Post-pandemic Science & Technology Education: Ongoing Challenges to Societies

Although the COVID-19 pandemic was highly devastating, particularly for disadvantaged segments of societies, it helped unmask the apparent ongoing ‘pandemic’ of ‘externalities’ wrought by elite few—mostly wealthy—individuals (e.g., financiers) and groups (e.g., corporations, governments & transnational organizations) who have routinely orchestrated most people, other living and non-living things and symbolic capital towards serving their interests over most others and environments. Key instruments of such wealth and wellbeing concentration often are fields of science and technology/engineering and their educational counterparts. Transforming them in ways prioritizing social justice and environmental vitality is essential, therefore, in thwarting the ‘elitism pandemic.’ In this chapter, after Lyn Carter provides a forthright review of disorienting ‘polycrises’ associated with global geopolitical struggles, Isabel Martins describes how deeply ingrained social injustice mechanisms, paired with disinformation, were instrumental in pandemic mismanagement during Brazil’s former right-wing populist government and then Larry Bencze reports on ongoing work to prepare secondary school students for critical and activist civic engagements in contexts of ‘progressive’ neoliberalism. These diverse accounts may contribute to political turns that appear needed in school science, with supportive acts by people in government, diverse private sector and labour contexts and many more.