize that
I am at least trying to be an ally, um, which has
then made them like more comfortable in my
classroom or like seek me out sometimes. Um, I
feel like my classroom is a safe space because
they see that I’m actively trying. And I think by
discussing that issue, I think, like, one, it’ll get
kids interested, like, ‘wait, this is a real thing
that’s happening to us right now.’And then to the
fact that I’m like actively trying to like bring those
points across might help. Like just kids recognize
that I am an ally.
Here, Rebecca elaborates that her goal in sharing the
contributions of women, People of Color, and LGBTQ
folks in physics is to create a safe and inclusive environ-
ment for her students. We see this as further evidence of EP.
Rebecca shares that as a result of this, her students are
connecting their classroom experiences to racism (“wait,
this is a real thing that’s happening to us right now”), which
we see as a precursor to a social action approach to content
integration (CI social-action precursor).
Rebecca’s contributions on day 1 illustrate that although
she has been integrating some aspects of equity into her
physics classroom, she encounters a vexation point as she
tries to integrate equity with canonical physics content,
saying, “I feel like I’m woefully ignorant in this and it’s
always been something that I’ve been wanting to do.”
2. Day 2: Rebecca begins to question who shapes the
construction of canonical energy concepts
In Rebecca’s asynchronous submissions on day 2, we
observe her beginning to resolve the vexation she names
on day 1, as she begins to critique the story of objectivity
in physics and situate energy in its sociopolitical origins. In
particular, in a written response to a short lecture given by
one of the workshop instructors about the sociopolitical
nature of the energy concept, Rebecca expresses
I can’t believe I never thought about this before
but it makes so much sense! Energy is just a
construct so of course the people who constructed
the idea shaped it toward their thinking patterns
and societal goals. It makes [me] think about how
much richer, deeper, and more profound science
could be if we had made room at the table
for more diverse people to be involved. What
understandings did we miss out on by not hearing
all of the voices that could have had so much to
contribute?
In this reflection, Rebecca’s affect suggests a break-
through in her thinking—“I can’t believe I never thought
about this before!”—as she begins to situate physics content
as sociohistorical. She implies that physics knowledge—
particularly the concept of energy in physics—may be
different had more and different people been valued and
invited, drawing on the imagery of a table from her earlier
reflections. Here, Rebecca is engaging in her own knowl-
edge construction, particularly around mainstream academic
knowledge (KC mainstream academic knowledge).
On the same day, Rebecca submits a reflection on her
role as a physics teacher in light of Pichon Batlle’s talk,
“Climate change will displace millions. Here’showwe
prepare”[63]. The prompt for teachers asks
As physics teachers, we often teach about energy
as though the energy stories that we construct, or
others construct for us, are value-neutral and
objective. In doing so, are we unintentionally
complicit in spreading what Colette Pichon Battle
describes as “the arrogance to think that technol-
ogy will save us?”
Rebecca responds in writing:
Yes I think I am unintentionally complicit. I do
teach energy like it is all about technology and I
think I do accidentally spread the concept that
everyone benefits from energy equally and that it
does not have consequences that affect the poor-
est communities. I think this comes from me not
realizing that the social construct of energy was
made by white rich factory owners at the turn of
the century! I think that teaching kids about the
fact that the rich are benefiting and the poor are
having the consequences might help them make
better energy choices and also might get them
involved in energy politics.
In this reflection, Rebecca names that her current
approach to teaching energy is “all about technology,”
and she begins to name a different, sociopolitical reality
that the energy concept as it is currently taught centers
some and marginalizes others. This shift in her thinking is
made possible in part, she says, by her realizing that “the
social construct of energy was made by white rich factory
owners at the turn of the century”; it is almost as though this
sociohistorical situating supported Rebecca in naming the
social and political impacts of energy in the present day.
Again, here, there are glimmers of a social action
approach to content integration (CI social action precursor).
