Literature review
The growing urgency of environmental crises has intensified calls for science education that is socially responsive, ethically grounded, and connected to learners’ lived realities. Rather than focusing solely on abstract disciplinary knowledge, science education is increasingly expected to prepare students to engage critically with complex social and environmental challenges. Hodson (Reference Hodson2003), for instance, emphasises the need to cultivate scientifically and politically literate citizens capable of responding to such issues. Similarly, Fuchs and Tan (Reference Fuchs and Tan2022) conceptualise socially responsible science education as fostering critical engagement with science and technology alongside a sense of responsibility toward society and the environment. Together, these perspectives position science education as a means of promoting social responsibility, environmental stewardship, and critical engagement with contemporary realities.
Within this shift, SSIs have emerged as a key framework for connecting science learning with real-world complexity. SSIs require engagement with evidence, values, ethical reasoning, and multiple perspectives, enabling students to interrogate power relations and integrate scientific and social knowledge (Zeidler & Nichols, Reference Zeidler and Nichols2009). Such approaches challenge the portrayal of science as neutral and value-free. Hodson (Reference Hodson2003) argues that curricula cannot remain value-free if they aim to prepare students for democratic participation. This is reinforced by Nature of Science scholarship, which views scientific knowledge as tentative and socially embedded (Lederman, Reference Lederman, Abell and Lederman2007). Consequently, ignoring the social, ethical, and political dimensions of environmental issues risks offering a partial understanding of both science and society.
Environmental socioscientific issues (ESSIs) extend this framework by foregrounding environmental problems as intersections of scientific, ethical, economic, and political concerns. Issues such as waste, pollution, and agricultural crises require deliberation on competing interests, unequal impacts, and possibilities for action. Engagement with ESSIs can surface hidden interests and diverse perspectives, enabling learners to confront the socio-political dimensions of scientific controversies (Kaushik et al., Reference Kaushik, Chunawala and Chari2022). Such pedagogy supports critical literacy and civic engagement beyond scientific explanation. However, its classroom enactment remains constrained by rigid curricula, exam pressures, limited time, and insufficient support (Kaushik et al., Reference Kaushik, Chunawala and Chari2022). ESSIs thus hold transformative potential, but their uptake is shaped by structural limitations.
These constraints are particularly evident in Global South contexts, where environmental issues are often framed in depoliticised and decontextualised ways. In India, science textbooks tend to marginalise sustainability and social justice, treating them as peripheral rather than central concerns (Kaushik, Reference Kaushik2020). Despite policy emphasis on science–technology–society linkages, curricula continue to privilege disciplinary knowledge, with limited socioscientific engagement. Srivastava (Reference Srivastava2023) shows that issues such as ‘waste’ are presented in reductionist terms, focusing on technical management while neglecting consumption, inequality, caste, and lived realities. Similarly, Haydock and Srivastava (Reference Haydock and Srivastava2019) highlight textbook narratives that emphasise individual responsibility over systemic causes. Together, these studies suggest that environmental issues are often taught in ways that obscure power, responsibility, and lived consequences, reducing complex crises to moral or technical problems.
In contrast, contextualised science education emphasises that environmental learning becomes more meaningful when grounded in students’ lived realities. Place-based education situates learning within ecological, cultural, and social contexts, fostering engagement and relevance (Yemini et al., Reference Yemini, Engel and Ben Simon2025). It frames knowledge as emerging through relationships with land, livelihood, and community. Critical Pedagogy of Place further calls for interrogating the social and ecological histories that shape these contexts. Similarly, culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies challenge the neutrality of dominant science by foregrounding diverse epistemologies and structural inequities (Smith et al., Reference Smith, Avraamidou and Adams2022). Empirical studies show that affirming students’ identities enhances engagement and sociopolitical awareness (Marosi, Avraamidou & Galani Reference Marosi, Avraamidou and Galani2021). Together, these approaches support a contextually grounded and socially responsive science education.
Teachers are central to enacting context-responsive pedagogies. Such approaches are not determined by curriculum alone but are shaped by teachers’ interpretive work, judgment, and positionality. Fuchs and Tan (Reference Fuchs and Tan2022) emphasise that socially responsible science education must be grounded in teachers’ contexts and supported through community-embedded professional development. Teacher identity is therefore critical, as educators’ biographies, attachments to place, and socio-political commitments influence how they interpret and teach ESSIs. Chang and Kidman (Reference Chang and Kidman2024) highlight how identity shapes curricular decisions and connections to students’ lived realities, while Rodriguez and Navarro-Camacho (Reference Rodriguez and Navarro-Camacho2023) stress its importance for equity-oriented education. This aligns with culturally responsive pedagogy, where shared cultural and social ties enable teachers to build trust, validate local knowledge, and situate science within broader struggles for dignity and survival (Marosi et al., Reference Marosi, Avraamidou and Galani2021).
