Not “Real” Science Education Research: The Systematic Silencing of Critical Science Education Scholarship

Abstract

This chapter shares my experience as a Latina doctoral student and assistant professor in Science Education, mostly dominated by white and middle/upper class academics. As a Latina from a working class background, I often find myself out of sync with and ostracized by the culture of academia in general and science education academia specifically. I have had to learn how to survive the systematic racist, sexist, classist, ethnocentric, and elitist structures inherent in these worlds, even as members of these structures label me and my scholarship as unscholarly and try to domesticate me to fit the standard of what ``real science education research'' looks like. This meant erasing and belittling what I am, what I believe, and what I dedicate my life's work toward. I share my struggles through my poem ``Unos Cuantos Piquetitos,'' after the Frida Kahlo piece Unos Cuantos Piquetitos (Apasionadamente Enamorado), to illustrate how science education academia works to render me invisible while bleeding me dry.