Prof. Alexis Riley reflects on her work in science education, discussing Black women teachers’ pedagogical practices and the role of historically relevant approaches in advancing equity and social justice in education.
Lina: You’ve described yourself as a teacher-educator, writer, and Stevie Wonder enthusiast, and your journey began in South Central Los Angeles. Could you share how your early life experiences and classroom teaching shaped the questions that now guide your research in science education?
Prof. Riley: On both sides of my family, my people are from different parts of Louisiana, so while living and growing in South Central, Los Angeles I reaped the benefits of Black southern traditions and ways of being. Specific to my relationship with science and science education, I like to share two narratives: 1) my Nana (my mother’s mother) showed and taught me the joys and purpose embedded in agricultural practices and sustainability through gardening, and 2) my Auntie Joyce (my mother’s sister) talked to me in the car about health equity issues when I was a kid, specifically the fact the over-presence of power plants in our neighborhood was a by-product of redlining and other systemic injustices that made it acceptable for us to live in a food desert with air pollution so that the more economically and racially privileged could exist without such injustices. These two narratives for me capture the vastness of what Black people and other historically marginalized folks understand about science, both its possibilities and ways that it has been misused. Sharing joy, truth, and liberation continue to guide my research in science education, and that is heavily influenced by my early life experiences in South Central, Los Angeles.
Lina: Before entering academia, you spent many years teaching science and history in public and charter schools in Harlem and Brooklyn. How did your experiences as a secondary school teacher influence the way you approach research, particularly your emphasis on instinct, improvisation, and healing in Black women’s teaching practices?
Prof. Riley: Before I had the term “culturally relevant pedagogy” (Ladson-Billings, 1994) or “womanist pedagogy” (Beaubeouf-Lafontant, 2002) as an inspiration for my pedagogical pursuits, I was attempting the tenets embedded in both ideologies because those tenets matched my vision for education and how to break apart curriculum for the benefit of the students and communities I taught, Black and Brown communities. Unfortunately, I did the bulk of this work without the community of other Black women science teachers, without the knowledge of how what I was attempting was connected to a long-storied history of Black teachers, and without tools for critical consciousness in science teaching and learning. So as I embarked on becoming a researcher, I considered building the type of research that might support practitioners who are on the margins of the field and for me that helped me specifically focus on the legacy, innovations, and healing of Black women science teachers.
Lina: Your scholarship centers Black women teachers’ legacy, innovation, and healing, positioning their instinctual and improvisational practices as central to science education. What does it mean, in practice, to truly “center” Black women’s knowledge in a field that has historically marginalized it?
Prof. Riley: Legacy - Seeking out archival research to demonstrate the fact that humanizing and affirming practices in science education has historically been present amongst Black educators is one way I support Black women in understanding that they are not alone and their vision for a critically conscious science classroom is part of a long-storied history. They are not alone despite how their peers or school administrators might ostracize them. I write about this more comprehensively in the manuscript, Womanist Pedagogy and Black women science teachers in Race, Ethnicity, and Education.
Innovations - My dear friend and colleague, Dr. Shamari Reid, has recently shared a Toni Morrison quote with me, “I stood at the border, stood there. And claimed it as central, and let the rest of the world move over to where I was”. This quote from Mother Toni reminds me of the inspiration I got from bell hooks’ (1989) ‘Choosing the Margins as a Space for Radical Openness’ text which heavily energizes me to continue my work with Black women science teachers. Spoken plainly, in practice, to truly center Black women’s knowledge in a field like science education that has historically marginalized it, I share the innovations of Black women science teachers (through works like Historically Relevant Science Pedagogy) and invite the rest to meet us at the border.
Healing - The Sista Circles Lab is a healing affinity space for BWSTs to affirm themselves, laugh, celebrate kinship and individuality, gain access to ancestral strength, and build within and among themselves. It is important for me to continue to host the Sista Circle Lab because I believe in the power of community. This is a space where we get to share knowledge, sadness, and hope with each other and in large part this knowledge is kept sacred and not for research but for us.
Lina: In your recent work, you introduce and further develop the concept of Historically Relevant Science Pedagogy. How does this framework build on or challenge existing approaches such as culturally relevant or culturally sustaining pedagogy?