In her written reflections submitted on day 2, Rebecca
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seems to make progress from acknowledging that she treats
social justice and energy content as separate (day 1), to
locating inequity in energy use and distribution, on the
basis of an emerging critique of the energy concept.
Questions that primed her critique in this stage include
who creates and shapes energy concepts and who benefits
from the concept of energy.
3. Days 2 and 3: Rebecca critiques the energy concept
On day 3 of the summer PD, a guest facilitator presented
on energy injustice and climate change. One of the
asynchronous activities that preceded the presentation (to
be completed on day 2) asked teachers to investigate the
efficiency of automobiles and invited them to rethink their
definitions of efficiency. This topic closely relates to one of
the projects that Rebecca has already been giving her
students, where they build a matchbox car and create a car
commercial to explain their car’s efficiency.
As Rebecca engages with the asynchronous activity, she
begins to apply her critique from the previous section to
energy efficiency, exploring ways in which this concept has
been used to unequally benefit different populations. For
example, in a reflection on her vision of the integration of
energy and equity at the end of day 2, which asked teachers
how they envision energy equity and/or energy justice at
multiple scales, from local to global, Rebecca responds by
locating energy inequities in the energy industry, noting
who profits and who suffers:
I think energy equity is about who profits from
the energy and who is harmed by the energy, and
who is “screwed over”by the energy. So often the
—, who profits is Americans, often in the richest
most white areas. Often big oil tycoons profit. I
think climate change does a lot of harming to not-
rich communities, communities that live off the
land. When I taught climate change we looked at
a Native population in Alaska that relied on ice
fishing and was not able to feed their families
because the ice that normally stayed year round
was melting and no longer year round. There is
also the “screwed over”group. Native peoples
were the first people on this land but white people
are the people benefiting from owning oil wells
and hydroelectric plants. [continued below]
Here, we see Rebecca beginning to integrate school and
popular knowledge, toward transformative academic knowl-
edge: If energy, as a concept, was constructed by “white rich
factory owners,”then they will be the ones who “profi[t] from
energy,”while others are harmed. Rebecca offers a specific
example of people who have been harmed: Indigenous
communities who are not only dispossessed of their home-
lands but also do not benefit from the sale of resources from
this land and are disproportionally affected by the
consequences of the energy industry. Here Rebecca is
engaging in her own process of transformative knowledge
construction (KC transformative academic). She continues,
[continued] I’m also thinking about the word
efficiency a lot. Efficiency is, I think, how I will
connect equity to physics because it is such a
huge construct and depending on who you are
and what your personal goals are you might
define efficiency differently. I am excited to try
to allow my students to define it! I am thinking
about introducing the “standard definition”and
then telling them that it is antiquated because now
we have different ideas about what is efficient. I
think I want to do a project where the end results
are that students try to sell a car to each other
based on their group’s created definition of
efficiency. That gives me an in for teaching about
energy equity issues so that they can take those
concepts into consideration for their own defi-
nitions of efficiency! I should also mention that
this is a pre-existing project that my students
really love. They have to create a matchbox car
and then a car commercial and justify why their
car is the most efficient. All I have to add to this
project is that we will no longer be using a fixed
definition of efficiency!!!!
In this second half of her reflection, Rebecca interrogates
the universality of the mainstream definition of efficiency,
situating the process of defining a concept in the goals and
bodies of the definers. Though she does not yet offer a
substantive critique of the concept of efficiency, she begins
to describe a project that she plans to adapt to allow
students to define efficiency for themselves, aligned with
the social action approach to content integration within
MCE (CI- social action).
On day 3 of the PD, one of the facilitators reiterated the
sociopolitical origins of the energy concept in physics and
asked teachers how they might resituate an energy concept
today. As Rebecca works with her breakout group to
complete this task, the teachers express some confusion
about what they are supposed to be doing. One of the
course facilitators joins the discussion and asks them what
they teach when they teach energy, as a way (we think) to
concretize the discussion. The teachers name a variety of
concepts, including efficiency, and the course facilitator
asks what equity questions are tied to efficiency. Rebecca
answers
I guess what is efficient? So we said efficiency. So
like, what is efficiency, right? Whose definition of
efficiency? Efficient for whom, right?
