How Successful High School Chemistry Teachers Learn to be Inclusive

Abstract

High school science classes are crucial for encouraging students toward the STEM pipeline. However, historically marginalized students unfortunately experience a lack of belonging disproportionately to non-marginalized students, and as a result, are discouraged from pursuing STEM fields. In order to encourage every student, teachers need to be inclusive. The resulting study investigates how accomplished high school chemistry teachers learn to be inclusive through their journeys as educators. Past studies have focused extensively on the student perspective in order to gain an understanding of best teaching practices, whereas the current study takes into account the educator perspective with an emphasis on how their approaches have developed throughout their teaching careers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five high school chemistry teachers from across the United States who were deemed to be inclusive teachers as a result of being honored with awards for inclusive pedagogy. The teachers spoke about their experiences at an individual, pedagogical, and structural level. The major implications are that inclusive teachers take risks, learn from their mistakes, encourage students toward STEM fields, and treat all students like scientists.