Prof. Riley: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and other works by Gloria Ladson-Billings are at the forefront of all of my work. Historically Relevant Science Pedagogy was born out of Sista Circle discussions amongst Black women science teachers and when transcribing data it became abundantly clear that Ladson-Billings’ work and other liberatory frameworks truly inspired the pedagogical pursuits of us all. For this reason, three liberatory frameworks were used as theoretical frameworks– liberatory pedagogy (hooks, 1994); Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995); and Culturally and Historically Responsive Education (Muhammad, 2020; 2023)--to support me with analyzing the Sista Circle data and coming up with Historically Relevant Science Pedagogy. It is also important to note that these three frameworks specifically work to end anti-Black sentiments and are inspired by the work and theories of Black women teachers and education scholars.
Lina: Several of your publications examine Black women science teachers as anti-racist educators who cultivate critical consciousness in their classrooms. What does anti-racist science teaching look like on an everyday, classroom level, especially within systems that often resist such work?
Prof. Riley: Four ideologies that capture how anti-racist science teaching can be utilized on an everyday, classroom level are embodied in the four tenets of Historically Relevant Science Pedagogy: Tenet 1: Bringing something new to the community they are serving while also honoring the norms and culture that is already present, Tenet 2: Using NGSS within context of the community by giving space to ask Critical questions, Tenet 3: Teaching at the intersection of history, culture, and science learning and teaching, and Tenet 4: Building critical consciousness in the science classroom, Considering systems that often resist such work, we need people from privileged backgrounds to also support in disrupting the corrosive practices that sustain systems. The power to make this vision a reality is in the hands of us all to varying degrees. Historically Relevant Science Pedagogy poses as an invitation to multiple stakeholders in science education to actively position science learning through what Morales-Doyle (2019) refers to as “social transformation”. This framework allows for these components of inquiry-based and inclusive science teaching to come to life and is applicable for students and teachers from various backgrounds, since we are all participating in different degrees to the ways science can be used to enact social justice that redresses harm to our planet and our communities.
Lina: In your work on Black women science teachers in charter schools, you describe moments where teachers felt that their “curriculum has no soul.” What structural constraints most often limit teachers’ ability to teach in humanizing and historically grounded ways, and where do you still see room for possibility?
Prof. Riley: In a later piece, Elder Black Women Science Teachers (Re)member (Riley, 2025), I wrote explicitly about structural constraints that can be used to limit specifically Black women science teachers. I wrote the following:
Matrix of domination refers to how intersecting oppressions are actually organized. Regardless of the particular intersections involved, structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal domains of power reappear across quite different forms of oppression (Collins, 2013). Specifically, Black women science teachers are situated at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression, including systemic racism (e.g., poor K-12 schooling, poor funding for science major attainment and teacher preparation programs, teaching in overcrowded classrooms with minimal resources), gendered racism (e.g., lower pay to men and white women, minimal representation of Black women scientists in public media and science curriculum), and exclusionary practices in science teaching and learning (e.g., minimal mentorship in science college classes, anti-Black science epistemologies in teacher education programs and curricular resources). These structures do more than make up a system of ideas for Black women science teachers, these oppressive structures create our “political and economic reality” (Collins, 2013, p. 107).
In that same piece I practiced one of the many ways I see room for possibility, critical self-reflection through poetry. Another room for possibility is creating liberatory spaces. Creating liberatory science spaces looks like science teachers, science teacher educators and science education structures embodying Black cultural perspectives regarding identity, thoughts, behaviors, and performance that honor rather than dispute, encourage rather dissuade, and empower Blackness (Mutegi, 2013; Mutegi et al., 2019). Creating these liberatory spaces is that much harder when some of the leaders in the effort, Black women science teachers, are not given space to attend to their needs. Professional development spaces for Black women science teachers must give space for them to consider how their racialized and gendered position impacted their past and current science learning experiences. Looking back to move forward can be done through (re)membering through poetry (as discussed in this paper), through sharing examples and philosophies of exemplary Black women teachers throughout history (Riley, 2023) or engaging in Sista Circles (Riley & Mensah, 2024) that allow for unearthing truth and sparking collaboration.
