Background
Recent policies have given momentum to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the USA and throughout the world. This has resulted in rapid growth in engineering and STEM curricula, many of which incorporate global contexts to frame student experiences; however, little research has been done on the effects of this contextualization. Thus, it is critical to explore the impact of these curricula on student learning and the development of STEM identities, especially those who have historically been marginalized in STEM fields. The purposes of this study are to critically examine how STEM curriculum helps shape students’ perceptions of the underlying cultural context and suggest ways that anti-oppressive education theory can be applied in middle school physical science classrooms. This study draws on classroom observational data and the curriculum text itself to understand how students perceive culture that they do not identify with.

Results
We found that the curriculum provides very limited perspectives of the non-dominant culture in which the learning was situated. Our results also indicate three emerging themes showing students to be demonstrating an elitist viewpoint, having a narrow view of another culture, or being indifferent toward the embedded cultural context in the lessons. As a class, deficit-based views of the people and places presented in the lesson were created rather than the desired culturally competent views. These negative perceptions were imprinted and solidified through limited portrayal of the embedded culture in the curriculum.

Conclusions
This work highlights the importance of curriculum context in students’ learning. Beliefs about the people and places are created through global context presented in the curriculum. Portrayal of these people and places was not representative of the culture; thus, resulting in limited perceptions of the situated contexts. It is crucial that the teachers critically evaluate the curriculum prior to its implementation to make sure Others are represented appropriately by drawing upon the anti-oppressive education theory. Lastly, we also advocate for the incorporation of global culture in STEM curriculum by having students learn beyond what the written curriculum offers.



中文翻译：

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文化能力还是基于赤字的观点？一种定性的方法来理解中学生在文化框架工程方面的经验

背景
最近的政策推动了美国乃至全球的科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）教育。这导致工程和STEM课程的快速增长，其中许多课程结合了全球背景来构建学生的体验；然而，关于这种情境化效果的研究很少。因此，探索这些课程对学生学习和STEM身份发展的影响至关重要，尤其是那些在STEM领域历来被边缘化的课程。这项研究的目的是批判性地研究STEM课程如何帮助塑造学生对基本文化背景的理解，并提出可以在中学物理科学课堂中应用反压抑教育理论的方法。

结果
我们发现，课程提供了关于学习所处的非主流文化的非常有限的观点。我们的研究结果还表明，三个新兴主题表明学生正在展示一种精英主义观点，对另一种文化的狭narrow看法或对课程中所嵌入的文化语境漠不关心。作为一个班级，创建了本课中介绍的基于赤字的人和地方的观点，而不是期望的具有文化能力的观点。通过对课程中嵌入文化的有限描绘，这些负面观念得以印刻和巩固。

结论
这项工作突出了课程环境在学生学习中的重要性。通过课程中介绍的全球背景来创建关于人和地方的信念。这些人和地方的刻画并不能代表文化。因此，导致对所处环境的感知有限。至关重要的是，教师必须在课程实施之前对其进行严格的评估，以确保 他人可以利用反压迫教育理论来恰当地代表他人 。最后，我们还主张通过让学生学习书面课程提供的内容以外的方法，将全球文化纳入STEM课程。