Together, these strands frame science and environmental education as issues-based, place-conscious, community-engaged, and identity-aware. However, research integrating these perspectives remains limited, particularly in rural Global South contexts where environmental issues are deeply tied to agrarian livelihoods and community histories. Kumar et al. (Reference Kumar, Choudhary and Singh2024) note that South Asia is underrepresented in ESSI research despite its high climate vulnerability, calling for studies on how local ESSIs are taught, culturally interpreted, and framed by teachers and textbooks. There is even less work examining teachers as both educators and stakeholders directly implicated in these issues. This study addresses that gap.
This study is framed by an integration of critical pedagogy, place-based education, and SSI scholarship. A critical pedagogy of place provides a productive lens by linking social justice with the ecological and cultural specificity of local contexts. Gruenewald (Reference Gruenewald2003) argues that education should engage the “social and ecological places people actually inhabit” (3) and pursue decolonisation and “reinhabitation” (4). In agrarian contexts, this perspective highlights how environmental knowledge is shaped by land, livelihood, and unequal power relations, positioning teachers and students as active participants in interpreting and responding to their conditions.
This orientation is further informed by Freire’s critical pedagogy, which views education as a dialogic and transformative practice that fosters critical consciousness through reflection and action (Freire, Reference Freire2017). In environmental education, this extends to “Ecopedagogy,” which frames socio-environmental issues as sites for problem-posing, ethical inquiry, and collective transformation (Misiaszek, Reference Misiaszek2023). Such an approach emphasises engaging, rather than avoiding, the social and ecological contradictions embedded in lived environmental realities.
SSI theory forms the third strand of this framework. Zeidler and Nichols (Reference Zeidler and Nichols2009) define SSIs as controversial issues requiring evidence-based reasoning, moral deliberation, and engagement with multiple perspectives. Research on integrating indigenous and local knowledge further highlights the value of combining local and scientific understandings for more meaningful and sustainable learning (Ijatuyi et al., Reference Ijatuyi, Lamm, Yessoufou, Suinyuy and Patrick2025). Dunlop et al. (Reference Dunlop, Atkinson, Malmberg, Turkenburg-van Diepen and Urbas2024) similarly argue that science and politics are inseparable in environmental crises. From this perspective, politically attentive science education is essential for understanding how such issues are produced, experienced, and contested. This study applies these insights to examine how teachers in agrarian communities interpret and teach stubble burning as an SSI shaped by place, identity, and unequal social relations.
Research question
This study examines how middle-school science teachers from farming households in Panipat, Haryana (India) engage with the SSI of stubble burning in their classrooms. It focuses on how their dual positionality as educators and members of agrarian communities shapes their interpretations, pedagogical practices, and responses to this locally embedded environmental issue. It investigates:
How do middle-school science teachers from agrarian communities conceptualise and teach the socioscientific issue of stubble burning, and how is this engagement shaped by their positionality as both educators and community stakeholders?
Study design, context, and participants
This study adopts a reflexive qualitative case study design, informed by interpretive and critical perspectives, to examine teachers situated at the intersection of state environmental policy, community agricultural practices, and classroom enactments. This approach enabled both the documentation of teachers’ perspectives and an analysis of how these are shaped within the sociopolitical context of stubble burning in Haryana.
The study was conducted in Panipat district, part of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, where rice–wheat monocropping, mechanised harvesting, and compressed sowing cycles have made crop-residue burning a recurring concern (Khundrakpam & Sarmah, Reference Khundrakpam and Sarmah2023). While microbial counts may recover, key functional microbes do not, indicating long-term soil degradation (Kumar et al., Reference Kumar, Kushwaha, Singh, Shivay, Meena and Nain2019). Policy responses have focused on enforcement, fines, and technological solutions (Satpathy & Pradhan, Reference Satpathy and Pradhan2023). In this context, teachers navigate multiple roles as educators, policy intermediaries, and community members. To support contextual understanding, the first author attended a district-level in-service training programme in July 2024 and maintained fieldnotes used to inform interpretation.