This series of questions mimics exemplars of knowledge
construction (KC-transformative-academic) described in
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Banks and colleagues’work [20]. Here, Rebecca is resting
firmly in an awareness of the situatedness of the efficiency
concept and naming it as not-neutral—as serving particular
aims (in this case, the aims of those in power).
In the asynchronous activities following instruction on
day 3, teachers are asked to name aspects of vehicle
sustainability that are not captured in the conventional
definition of efficiency and to brainstorm ways of quantify-
ing vehicle efficiency outside of the conventional definition.
In her written response, Rebecca redefines energy efficiency
in a way that is personally relevant to her, writing:
I think having an efficiency per person would take
into account carpooling. So your efficiency
should double if you have two people in the
car. Another aspect of efficiency that I am
thinking about is how often you use your car. I
bike everywhere and I only use my car to go to
the mountains in the summer or for road trips.
Recently my car broke down and I am going to try
to live for 1 year without a car. In the meantime I
am looking into my options for what I want when
[I] do get a car. I was thinking of getting an
electric car but that would not serve my purposes
at all. I need something that is good for going
long distances without having to recharge and I
need something that can get me around on rocky
roads. So I think the overall efficiency of my car
plus my general biking habits have to be taken
into account together.
In this response, Rebecca articulates criteria for a
new definition of efficiency that takes into account the
relationship between the car and the people who use it.
Here, she offers to herself what she says she wants to offer
her students, integrating her developing ideas about effi-
ciency with personal and cultural knowledge (KC-personal/
cultural).
On days 2 and 3, we observe Rebecca gaining momen-
tum toward connecting equity and physics energy content.
Guided by the instructors of the PD, Rebecca focuses on
one concept of energy—efficiency. First, she names
unequal benefits accrued and harm done by the energy
industry, linked to her emerging critique. Then she
describes an expansive, social-action-oriented approach
to instruction about efficiency. She goes on to embody
knowledge construction by asking questions about the
nature of the efficiency concept and whom it serves and
articulates a new definition of efficiency that is personally
relevant.
We see this work as interconnected in the ways that MCE
would predict: As Rebecca comes to see physics concepts
as historically and socially situated—not objective or
absolute but local and situational—it becomes more pos-
sible for these concepts to be resituated and redefined.
4. Day 5: Rebecca develops a lesson plan
to support the development of transformative
academic knowledge
Ending day 3 with a new definition of efficiency
(efficiency per person), Rebecca continues to refine and
solidify her lesson plan to integrate equity and energy.
On the last day of the PD, Rebecca shares her brainstorm-
ing for her lesson on efficiency with her group. Compared
to her written reflection on day 2, by day 5, Rebecca has
constructed a detailed plan, writing
I am really excited about teaching about effi-
ciency as a construct that a certain group of
people created for a certain purpose. I want to first
define efficiency that way I always do in my
energy unit. Then, I want to have students design
a matchbox car and design an experiment to
measure the classical definition of efficiency for
their car using the energy diagrams. Then I want
to talk about who those people were and why they
created efficiency that way. Then I want to tell
students that they are a car company and that they
have to redefine efficiency based on their values. I
think I will show some TED talks about energy
consumption harming the environment and who
is harmed. Also maybe show some stuff about
generational poverty and racism in property
ownership (so along the lines of who can afford
a car). I like the idea of who[se] land we are using
for the energy resources (i.e., white people are
benefiting from land that we stole from
[N]atives). I want to maybe provide some more
readings and research that students can choose to
look into for their own definitions of what is
“efficient”. I also want my student[s] to make
their company’s values statements before they
define efficiency. I think this will be well re-
ceived! I teach many [S]tudents of [C]olor and at
the beginning of the year in my introduction
powerpoint I said “I believe [B]lack lives matter
and our society has to work to figure out how to
make sure all people can be safe. I feel like it is
time for white people like myself to figure out
what they can do in the world to make it more
equitable for everyone.”I also said that this
concept is very important in physics because it
is one of the most inequitable fields. My white
students gave no push back and also wrote to me
saying that they agree! So, similarly to you, I need
to establish a safe space for a project like this but I
do that by talking about female scientists and
[S]cientists of [C]olor and LGBTQ scientists who
should have been more famous and more cel-
ebrated but who have not really been heard of
(I do hidden figure of the week every Friday).
