Navigating Rough Waters: Hawaiian Science Teachers Discuss Identity

Research with Native Hawaiian science teachers is contributing to a better understanding of issues relating to equity in science education, and toward improving science curriculum to support Native Hawaiian students as well as support systems for Native Hawaiian students interested in pursuing higher education and science-based careers. Additionally, this research supports the voices of individuals like the participants. In this way, the shared inspirations, influences, and challenges they encountered can inform both the Native Hawaiian and scientific communities. There were two research questions central to the project:(1) In what way(s) has being Native Hawaiian enabled or diminished your capacity to be a science teacher?; and (2) In what way(s) has being a science teacher enabled or diminished your capacity to be Native Hawaiian? None of the participants see themselves as either solely Hawaiian or solely as science teachers; instead they see themselves as Hawaiians who are also science teachers (or science teachers who are also Hawaiian). In the framework of these two identities, all of the participants cited the need to identify the importance of Native Hawaiian culture as it relates to scientific methods, theories, and practices. The formal inclusion of Hawaiian culture, as well as informal inclusion of the community in the classroom, can help students connect information that is learned in the classroom to their own realities outside of the classroom. In this way, members of the Hawaiian, educational, and scientific communities can all help today's students and tomorrow's scientists to navigate the rough waters that surround the multiple dimensions of their identity.