Participants were selected through purposive sampling to identify science teachers from farming households, with snowball sampling used to extend recruitment through trusted networks (Naderifar et al., Reference Naderifar, Goli and Ghaljaie2017). Of fifteen teachers approached, eight participated, a sample size appropriate for the study’s focused aim and depth of data, consistent with saturation (Guest et al., Reference Guest, Bunce and Johnson2006) and information power (Malterud et al., Reference Malterud, Siersma and Guassora2016). The sample included five government school teachers, two from a private school, and one from a Kendriya Vidyalaya. All participants belonged to farming families, with some actively engaged in agriculture, and government teachers were also involved in monitoring and reporting burning incidents.
Data were generated through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and fieldnotes, with interviews (45–75 minutes) forming the primary dataset. Conducted in Hindi, Haryanvi, or both, interviews explored teachers’ engagement with SSIs and their perspectives on stubble burning. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and retained code-switching where analytically relevant. The interview protocol included questions such as:
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• How familiar are you with the concept of socio-scientific issues (SSI)?
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• How do you define socio-scientific issues?
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• Have you incorporated such issues into your teaching? If yes, how?
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• What challenges do you face in integrating such issues into classroom practice?
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• How relevant do you consider such issues for science education?
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• How do current textbooks represent such issues?
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• Do textbooks provide sufficient context to teach them effectively? (Excerpt mentioning “Stubble Burning” in the chapter “Crop Production and Management,” of the 8th class National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbook was shown to the teachers during the discussion)
“After harvesting, stubs are left in the field, which are burnt by farmers. Paheli is worried. She knows that it causes pollution. It may also catch fire and damage the crops lying in the field.”
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• How do you frame the issue of stubble burning in your own words?
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• Who do you identify as stakeholders in this issue, and what perspectives do they hold?
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• What potential solutions do you envision?
Alongside interviews, the study drew on reflexive fieldnotes from classroom observations and broader field engagement, documenting pedagogical routines, classroom interactions, moments of silence, and the ethical demands of researching within one’s own community. These were not treated as a separate coded dataset but used to provide contextual and interpretive grounding, situating teachers’ accounts within the material and affective conditions of rural schooling. Accordingly, findings are derived primarily from interview data, with fieldnotes supporting contextualisation and reflexive interpretation.
The first author’s positionality as a member of a farming household in Panipat and a Haryanvi speaker enabled rapport and culturally nuanced interpretation, consistent with Bourdieu’s notion of habitus (Bourdieu, Reference Bourdieu1990). At the same time, risks of over-familiarity were addressed through reflexive journaling, co-author discussions, and analytic checks distinguishing participant voice from interpretation. Ethical considerations were particularly salient given the criminalisation of stubble burning; verbal informed consent was obtained, audio-recorded, and all identifying details anonymised. Trustworthiness was ensured through triangulation across interviews and contextual fieldnotes, reflexive documentation, peer debriefing, and an audit trail of analytic decisions. Interview transcripts were analysed inductively through iterative coding and thematic development. Reflexive fieldnotes supported interpretation, particularly in contextualising classroom dynamics and implicit references, but were not used to generate claims independent of interview evidence. This distinction ensured analytic transparency and a clear link between participant accounts, their interpretation, and contextual insights (Guba & Lincoln, Reference Guba and Lincoln1989).
Results
The findings reveal a fundamental tension in how SSIs are represented and enacted within science education. While textbooks present environmental issues in decontextualised terms, teachers and students engage with these issues through lived experience, resulting in a disconnect between curricular knowledge and everyday realities. At its core is a tension between top-down and bottom-up knowledge: science textbooks present environmental issues as decontextualised facts, largely ignoring local realities, while students, especially those from farming backgrounds, bring experiential knowledge of stubble burning. Because the curriculum fails to acknowledge this lived knowledge, classroom discussions remain disconnected from students’ realities. This disconnect is compounded by the politicised nature of SSIs. The science of stubble burning is entangled with competing agendas, state policies, industrial interests, and media narratives, and all frame the problem differently. Teachers found themselves caught in the crossfire, trying to teach “pollution” while respecting farmers’ struggles. As a result, classroom treatment of stubble burning often remains sanitised and superficial, avoiding debate and controversy.
Teachers’ perceptions of textbook representation of stubble burning
Teachers consistently described science textbooks as providing only a limited and partial account of stubble burning issue. Rather than rejecting textbook content, participants indicated that textbooks introduce the issue, but do not engage with the conditions under which it occurs in agrarian settings.
