This study focused on girls’ engagement with science and how they negotiate identities with and in opposition to science in a three-year study of community-based afterschool initiatives. Rahm conducted a multi-sited ethnography, observing girls’ whose families had recently immigrated to Montreal, Canada and were participating in a community organization creating science newsletters and science fair projects.
This study examines student choices relating to the selection of STEM courses for high school and university study. The main focus here is on the subjective value of the choice as perceived by the individual, and the individual’s expectation of success in the subject or the study. The argument put forward in this study is supported by a broad and international body of literature, and highlights a number of key factors affecting students’ (and especially girls’) engagement with STEM subjects. This discussion will have particular significance for ISE educators currently working to promote youth
This study explores the role of out-of-school time (OST) programming, which if completed over a long period of time, may influence Latina/o adolescents’ trajectory towards college. The author explores the academic achievement of Latina/o students from varied learning backgrounds to better understand the relationship of academic progress with students’ culture, identity, and experience.
This study presents an interesting cross-national analysis of young people’s preferences, expectations, and perceptions of ability regarding STEM subjects. It finds that gender plays a significant role in students’ choices regarding STEM study and careers on the basis of comparison of students from four countries using the data from PISA, the international cross-comparison study. This study provides ISE educators with an insight into young people’s thinking regarding STEM. It also suggests possible strategies that may be implemented by ISE initiatives for greater gender equity in STEM.
In this study, the authors describe a conceptual framework addressing culturally based ways of knowing, and provide a brief description of their efforts to design a community-based summer science program with a Native American tribe using this framework. To address the call to attract culturally diverse students to STEM fields, the authors advocate supporting students in their navigation of multiple and perhaps conflicting epistemologies, and using the student community as resources to be built upon, rather than pushing them toward replacing their personal epistemologies with canonical
The authors argue that to address the lack of student interest in STEM careers, educators need to better understand the career choice and the decision-making processes of students. To better understand student decision-making, the authors interviewed 13 high school students and identified four types of conversation (formative, performative, consequent, and potential) regarding science-related professions. These four ways of talking can inform educators about ways to share information about science careers.
Using Gee’s (2004) notion of ‘affinity spaces’ – places where people collaboratively interact in response to a common interest or affinity – this paper examines how a week-long astronomy camp can shape student self-identities. The paper also examines the design of the camp and notes that it successfully blends the ‘student-led research’ approach with the ‘cognitive-apprenticeship model’.
In this study, researchers investigated the commonly held view that collaboration improves scientific argumentation. The study tested the perspective that in collaborative investigations individuals build off each others' ideas, taking advantage of different cognitive and monitoring resources in the group, in order to develop more compelling and accurate scientific arguments than they would have if they had been working alone. The study results showed a mix of outcomes for the students.
This study investigates the relationship between science learning, science learning identities, and student agency. To support the development of science learning identities, the authors argue for the need to provide children/youth with opportunities to engage with science in ways that meaningfully blend the world of science with students' social worlds. This paper can help ISE educators leading youth programs consider the ways they listen to voices and interests of children/youth in order to affirm and support their development of identities as productive science learners.
Successfully combining youth development with workforce preparation means creating opportunities for work-based learning, where youth are learning workplace skills through work rather than learning about a specific career path. This paper summarizes the ways in which workforce skills such as communication, critical thinking, leadership, and teamwork can be cultivated through three types of program models: “value-added,” “growing your own,” and employer partnerships.
This article discusses the design and conditions of high school mathematics activities that aim to distribute opportunities to learn to all students. Of particular interest to ISE educators is the analysis of how some ostensibly equitable group activities may shut down equal participation. Also of interest is the theoretical discussion of the relationship between opportunities to productively participate in mathematical activities and the development of positive mathematical learning identities.
This ethnographic case study illustrates what happens when informal educators introduce science concepts in non-scientific contexts, such as a program focused on youth culture and girls’ empowerment. Helping young people find the science in their everyday lives can build science trajectories and identities for youth from backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in the sciences.