Edited by: Aaminah Norris, José Ramón Lizárraga
Foreword by: Carol D. Lee
Publication Date: November 21, 2025
Pages: 144
Series: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies Series
These compelling narratives illustrate how Black women educators cultivate inclusive, justice-centered STEM learning environments for K–12 students.
Explore the powerful pedagogies and lived experiences of four Black women educators who challenge structural barriers to reimagine STEM education as a space of radical love, cultural sustainability, and justice.
Grounded in a National Science Foundation–funded study, this volume documents how educators—through their stories, struggles, and triumphs—develop what the editors call Black STEMinist Pedagogies. These pedagogies center collective and communal responsibility, ancestral knowledge, and the healing power of teaching, offering a blueprint for how to recruit, support, and retain Black women teachers in STEM fields. Each chapter, authored by a diverse team of researchers, amplifies the voices of Black women teachers and affirms their role as knowledge producers and agents of transformation.
By weaving together life histories, scholarly analysis, and classroom narratives, this book offers both inspiration and practical guidance for creating a future where girls of color thrive at the center of STEM learning.
Book Features:
Aaminah Norris is a professor and faculty director of the Office of Research and Engagement at Sacramento State, and founder and CEO of UnHidden Voices, a Black woman–owned educational consultancy. José Ramón Lizárraga is a scholar, educator, and innovator in digital learning, instructional design, and equity-driven education technology.
“Cultivating New Futures for Girls in STEM wrestles with complex exemplars of what multitude of factors contribute to how teachers see their work and how they see themselves as professionals…. This volume invites important and complex discussions that are deeply needed both in education broadly speaking, specifically in STEM education, and most pervasively in our society at large.”
—From the Foreword by Carol D. Lee, Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University
“By giving voice to the life histories of Black women STEM teachers, this book sheds light on the transformative potential of culturally responsive teaching.”
—Elisabetta Crocetti, full professor in social psychology, University of Bologna, Italy
“The lucidly told stories of these four STEMists, rooted in life histories and flowering in radical love, provide clear visions and practices of teaching to transform educational and societal systems that too often disrupt rather than promote democratic values and ideals.”
—Jabari Mahiri, professor and Brinton Family Chair in Urban Teaching, Berkeley School of Education
Contents
Series Foreword vii
Foreword Carol D. Lee xi
Acknowledgments xix
1. Introduction: She Builds a Bridge 1
Aaminah Norris and José Ramón Lizárraga
2. A Champion for Students and Self: Creating Change as a Science Educator 17
Nalya A. F. Rodriguez
3. Becoming the STEM Teacher She Needed 33
Abigail R. Cohen
4. Her Calling Is to Be a STEM Teacher 55
Maha Elsinbawi
5. Replenishing the Fractures: On Teaching as a Site of Nourishment and Healing 73
Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton
6. In Conclusion: Building New Bridges to Just Futures 95
Aaminah Norris and José Ramón Lizárraga
Endnotes 105
References 107
Index 115
About the Editors and Contributors 119
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