For instance, one teacher explained:
“The textbook gives an overview of the problem… but it does not discuss the issue at length… it just gives an overview.” (T1)
This limitation was elaborated further in relation to the practical realities of farming. Teachers pointed out that textbooks do not adequately represent the challenges faced by farmers after harvesting:
“It does not discuss what kind of problems are faced by the farmers… what kind of practices they engage in… or what kind of problems they face while decomposing it.” (T5)
Teachers, therefore, identified a gap between curricular representation and community experience. This gap was not only about missing information, but also about the absence of context necessary for meaningful classroom discussion. As one participant noted:
“Students might know these issues… but the textbook does not discuss this issue at length… so it becomes difficult to connect students with the issue.” (T4)
In addition, teachers highlighted that textbooks tend to present environmental issues in a generalised manner, without engaging with underlying reasons or multiple perspectives. One teacher reflected on this in the context of stubble burning:
“It has been mentioned that it is creating a lot of pollution, but it is not raising questions about the reasons behind it and why it is being done… the textbook does not mention the real challenges.” (T6)
Some teachers also commented on how the issue is framed within textbook narratives. One participant noted that the representation appears to present a conclusion without showing how that conclusion is reached:
“Her (Paheli, a character in the textbook) being worried here is a value judgment for me… the deliberation to reach this stance is not revealed in the textbook.” (T2)
At the same time, teachers acknowledged that textbooks still serve as an important starting point in classroom teaching. As one teacher explained:
“Textbooks are the medium through which we connect with students… but we have to connect it with their surroundings and examples.” (T3)
Taken together, these accounts indicate that teachers perceive textbooks as introductory but insufficient for engaging with locally embedded environmental issues. While textbooks provide a basic framing of the problem, teachers rely on their own knowledge and students’ experiences to extend discussion beyond what is presented in the curriculum.
Constraints on classroom engagement with SSIs
Teachers described their classroom engagement with SSIs as dependent on textbook structure and constrained by institutional conditions, even when they expressed interest in connecting lessons to students’ lived experiences. Rather than presenting a uniform pedagogical approach, participants highlighted a pattern in which discussions emerge intermittently and are shaped by time limitations, curriculum requirements, and students’ varying ability to articulate their experiences.
Several teachers explained that their primary approach begins with the textbook and then moves toward students’ experiences where possible. One teacher described this process as follows:
“What I try to do is teach the textbook… and try to connect it with the reality that they have experienced… I ask them questions like have you heard about this issue… has your father ever talked to you about this?” (T5)
Similarly, another teacher noted that discussions often begin by drawing on students’ cultural and community contexts:
“I start from the cultural aspect of the students… whether they have seen it, where they have seen it… and then I connect it with what we are teaching.” (T4)
These responses indicate that teachers attempt to create space for discussion by linking textbook content to local experience. However, such engagement was described as situational rather than sustained, often depending on available time and classroom conditions.
Time constraints emerged as a recurring concern. One participant explained:
“In schools, we are time-bound… we are given a time limit to finish the syllabus… so whenever there is an opportunity, I try to use whatever resources are at hand.” (T3)
In addition to time pressure, teachers pointed to challenges related to student participation. While students were often familiar with issues like stubble burning through their daily lives, teachers noted that they did not always express their understanding easily in classroom settings. One teacher reflected:
“Students… especially those from rural backgrounds… know a lot about this issue… but they are not able to express it properly… not in technical terms.” (T2)
This difficulty was not attributed to a lack of awareness, but rather to a mismatch between lived experience and classroom discourse, where students’ experiential knowledge does not always translate into formal academic language.
Teachers also indicated that classroom engagement varies depending on student backgrounds. As one participant noted:
“Some students are from agricultural backgrounds… others are from semi-urban backgrounds… so it becomes difficult to bring them on the same level sometimes.” (T8)
This diversity within the classroom further shapes how discussions unfold, making it challenging to sustain a shared discussion grounded in common experience.
Reflexive fieldnotes provide additional context to these accounts, indicating that classroom interactions often follow a structured pattern in which teachers read from the textbook and explain concepts, with occasional moments where connections to local experience are introduced. These moments were not absent but appeared as brief openings within an otherwise structured instructional routine, rather than as extended dialogic engagement.
Taken together, these accounts suggest that while teachers recognise the importance of connecting SSIs to students’ lived contexts, such engagement is mediated by curricular demands, time constraints, and classroom dynamics, resulting in discussion that is intermittent and uneven rather than consistently integrated into teaching practice.
Stubble burning as a multi-stakeholder issue shaped by competing interests
When teachers were asked to explain stubble burning in their own words, they did not describe it simply as an individual act of environmental irresponsibility. Instead, they framed it as an issue involving multiple stakeholders, with different responsibilities, interests, and degrees of public visibility.