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Then, after break, I will launch into this actual
project that I think will let students delve deeper
down the rabbit hole!
In this description of her lesson plan, Rebecca invokes all
three dimensions of MCE that we outlined in the intro-
duction—knowledge construction, content integration,
and equity pedagogy—and she engages in the knowledge
construction and content integration dimensions transfor-
matively. She names that efficiency is a “construct”created
by “a certain group of people,”“for a certain purpose”(KC
transformative academic). She describes herself as wanting
to situate this further for her students: she not only wants
them to know that this is true but she also wants them to
know “who those people were and why they created
efficiency that way”(KC transformative academic). She
describes a lesson in which students are not only engaging
in critique (CI transformative) but also defining efficiency
for themselves and being held accountable for the impacts
of their definitions (CI social action}. She names the
importance of this kind of work for creating an inclusive
classroom space (EP), and the importance of fostering an
inclusive, safe space beforehand so that students can
engage fully with this transformative content (EP), again
illustrating the interconnectedness of these dimensions
within MCE.
5. Evidence for Rebecca’s learning
In Sec. II B. 2, we defined teacher learning within MCE
as the deployment of more dimensions of MCE over time,
and/or the deployment of dimensions of MCE more
consistent with transformative instruction. We see evidence
of both in Rebecca’s work across the week. Table IV
collates the codes we applied to her discourse and written
reflections.
B. Resources that may have supported
Rebecca’s progress
In this section, we offer hypotheses about some of the
resources that may have supported Rebecca’s learning. As
we say in Sec. II, we define resources here as both cognitive
and environmental “facilitators”[42], and we rely on a
process theory of cause [46,47], wherein cause is inferred
from an observable sequence of events (rather than, say,
from a controlled experiment).
Resource: Mutually reinforcing nature of the dimensions
of MCE.—It feels somewhat odd to say that the nature of
MCE facilitates the learning of MCE. And yet the data
suggest this: Rebecca’s commitment to equity pedagogy
right from the start—and her drive to deepen this commit-
ment to include canonical content—appears to have been a
resource for her engagement in transformative content
integration. Further, Table IV (and the progression of the
case) suggests that Rebecca’s engagement in knowledge
construction sparked more transformative work in content
integration: we notice that after the KC code appears, more
transformative codes also appear.
Resource: Rebecca’s frustration.—Literature on the role
of affect in learning science names confusion and frus-
tration as generative for learning—a resource that can
propel learners forward and sustain their engagement
[61]. Rebecca’s dissatisfaction seems to do just that in this
case. Her affect at the start of the workshop is one of
vexation: she is dissatisfied with her current approach but
does not know how to get what she wants. As she starts to
make progress, her affect shifts to excitement (“I can’t
believe…!!!”and “I am really excited about…”). Though
we do not have evidence that Rebecca’s frustration sus-
tained her through specific challenges, it did seem to play a
role in her engagement.
