Engaging Urban Youth in a Creative Community-Based STEM Education: Participatory Inquiry Into Deep Cultural Change

• In Event: The Role of Learning Environments in Supporting Underserved and Understudied Populations

Abstract

This participatory inquiry research project systematically documents and analyzes the unique STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education contributions of a community-based program to urban youth and their communities. This program is a socially innovative 10-year-old educational technology initiative designed to achieve urban youth’s increased self-efficacy, productive relationship to frustration and failure in the STEM learning process, and their use of STEM to make positive contributions to their communities. The Participatory Research Team, consisting of program staff, college mentors, youth teachers, and researchers, has developed interview, observation, and survey instruments which collect and analyze data on these critical factors that seem essential to support particular needs of urban youth in developing and sustaining a pathway to STEM study and career.

Authors

• Jae-Eun Joo, University of Connecticut

• Susan Klimczak, Harvard University