Critically Examining What We Mean by "Youth Voice" and "Agency" in STEM

• In Event: 34.028 - From Making to Agentic Participation: Perspectives on and Approaches to Fostering Epistemic Engagement in Making

Abstract

As we think about the ways in which the production of authentic work affects the learning of youth makers we consider what, exactly, qualifies as “authentic” (Rahm, 2003) and how youth in one equity-oriented, community-based makerspace expand beyond “epistemic agency” to take up issues related to historical and political struggles across the making community, their local community, and the STEM world. Youth work towards/make bids for the co-construction and renegotiation of knowledge and practice of our local makerspace community and also the larger power-mediated world of STEM learning/practice (Engeström & Sannino, 2010). As youth navigate power structures that dictate STEM learning/practice norms and legitimacies in different times/places, they critically question, negotiate, and push back against structures which seek to limit their work (e.g., at a regional entrepreneurship competition, youth protested against judges’ exclusionary practices which belied their obliviousness to the work in STEM that mattered to the youth, their peers and community).

Youth develop and exercise epistemic agency in STEM through participation in making practices, but when they connect this agency to community issues that matter to them and their community, we see youth pushing forward to become more critical action-takers and expansive community maker-leaders. How youth are seen and positioned by powerful others amplifies the urgency and justice-oriented goals of their work (Morrell, 2008).

In this paper we employ critical ethnography (Trueba, 1999) to report on the findings detailed above by examining one group of youth engineer-maker-leader activists, as they worked throughout a full school year to develop a boot to protect those they saw as not having access to basic necessities. It contained a heating pad and was intended for those who could not afford new shoes and were subject to cold winter temperatures. At the same time, the design was aligned with their idea of current high fashion (i.e., it was modeled off a “new hot brand” and included LED flashing/multicolor lights). Their engineering design expanded the boundaries of STEM and fashion with a prototype that could change their community and its emergency response to environmental crises. The development of this boot pushed back on more than just the collective epistemology of our makerspace---the youth in this group renegotiated expectations and social contracts so the makerspace could become more conducive to their needs.

When participating in a local entrepreneurship competition, this group (who placed first in their category) were dissatisfied to have been rewarded for the design aspects of the boot and not for the community engineering aspects which addressed the needs of their intended audience, people without homes. One member discussed the hypocrisy of what was rewarded, describing other winning entries as comparatively shallow and even inauthentic in their focus on personal financial gains. Other members noted differences between the purposeful design and intent of their own inventions and the gendered services and products presented by other entrants; reiterating the challenge minoritized and low-income youth face to legitimize their knowledge, perspectives, and actions in traditional powered spaces of STEM/making.

Authors

• Day W Greenberg, Michigan State University

• Angela Calabrese Barton, Michigan State University

• Sarah Keenan, Michigan State University