Broadening Queering: Centering Queer and Trans Cultural Praxis in Science Education Research

Abstract

In this commentary, we respond to the persistent deficit framing of queer and trans life in science education research and call for a reorientation of queer‐ and trans‐inclusive scholarship towards more joyful commitments. We trace the “joy deficit” in scholarship on gender and sexual diversity in science education through Wright and Delgado's (2023) three paradigms —safety, equity, and critical—and examine both their contributions and their limits for research and pedagogy. While each has contributed to important progress, they continue to position queer and trans people through deficit framings and constrained subjectivities. In response, we draw attention to a growing body of anti‐deficit work emerging within a relational paradigm, which recognizes queer and trans cultural praxis as onto‐epistemological, methodological, and pedagogical forces that sustain and create joy and possibility within science education. We outline how these works reframe research by centering relationality and collective care as constitutive of science learning, and we invite scholars to take up these commitments in building more just and life‐affirming science education futures.