ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights some of the key institutional and sociocultural factors that continue to obstruct equal opportunities for the access and success of culturally diverse students. This is followed by a brief description of sociotransformative constructivism (sTc) as an alternative theoretical framework that merges cross-cultural education with social constructivism. The chapter also provides an example to illustrate how STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education can be enacted through sTc. In the last 50 years, we have accumulated a great deal of research and generated many insights for what needs to be done to enhance teacher preparation and increase students' engagement and achievement. Sociotransformative STEM Education is one possible framework among others that may provide a common sense of purpose to systematically integrate cross-cultural education with social constructivism. This provides a way that simultaneously tackles the achievement gap and rekindle students' excitement about STEM education connected to their everyday lives.
