Forwarding a 'Science-Ethics Nexus' to Critique and Reorient Science Education Pedagogy toward Greater Social and Ecological Justice

In this paper, I engage with arguments put forth by Blue Mahy in his article "A speculative-posthumanist examination of the 'science-ethics nexus' in Australian secondary schools." Mahy argues that by using relational posthumanist concepts as a diffractive lens, his critiques of Australian school science standards find the underlying hegemonies of masculine, Euro-Western ideologies that infuse the stance on ethics in science education. He uses a 'plug in process' of posthumanist concepts to generate a 'speculative fiction'. This is a method used to reclaim ethics and science by creating narratives produced by the diffracted projections of posthumanist concepts. In my own research on science teacher education, I explore Mahy's use of diffraction for both critiquing science curriculum and providing projections for future ethical commitments in school science education. I utilize data from my science methods course which is situated in Central California's agricultural region at a largely Hispanic-Serving Institution.