Science Education at the Crossroads 2025
Denver, CO
April 21-23, 2025
Key dates:
- Proposal deadline: November 15, 2024
- Acceptance Decisions: December 15, 2024
- Final Revisions for Proceedings due: February 1, 2025
Submit papers to: sciedxroads@gmail.com
The Call for Proposals
Overview
Science Education at the Crossroads is an interactive working conference designed for educational professionals to exchange challenges and solutions. Rather than presenting completed work, Crossroads participants describe vexing challenges they are facing and solutions that might resolve those issues. Sessions at the Crossroads Conference occur as Incubators.
Your proposal should equate to a two-page spread with the first half devoted to your Vexation and the second half to your venture. The piece must attend to this year’s theme of Picturing Freedom: Dreams of Emancipatory Futures through Science Education. Proposals should be submitted as an MS Word attachment to an email posted to sciedxroads@gmail.com by Friday, November 15, 2024. We ask that you use tinyurl.com/XRoads-VnVTemplate to expedite converting proposals into the conference Proceedings.
2025 Theme and Elaborations
Glancing over the shoulders of her enslavers in nineteenth-century Virginia while she fans away the Southern heat, Clotee, a young Black girl, practices learning as a means of escape in teaching herself how to read. This historical account is more broadly representative of Black fugitivity (Givens, 2021). In this story, learning to read entails more than developing the technical acumen to decode and comprehend print text; it entails freedom dreaming toward a liberated future unconstrained by the shackles of oppression.
Taking this idea as a point of departure, we invite you to attend Science Education at the Crossroads 2025: Picturing Freedom: Dreams of Emancipatory Futures through Science Education. Freedom dreaming, as articulated by acclaimed historian Robin D. G. Kelley, finds its origins in the Black radical tradition and solidarity with grassroots social movements. Such speculative world-building involves practicing desired futures in the here-and-now, engendering relational ways of being that sustain possibilities toward social transformation. At a time where this work is seemingly more constrained than ever due to “ ‘wokeness fatigue,’ racist reaction, and liberal compromise,” (Kelley, 2022) we ask, what does it look like — and what does it mean — to freedom dream in the supposedly apolitical field of science education?
Conference Proposal Writing
We ask that you download this MS Word template tinyurl.com/XRoads-VnVTemplate and use it as you develop your proposal. For those who have not yet read Jarvis Givens’ book Fugitive Pedagogy [and you should!] we recommend that you first read his chapter Literate Slave, Fugitive Slave https://tinyurl.com/XRoads25-Givens
The structure of your proposal should be organized into these two headings:
VEXATION: At the intersections of freedom dreaming, emancipatory futures, and fugitivity, what specific challenges are vexing you? Beyond venting frustrations, plainly explain the source of your frustration, the reasons the issue is troublesome, and genuine implications should this vexation remain unresolved. An effective Vexation personalizes the struggle so others can understand and engage.
VENTURE: The Venture describes a course of action you are contemplating to address the Vexation. You could offer information about initial efforts you’ve made. Or you could articulate a suite of strategies you are considering. The goal is eliciting input about resources to inform your next steps. The more specific your Venture, the easier it will be for other participants to provide substantive and actionable feedback.
Submit your individual Vexation and Venture as an attachment to sciedxroads@gmail.com by November 15, 2024. All citations across everyone’s papers will be collected into the Proceeding’s appendix, so only the inline citations are included in the word count. Total word count should be close to 1500 words. Each paper will be reviewed by two scholars and acceptance decisions will be announced via email.
Key dates
- Invitations sent: October 2024
- Proposal deadline: November 15, 2024
- Acceptance Decisions: December 15, 2024
- Final Revisions for Proceedings due: January 15, 2025
Proceedings
All accepted Vexations and Ventures will be bound into the Proceedings. We will mail hard copies in advance so you can preview the scope of presenters attending this conference. This Proceedings will also communicate logistics associated with Crossroads. During the actual conference, we anticipate that you will rely on the printed Proceedings rather than a digital version. This is intentional because it allows presenters’ concerns, quite literally, to be on the table for your consideration. There are no slideshows or projectors used during the Incubator sessions. The Proceedings is a reference document to support the presenters with engaging in face-to-face conversation with others without the distraction of screens.