Supporting Students’ Rightful Presence in Justice-Oriented Project-Based Learning: Collaborative Self-Study of a Teacher Educator and a Teacher

In this study, we – a science teacher educator and a middle school science teacher – conducted a collaborative self-study within a middle school science context where students engaged in justice-oriented project-based learning by identifying, investigating, and presenting local-global environmental justice issues meaningful to their communities. Drawing on rightful presence and its three pedagogical tenets as a conceptual framework, we examined how our understandings of supporting students’ rightful presence evolved as we collaboratively planned, enacted, and reflected on the environmental justice-focused project-based learning unit. Findings are organized around three interconnected themes: (1) negotiating authority as central to student learning, (2) centering students’ lived experiences in defining core terms and purposes of learning, and (3) expecting the unexpected in scaffolding student reauthoring. Through collaborative reflection, we also reconsidered our broader instructional practices across science methods courses and middle school classrooms. We discuss implications for justice-oriented science teaching and collaborative self-study, arguing that supporting rightful presence requires an ongoing willingness to negotiate tensions in authority, meaning making, and uncertainty in shaping justice-oriented learning experiences.