Prof. Daniel Morales-Doyle
Title: Neither chemophobia nor chemophilia: Honest rendering of chemical enterprise in chemistry education
Abstract:
Chemistry education has traditionally prioritized promoting the discipline of chemistry in two ways. First, there has been an overwhelming emphasis on the pre-professional preparation of chemists. Secondly, chemistry education has aimed to communicate to non-chemists, that chemistry positively impacts their lives and society. This second goal is sometimes associated with preventing chemophobia – or the irrational fear of chemicals. In fact, chemistry education often more closely resembles proselytizing chemophilia. Chemistry is falsely portrayed as pure science and its entanglements and harms are hidden. The reductionist epistemology of chemistry education therefore reproduces the systematic oversights of the technoscience itself. Specifically, the role of chemical enterprise in global ecological devastation is rendered invisible in chemistry classrooms. Knowledge is extracted from context in much the same way as materials are extracted from Earth. The impacts of this extractivist epistemology are borne disproportionately by the human communities and ecosystems most exploited by imperialism and racial capitalism. Drawing on several concrete examples from the neighborhoods where I have lived, I argue for a more honest rendering of chemical enterprise in chemistry classrooms. Considering three cases: medical waste incinerators, an industrial chemical plant, and less lethal weapons, I demonstrate how conventional chemistry education contributes to socioecological injustices and violence. I suggest that by avoiding both chemophobia and chemophilia, we might aim instead to teach towards the end of the chemistry as we know it.
Keywords: chemistry education; environmental justice
Bio:
Daniel Morales-Doyle is an associate professor of science education at the University of Illinois Chicago. His research examines the potential for science education to act as a catalyst for alternative futures. Specifically, Morales-Doyle’s work focuses on the sociopolitical dimensions of science curriculum, teaching, and teacher education. Daniel was a high school chemistry teacher in the Chicago Public Schools before coming to UIC. He is the author of the 2024 book, Transformative Science Teaching: A Catalyst for Justice and Sustainability.
Host: Prof. Ryan Stowe