Lina: You’ve been recognized with honors such as the Jhumki Basu Scholars Award and the NYC Health Equity Champion Award. How do you see your research and teaching contributing to broader conversations about health equity, racial justice, and science education beyond the university?
Prof. Riley: It’s the whole thing for me! The pride I hold when I think about my middle school teaching is held at the intersection of health equity, racial justice, and science education. When first pushing myself to write the Historically Relevant Science Pedagogy piece, I wrote the following to detail why the framework is necessary:
We are dying. The state of conditions for Black people and other marginalized groups are dire (Geronimus et al., 2006; Ray, 2023). From inequitable healthcare access to state-sponsored violence, Black people and other marginalized groups are excluded from the right to well-being and health. Anti-Black science epistemologies (Morton et al., 2022) have helped soften the blow of this reality for folks who are looking for ways to legitimize the state of health conditions and high mortality rates for Black people; put plainly, people are more willing to accept dire health and societal concerns as natural instead of structured and supported by policy. Social mobility that might undo the structures and policies that allow this state of conditions to persist requires youth with tools through content, critical consciousness, and the support and freedom to demand change (Kirshner, 2015; e.g., Ch. 7 of Turner, 2022). A curriculum that gives students the chance to challenge anti-Black science epistemologies and to envision and build their future through a historical and socio-political lens is necessary to change the ways structural racism and other systems of oppression are allowed to negatively impact the daily lives of Black people and other marginalized groups. Since today’s conditions are not new, looking to the past can help give us tools to envision a more promising tomorrow. People from the African diaspora have always practiced food sustainability, been innovative with scientific and agricultural practices, and valued the Earth’s natural resources (Nabudere, 2013). This history must be positioned in science teaching and learning as ways to help students make sense of how to propose solutions to the Earth and society they have inherited (Quinlan, 2023).
For me, speaking with teachers about how their work can behold the intersection of health equity, racial justice, and science education means the world to me. As a junior scholar, I am trying to find more and more ways to share inspiration with them, from giving talks with pre- and in-service teachers to sharing direct links to my writing beyond journal paywalls. It is my hope to find ways to be more expansive and accessible in the future.
Lina: In your courses at NYU Steinhardt, what topics or moments tend to resonate most deeply with students, especially when discussing race, science, and power? Have students ever surprised you in how they take up these conversations?
Prof. Riley: In my classes, I strive to give students the opportunities to engage in critical self-reflection and to be more humanizing regarding their view of science and science teaching and learning through an iterative process. This iterative process is necessary to support students with understanding the myriad of ways they must unlearn, learn, and build so that they are a part of change. At the conclusion of most of my courses, each student and I have an individual student-led conference where they get to discuss their growth throughout the semester and most reveal how this iterative process stuck with them and that they really appreciate the time they spent reflecting on their previous experiences with schooling and science. It helps them unpack a lot of other experiences/lessons that have shaped their worldview.
Lina: For students who hope to become educators or researchers committed to equity and justice in science education, what guidance would you offer, especially for those navigating institutions that may not yet be ready for this work?
Prof. Riley: Recently, I gave a talk to pre-service teachers at Rutgers University and was given the opportunity to give insights to the following question: How do we prioritize our own learning despite extensive commitments and complex school environments? To that I shared:
In a time when chaos, misinformation, and despair is the political norm and objective from those in power, collective imagination sparked by truth, liberation, and justice is what our students deserve. As K-12 teachers this means that our learning is paramount. We must embody liberatory frameworks such as culturally relevant pedagogy in order to become the teachers our communities are proud of.
- Focus on what is in your control on an individual and classroom level, daily
- Join or create spaces to build community, unlearn, and act
- Remember that you are human, not a machine. Allow your barometer of success to be the community you serve not structures that will persist without you.
While that message is specifically for teachers, I would share the absolute same with educators and researchers. People (the masses) disrupt systems that corrode our collective good. As continued guidance, I offer the sentiment provided by Fannie Lou Hamer in 1971, “nobody’s free until we are all free” and another from the Black Feminist, Combahee River Collective: “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression”.