One teacher identified four main stakeholders:
“I feel primarily there are 3 to 4 stakeholders in this whole issue, first one is the agrarian community, the urban community, the state, and the industries.” (T2)
The same teacher drew attention to what he saw as unequal public treatment of different sources of pollution, and described an interaction with a farmer:
“How can the smoke only caused by agrarian activities be pollution but not the smoke coming out of industries? Is their smoke more pious?” (T2, quoting the farmer)
The teacher further suggested that this uneven attention had contributed to making the issue politically contentious:
“They do not disagree with the fact that it is a scientific fact, but now it has become a laughing matter for them… because they feel that the issue has been weaponised to hit… especially the farming community.” (T2)
Other teachers also described the issue in terms of conflict between different needs and institutional priorities. One participant emphasised the contradiction between state aims and farmers’ economic pressures:
“I think the main contradiction here is between the government and the farmers. The government aims to lessen the pollution… and the farmers aim to produce more so that they can earn more with their farming.” (T4)
Similarly, another teacher explained stubble burning in relation to time, cost, and crop-cycle pressures rather than ignorance alone:
“They have time and money constraints and do not want to get into all this process of selling residue… if they get late in the process, they might have to face economic consequences because of that.” (T1)
For this teacher, the problem was not only whether the government had announced schemes, but whether those schemes had produced a workable system on the ground:
“The government has not been able to establish a proper mechanism to buy the residue… it is being reported widely, but it is not entirely true.” (T1)
Teachers also distributed responsibility beyond farmers and the government. One participant argued that scientists, local administration, and those involved in agricultural technology also need to be part of the response:
“I feel the farmers, the government, the agriculture scientists and people who work in the agricultural technology area, and people of local administration should sit together and discuss this problem.” (T4)
Taken together, these accounts suggest that teachers understood stubble burning as a shared and contested issue, rather than a problem attributable to a single group. Their responses repeatedly linked the issue to agrarian livelihoods, state policy, implementation failures, and broader public discourse. Rather than presenting a single explanatory frame, teachers described stubble burning as a problem shaped by competing interests, practical constraints, and uneven patterns of blame.
Agrarian ties shaping teacher perspectives and classroom navigation
Teachers’ accounts indicate that their familiarity with agrarian life (through personal experience or family background) shaped how they understood and explained the issue of stubble burning. Rather than describing this in abstract terms, participants referred directly to their experiences, observations, and interactions within their communities when discussing the issue.
For instance, one teacher explained stubble burning by drawing on detailed knowledge of agricultural practices, including harvesting methods, residue management, and crop cycles:
“When it is harvested using a machine… the leftover of the plant is considered a residue… and farmers do not want to get into all this process… they have time and money constraints.” (T1)
Similarly, another teacher described how familiarity with farming practices influenced how they approached the issue beyond the classroom:
“I once saw a farmer burning stubble… I went to him and told him not to burn it… I told him that it can be decomposed… using yeast and jaggery.” (T2)
These accounts suggest that teachers’ understanding of the issue is informed not only by formal knowledge, but also by direct engagement with agricultural practices and local conditions.
At the same time, teachers indicated that this familiarity also shapes how they approach classroom discussions. One participant explained that students’ families are directly involved in farming practices, which influences how issues like stubble burning are addressed in class:
“Children’s families do it… so we avoid blaming them.” (T3)
This reflects a need to balance discussion of environmental issues with sensitivity to students’ social and family contexts. Teachers did not describe avoiding the topic entirely but rather indicated that they approached it cautiously.
In addition, some teachers described situations where classroom discussions extended beyond school and led to interactions with families. One participant recounted:
“Once I told students about organic farming… then their parents came to school and asked why I was telling their children these things.” (T2)
This suggests that discussions of environmental or agricultural practices can move beyond the classroom and become part of broader community interactions, sometimes creating tension between educational content and community expectations.
Reflexive fieldnotes further illustrate these dynamics, particularly in relation to moments of hesitation or silence in classrooms when discussing locally sensitive issues. These notes indicate that such responses were not necessarily due to lack of awareness but were often shaped by the close connection between classroom topics and students’ lived realities.
Taken together, these accounts suggest that teachers’ connections to agrarian life provide them with contextual understanding and practical insight, while also requiring them to navigate classroom discussions in ways that remain sensitive to the communities in which they are embedded.
Context-sensitive solutions amid practical and institutional constraints
When asked about possible ways to address stubble burning, teachers did not present a single solution. Instead, they described a range of responses that combined practical agricultural measures, institutional support, and educational interventions. Their suggestions were closely tied to their understanding of local conditions and constraints.
