Post-pandemic Science & Technology Education

Much of the world is experiencing a crisis in which many ‘instructional packets’ (SARS-CoV-2 viruses) have commandeered ‘machinery’ of living beings to propagate themselves — regardless of surrounding harms their self-interested purposes may cause. Although they have, indeed, caused massive global disruption, crises linked to hegemonic actors are not uncommon. Capitalists, like viruses, conscript various living and nonliving entities to serve them and, in their persistent — and, generally, highly-successful — pursuit of profit, are said to be responsible for numerous social injustices and much environmental devastation, such as climate disruption and nuclear war (Ripple et al., 2020). Accordingly, like viral pandemics, many suggest that capitalism is a ‘pandemic’ and also must be eliminated — and, some would suggest, replaced with eco-socialist worlds. Capitalism seems, however, to be extremely resilient, often able to survive different crises and, sometimes, capable of emerging even stronger. In this vein, Naomi Klein (2007) suggests that capitalists and others have routinely exploited natural and anthropogenic disasters — using societal destabilization to further implement pro-capitalist policies, often at expense of well-being of many people (e.g., gig workers), societies (e.g., under surveillance) and environments (e.g., climate change). The CoViD-19 pandemic, however, may be a special kind of crisis — perhaps opening doors to more non-capitalist futures. Although enabling, for instance, more for-profit surveillance, it also may have disaggregated capitalist networks to the point of severe weakening and, in doing so, enlightened many people about pre-crisis neoliberal and populist infrastructures that may have contributed to this and other crises. Such conscientization may, in turn, have emboldened many to work for better futures. Given roles of science and technology (S&T) in capitalist empowerment, a natural place for such transformation may be science and technology education. In this paper, a framework for S&T education showing promise in this regard is described and defended. Nevertheless, those wishing societal transformation towards more eco-socialist futures need to engage multiple and diverse living, non-living and symbolic entities in ways that may generate networks supportive of such transformations.

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