Learning About Justice‐Oriented Participation in Scientific Communities of Practice Through Resistance Spotlight Assignments

ABSTRACT

Undergraduate science education is often understood as a process of acculturation—learning the knowledge and practices aligned with existing disciplinary norms and values. A consequence of acculturation is that it preserves the status quo and can perpetuate exclusion and oppression. Moving toward justice therefore requires mechanisms that enable the transformation of scientific communities. In this paper, we present a conceptual argument for how to support students in learning about disciplinary culture and participation in ways that create space for imagining resistance and change. This work is inspired by a design innovation that introduced examples of resistance work in science through “Spotlight” assignments that invite students to learn about the identities and scholarship of contemporary scientists. Resistance Spotlight assignments introduced students to scientists who are pushing back against oppressive norms and interrogating problematic histories within their fields. We conducted a comparative case analysis of Spotlight assignments in a computational biology course, examining how different assignments shaped students' ideas about what values are important and possible in disciplinary participation. We argue that Resistance Spotlight assignments can help students recognize the possibility and value of justice‐oriented work in disciplinary contexts, as well as the potential of such work to transform scientific communities.