Several teachers emphasised the need for accessible and workable alternatives to burning. One participant highlighted the importance of decomposition methods and local-level implementation:
“If proper mechanisms are available… like decomposers or other methods… then farmers can adopt those… but they should be practical and easily available.” (T1)
Similarly, another teacher suggested that solutions require coordination across multiple actors rather than relying on farmers alone:
“Farmers, government, scientists, and local administration should sit together and discuss this problem.” (T4)
Teachers also pointed to economic considerations as central to the issue. One participant explained that unless alternatives are financially viable, adoption would remain limited:
“Farmers will think about the cost first… if it increases their cost or takes more time, they will not adopt it.” (T1)
Alongside agricultural and policy-related measures, teachers described a potential role for schools and education in shaping longer-term responses. Some participants suggested that students could develop awareness and influence practices over time:
“If students understand these issues properly… in future they can think differently and may influence others in their community.” (T1)
Others proposed more concrete educational interventions. For example, one teacher suggested integrating practical agricultural learning into school spaces:
“There should be some agricultural area in schools… where students can see these processes… instead of only reading from books.” (T1)
However, teachers also indicated that their ability to engage with such issues in a sustained way is limited by institutional structures. One participant noted that training programmes do not adequately prepare teachers to address these topics:
“These issues are only mentioned… but not discussed in detail… we are not trained properly to deal with them.” (T2)
Another teacher similarly pointed out that formal training and departmental initiatives rarely address the social dimensions of such issues:
“I have not seen much training from the department regarding these issues… most of what I know comes from outside.” (T3)
Taken together, these accounts suggest that teachers view solutions to stubble burning as requiring both systemic support and local adaptation, while also recognising a role for education in shaping future perspectives. At the same time, they describe practical, economic, and institutional constraints that limit the extent to which such solutions can be implemented through classroom practice alone.
Discussion
The findings show that engaging with SSIs like stubble burning in agrarian contexts is inherently contextual and contested. Rather than factual topics, these issues are shaped by the intersection of local livelihoods, state policy, and scientific knowledge, reflecting the inseparability of science and politics in environmental crises (Dunlop et al., Reference Dunlop, Atkinson, Malmberg, Turkenburg-van Diepen and Urbas2024). Teachers, therefore, navigate tensions between textbook science and lived realities, positioning SSI education not as neutral content delivery but as a site where knowledge, power, and agency are actively negotiated.
A key insight is the curricular representation gap. The NCERT curriculum frames stubble burning in abstract, moralised terms (e.g. “it causes pollution”) without addressing the economic and systemic pressures shaping farmers’ practices, effectively depoliticising the issue. As Gruenewald (Reference Gruenewald2003) notes, curricula often ignore the social and ecological places people inhabit, reflecting Hodson’s (Reference Hodson2003) critique of value-free science education. Our findings show that such omissions lead to superficial classroom engagement, where students recognise the problem but not its causes. This aligns with critiques of environmental education in India as narrowly technical and ahistorical (Haydock & Srivastava, Reference Haydock and Srivastava2019; Kaushik, Reference Kaushik2020). The result is a structural limitation consistent with Freire’s (Reference Freire2017) ‘banking’ model, where knowledge remains inert. Addressing this requires integrating the socio-political context to enable critical engagement.
The pedagogical patterns observed reflect teachers’ efforts to bridge this gap, albeit under constraints. Teachers largely followed a textbook-led, lecture-based routine, but they inserted intermittent ‘windows’ of contextualisation. For example, a teacher might ask, “Have you heard of this issue?” or draw on students’ family experiences to link the science concept to local practice. These brief opening questions illustrate an effort to connect curriculum to students’ sense of place. STEM Teaching Tools explicitly recommends this approach, noting that science should be connected to students’ community backgrounds. Our findings confirm that such place-based bridging can increase relevance: whenever teachers allowed discussion of local experience, students became visibly more engaged. However, these efforts were sporadic. Time constraints, curricular pace, and uneven student participation often shut down extended dialogue. In many classrooms, participation was uneven: some students (especially from farming families) knew a great deal about stubble burning but struggled to express it formally. This ‘experiential knowledge’ remained mostly tacit. In effect, the pedagogy became a trade-off: sustained contextual teaching would have required longer, inquiry-driven lessons and institutional support (e.g. project-based learning), which were not available. This highlights the need for professional development that equips teachers to integrate local issues more consistently, as Fuchs and Tan (Reference Fuchs and Tan2022) advocate, and for curriculum reform that allows ‘phenomenon-based’ learning rather than rushed textbook coverage.
