Before the Pandemic: Past Attempts to Redress Health Disparities via Science Education and their Pathologizing Effects

Since the 1980s, a key component of the U.S. federal agenda to address health disparities has been to design a different form of science education for target student populations. These reforms cite the correlation of disparities in health, science achievement, and scientific careers. One effect has been to triangulate a figure of the ‘underrepresented minority’ (URM) as a distinct pedagogical kind, presumed to require a different form of science education.....