Resource: Rebecca’s activation and use of tenets of
Critical Race Theory, which pervade Rebecca’s talk and
writing from day 1. In particular, Critical Race Theory [2,7]
contends6that
a. Racism is permanent.—Racism is endemic, heg-
emonic, and permanent, and therefore difficult to
change [2,4,64]. We see evidence of this in Rebecca’s
naming the relevance of racism for her students (“this
is a real thing”) and in her growing awareness of and
willingness to accept the pervasive power dynamics in
the energy industry.
b. Whiteness is property.—U.S. jurisprudence has played
a role in reifying racism [3]. In the United States,
whiteness carries legal property rights and interests
that nonwhites are not allowed to claim. White identity
confers tangible and economically valuable benefits
and is guarded as a valued possession, allowed only to
those who meet a strict standard of proof. Rebecca
names multiple instantiations of whiteness as property,
TABLE IV. MCE codes in excerpts from Rebecca’s written work and discourse across the PD.
Day 1 Day 2 Days 2 and 3 Day 5
EP, CI contributions,
C social change precursor
KC mainstream academic,
CI social-change precursor
KC transformative- academic,
KC personal/cultural,
CI social action
KC transformative academic,
CI social change,
CI transformative, EP
6Critical Race Theory also contends that progress happens
through interest convergence and that those living at the inter-
section of multiple forms of oppression are multiply margin-
alized. However, we do not see evidence of these in Rebecca’s
reflections.
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from the dispossession of Indigenous lands to the
power conferred to those controlling the energy
industry.
c. Counterstorytelling is resistance. Counterstories aim
to cast doubt on the validity of accepted premises or
myths, especially those held by the majority. Majori-
tarian narratives are recognized as stories and not
assumed to be facts or truth [65]. Rebecca leads with
her efforts to counter mainstream images of scientists
as only white men, and her emerging plans for
instruction about efficiency resist dominant narratives.
d. Liberalism must be critiqued.—Liberalism fails to
consider race and racism in the examination of laws,
policies, and practices, and their implications for
Communities of Color [2,64,65]. Critical Race Theory
issues a critique of basic notions embraced by liberal
ideology, including race evasiveness, meritocracy, and
neutrality of the law. Rebecca expresses delight and
ease in challenging the objectivity and neutrality of
physics. When she says she “can’t believe [she] never
thought of this”as she names energy as a construct, we
infer that she has thought about this in other contexts.
Importantly, these tenets of Critical Race Theory are
entangled with the development of transformative knowl-
edge and curriculum for Rebecca. This is not surprising, as
MCE is a response to the realities named within Critical
Race Theory. Our analysis concretizes this entanglement in
the context of physics teaching.
Resource: Rebecca’s familiarity with the concept of
efficiency.—On day 2, Rebecca writes about a lesson she
had previously developed, in which students compete to
design the most efficient matchbox car. Implicit in
her description is some flexibility in her definition of
efficiency—notably, students “justify why their car is most
efficient”; they are not said to “apply a pre-determined
definition of efficiency.”During the PD, Rebecca at first
describes small-scale changes that she plans to make to this
lesson and then more substantive ones. Rebecca’s access to
this lesson seems to have cued her focus on efficiency and
eased the content integration work that she went on to do.
This raises questions about the role of content knowledge
and/or teaching experience in teachers’flexibility and
capacity to engage in learning MCE.
Resource: Instruction in the PD course.—Rebecca’s
learning about MCE was situated in the context of a PD
designed to invite the development of transformative
academic knowledge, and the activities and prompts shaped
Rebecca’s discourse and writing. Particularly influential for
Rebecca seemed to be specific examples offered by work-
shop facilitators. For example, one guest instructor offered
a short video lecture about the sociopolitical nature of
energy, including the ways in which Industrial-Revolution-
era values shaped an emphasis on work and efficiency. This
video prompted Rebecca’s“I can’t believe I never thought
of this”reflection and seems to have influenced subsequent
reflections in which Rebecca refers to ideas coming from a
particular time and place. Likewise, a second PD facilitator
offered an Easy Bake Oven as an example of how one
might define efficiency differently: though the light bulb in
an Easy Bake Oven is inefficient as a light, it is very
efficient as a heater. This example seemed to affirm
Rebecca’s growing expansiveness around the definition
of efficiency.