Importantly, the framing of stubble burning by teachers was multifaceted and political. Teachers consistently rejected a simplistic narrative. Instead of blaming farmers alone, they described stubble burning as shaped by multiple stakeholders: smallholders, government agencies, machinery companies, and urban consumers. For example, one teacher recounted a farmer’s retort: “Is industry smoke more pious than agrarian smoke?” This quote (T2) exemplifies how teachers recognise the socio-political dimensions of the issue. Such recognition aligns with justice-centred science education: teachers were effectively prompting students to ask, “Who benefits?” and “Who pays?” for environmental harms. This resonates with Dunlop et al. (Reference Dunlop, Atkinson, Malmberg, Turkenburg-van Diepen and Urbas2024) calls to politicise science classrooms and with SSI theory’s emphasis on multiple perspectives. By articulating conflicts (farmers’ economic survival versus government pollution targets), teachers were already enacting a critical, place-based stance. They invited discussion of power imbalances and structural constraints, thus moving beyond mere environmental literacy toward what Morales-Doyle (Reference Morales-Doyle2017) describes as justice-oriented learning. In short, teachers’ discourse about stakeholders demonstrated a civic consciousness that the curriculum omits, underscoring the value of incorporating the critical pedagogy of place into science teaching.
The theme of teacher identity emerged as a powerful lens on pedagogy. All participants were themselves from farming families, and this dual identity both enabled and constrained their teaching. It enabled empathy: teachers often explained stubble burning with insider knowledge. For instance, one teacher recounted advising a neighbour farmer on an alternative method of composting (T2). These anecdotes show how local expertise informed the science narrative, potentially enriching students’ learning. However, teachers’ identity also imposed caution. Knowing that “children’s families do it,” some teachers deliberately avoided assigning blame or initiating heated debate (T3). In this way, identity acted as a constraint on open discourse. Teachers became mediators between community and curriculum, prioritising students’ sense of belonging. This dynamic reflects broader findings in culturally sustaining pedagogy: teachers who share community ties tend to frame lessons in ways that protect students’ cultural identity (Marosi et al., Reference Marosi, Avraamidou and Galani2021). We see this as a form of critical reflexivity – teachers recognised that context-awareness requires negotiating their roles. Theoretically, this underscores the importance of acknowledging teacher positionality in SSI education (Chang & Kidman, Reference Chang and Kidman2024; Rodriguez & Navarro-Camacho, Reference Rodriguez and Navarro-Camacho2023). Our findings suggest that when teachers perceive themselves as part of the community problem, they teach differently – shifting from neutral delivery to mediated facilitation. This dual role must be supported, not overlooked, in teacher education.
Finally, teachers’ solutions-oriented thinking offers a constructive counterpoint. Instead of despair, they proposed pragmatic approaches to address stubble burning. For example, one teacher stressed affordable alternatives (e.g. supplying easy-to-use decomposers to farmers) so that farmers would have no reason to burn. Another called for multi-stakeholder dialogues involving farmers, scientists, and officials. Notably, they envisioned students playing a role: one suggested creating school gardens where students could learn sustainable farming firsthand, reflecting a participatory vision similar to that advocated by Jeong, Steele, and Upadhyay (Reference Jeong, Steele and Upadhyay2023) for community-engaged STEM projects. These ideas align with place-based education’s emphasis on active, community-linked learning and with Freire’s (Reference Freire2017) notion of praxis (action grounded in reflection). In practice, however, teachers acknowledged practical limitations: schemes must be economically viable for farmers, and teachers need training to facilitate such projects. Their aspiration for project-based pedagogy, though constrained, signals a shift toward the transformative potential of science education (Bekereci-Şahin & Savaş, Reference Bekereci-Şahin and Savaş2022).
Taken together, these findings underscore a critical message: Science education in agrarian Global South contexts must evolve from abstract content delivery to a dialogic, justice-centred practice. The study shows that when curricula remain abstract, teaching becomes a superficial exercise. But when teachers draw on community knowledge and acknowledge real-world complexity, the classroom can engage with the very systems that produce environmental issues. In this light, our contribution is threefold. First, we provide empirical evidence that teachers’ dual identities shape SSI teaching in distinctive ways. Second, we demonstrate that even within tight curricular constraints, teachers find creative ways to contextualise science learning. Third, we articulate a theoretically grounded vision – blending Gruenewald’s (Reference Gruenewald2003) critical pedagogy of place, Freirean dialogic pedagogy, and SSI theory – for how science education can be reoriented in such settings.
The findings of this study point to interrelated implications across curriculum design, teacher education, school practice, and policy alignment. Together, they suggest that context-responsive SSI education requires coordinated changes across the education system rather than isolated interventions.
