Inserting critical mathematics into STEM education

Abstract

The chapter begins by asking whether STEM education is a friend or foe to the field of critical mathematics education (CME) by reviewing how mainstream STEM conflicts with CME but also provides spaces for critical work. Tensions between CME and STEM include mainstream STEM's emphasis on human capital, inattention to environmental degradation, and soft-critical orientation to social justice issues. However, STEM's emphases on interdisciplinarity can provide opportunities for critical mathematics education to take place. We argue that STEM education as policy can be an opportunistic space to simultaneously resist and reconstitute in line with the values and goals of CME. We extend CME's goals with deeper theoretical consideration to the nature of the ecological and social crises, in so doing we draw on ecofeminism and EcoJustice Education. The chapter concludes with a model "critical STEM" unit plan sketch that is appropriate for the Junior Secondary level. CME, ecofeminist theory, and internationally benchmarked content standards provide the foundation for our STEM unit plan titled "A Story of Incarceration." By this example, we intend to show that critical STEM projects can be transformative for learners as well meet the content goals of standard STEM education.