Summary.—Rebecca’s learning about MCE seems to have
been shaped by a variety of cognitive and environmental
resources, including the mutually reinforcing nature of the
dimensions of MCE, her frustration, Critical Race Theory,
her familiarity with the concept of efficiency, and instruction
in the PD course. Though necessarily local in nature, the
resources Rebecca draws on help us to formulate hypotheses
that could be explored further in future studies, including the
possibility of the following supports for teacher learning:
•Attending to opportunities to connect dimensions of
MCE within teacher discourse.
•Encouraging and supporting productive frustration.
•Supporting teachers in learning about and designing
instruction on the basis of tenets of Critical Race
Theory. This is particularly relevant in the current,
politically charged climate around Critical Race
Theory in schools.
•Directing teacher attention to opportunities for modi-
fying existing lessons on energy.
•Developing examples that highlight the sociopolitical
nature of physics concepts or that offer expansive
definitions of physics concepts.
V. DISCUSSION
In this paper, we have used the lens of Banks’multi-
cultural education to analyze teacher discourse and written
work in the context of a PD designed to support the
integration of physics energy concepts and equity. We hope
this paper offers unfamiliar readers a theoretical and
situated introduction to MCE, which has been one powerful
response to the reality and permanence of racism in
education [2,6,7]. One of our goals has been to illustrate
what MCE can look like in physics, with the aim of
generating community dialogue around this framework.
We have shown, first, that high school physics teachers
encountered vexation points [27,28] as they sought to
integrate equity into physics energy concepts, saying things
like, “Idon’t see myself getting kinetic energy equals one half
mv squared out of that [equity-oriented] discussion,”and,
“I feel like I’m woefully ignorant in this”even though “it’s
always been something that I’ve been wanting to do.”The
substance of thesevexation points highlights the difficulty of
developing transformative academic knowledge [13,20,57]
in relationship to canonical definitions and representations of
energy. We suggest that developing transformative academic
knowledge is made difficult by the discipline of physics and
the US system of schooling, both of which are significantly
invested in maintaining existing power structures and
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narratives of epistemic superiority. In physics, epistemic
superiority is premised at least in part on knowledge-building
practices believed to ensure (or approximate) objectivity and
neutrality—to produce “‘unbiased’knowledge uncondi-
tioned by its body and space location,”and thus “beyond
any particularity”[11]. These framings—and the enlighten-
ment-era values and philosophies they rely on—mask the
cultural specificity of physics knowledge and knowledge-
building practices. Instead, they support a powerful story:
that the physics canon represents universal truths about the
natural world, arrived at through rigorous (objective and
neutral) methods. This story—combined with the cultural
and political capital of physics in mainstream U.S. culture,
the “rightful”(and enforced) role of teachers as “agents
recruited and trained to carry out”the instilling of main-
stream knowledge and values [59,60], and the current
political climate around the critiquing of dominant ideas
or ideals in schools [66]—creates an environment in which
teachers are understandably confused about how to integrate
canonical energy concepts with equity.
Rebecca’s case offers some insight into how teacher
educators who want to support the development of
transformative academic knowledge might intervene. In
particular, for Rebecca, observing a PD instructor critique
and sociopolitically situate physics energy concepts was
transformative (“I can’t believe…!”). Her transformation
was further supported by invitations to issue her own
critiques in the context of the physics concept of efficiency.
In this example, physics instructors who specifically and
substantively address the sociopolitical origins of physics
concepts “broke the script”around the objectivity and
neutrality of physics, opening new pathways for Rebecca to
develop transformative academic knowledge.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by National Science
Foundation Grant No. 1760761 and 1907815; the opinions
stated in this paper are our own. The authors are grateful for
feedback from Jessica Hernandez and Ansel Neunzert on
early iterations of the analysis. Robertson wishes to express
gratitude for the support of her service dog, Eilish, whose
work alongside Robertson makes her own possible.
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