At the curriculum level, there is a need to move beyond decontextualised representations of environmental issues. Science standards should incorporate locally relevant challenges, such as stubble burning, and promote interdisciplinary approaches integrating scientific, economic, and sociopolitical dimensions. Textbooks and assessments must move beyond singular, moralised narratives to include multiple stakeholder perspectives and structural conditions, enabling students to engage with environmental issues as complex and contested phenomena. For teacher education, the findings highlight the importance of strengthening existing context-responsive practices. Teacher preparation and professional development should adopt case-based and community-engaged approaches that support dialogic teaching, critical questioning, and the integration of students’ lived experiences. Grounded in critical pedagogy and place-based education, such programmes can help teachers transform local knowledge into pedagogical resources while navigating ethical and relational complexities.
At the level of school practice, stronger connections between classrooms and communities are essential. Initiatives such as school gardens, agricultural learning spaces, and community-based projects can bridge scientific learning with lived experience. Engaging farmers, extension workers, and community organisations as contributors to classroom learning can further position schools as sites of knowledge exchange. Institutional support is critical for enabling these practices. Teachers identified constraints related to time, assessment pressures, and limited resources. Addressing these requires systemic adjustments, including assessment policies that value inquiry and action-based learning, and the provision of time and resources for field-based and project-oriented activities.
Finally, the study underscores the need for alignment between educational and environmental policy frameworks. Given that issues like stubble burning are shaped by agricultural practices, policy incentives, and technological access, educational interventions must be coordinated with broader systems. Closer collaboration between schools and agricultural extension programmes can facilitate the sharing of practical solutions while allowing classroom insights to inform policy implementation. Overall, strengthening SSI education in agrarian contexts requires a shift toward relational, context-sensitive, and systemically supported pedagogies that engage directly with the lived realities of environmental issues.
Conclusions
This study argues that science education in agrarian Global South contexts must be reoriented as a dialogic and justice-centred practice. The findings demonstrate that when teachers’ lived experiences and community identities are recognised as pedagogical resources, environmental issues such as stubble burning can be engaged as sites of critical inquiry rather than abstract or moralised content.
By positioning teachers as both educators and stakeholders, the study highlights how SSI education can move toward more context-responsive and participatory forms of practice. At the same time, it reveals the structural and relational constraints that shape such engagement, underscoring the need for curricular, institutional, and pedagogical support.
In doing so, the study contributes to ongoing efforts to reimagine science education beyond decontextualised knowledge transmission, toward approaches that foreground agency, equity, and community relevance. As emphasised in recent scholarship, science pedagogy must move beyond moralising prescriptions to foster meaningful engagement among those directly affected by environmental challenges (Jeong et al., Reference Jeong, Steele and Upadhyay2023; Morales-Doyle, Reference Morales-Doyle2017). This study provides empirical grounding for such a shift, particularly in agrarian contexts where environmental issues are inseparable from questions of livelihood, identity, and justice.
Acknowledgements
We express our deepest gratitude to Dr Aswathy Raveendran, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Whose invaluable insights and guidance have shaped this paper. Her expertise, thoughtful feedback, and unwavering support have been crucial throughout the research process.
Ethical statement
This study was conducted in accordance with institutional ethical practice guidelines. Ethical clearance was obtained from the advisory committee of the authors’ institution, which reviewed and approved the study design, consent procedures, and data-handling protocols. All participants were informed of the study purpose and procedures and provided verbal informed consent prior to interviews and observations. Identifying information has been removed to ensure confidentiality.
Financial support
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Author Biographies
Vishal Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences at Manipal University Jaipur. He holds a PhD in science education (BITS Pilani) and an M.A. in Education (science education) from Azim Premji University. His research focuses on environmental and science education in agrarian India, addressing socioscientific issues through culturally responsive and place-based pedagogy. He has taught middle school science and currently teaches a Communication Skills course to undergraduate-level engineering students, and he has led rural teacher capacity-building initiatives in Haryana.
Sanjiv Kumar Choudhary is an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at BITS Pilani (Pilani campus). With a PhD in English and Linguistics, he has expertise in language education and teacher training. He has organised and taught in national teacher training programs (including in Northeast India) and has published on pedagogical methods and curriculum innovation.
Devika Sangwan is a Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at BITS Pilani (Pilani campus). She specialises in literature, cinema, and communication studies. She has over 60 publications and leads multidisciplinary educational initiatives, having served as department head. Her research focuses on integrating soft skills and humanities perspectives into technical and engineering education.
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