The Cultural Production of Competence in Elementary Engineering

• In Event: Nondominant Students Negotiate Histories, Institutions, Figured Worlds, and Identities to “Become Somebody” in STEM

Abstract

Cultural meanings of school competence sort students in unfair ways (Hatt, 2007). Our earlier work demonstrated that the “smart student” label in elementary and middle school STEM settings emerged from exceedingly narrow practices, many of which had little to do with meaningful disciplinary competencies (Authors, 2015). However, our latest work demonstrated potential for engineering to disrupt status quo meanings of school STEM smartness (Authors, 2014). The purpose of this study was to understand the cultural meaning of engineering competence through a comparative ethnographic study in a first- and fifth-grade classroom. We asked: What cultural practices are consequential for defining competence in first and fifth grade engineering? How do these definitions align with and/or contest the figured world of traditional schooling?

Social practice theory undergirds this work (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998). Figured worlds, from social practice theory, provide the “contexts of meanings for actions, cultural productions, performances, disputes, [and] for the understandings that people come to make of themselves” (Holland, et al., 1998, p. 60). We interpreted the classrooms’ organization of practices, norms, and subjectivities in light of the figured world of traditional schooling, with its narrow subject positions and meanings of competence.

The study took place in a first and fifth grade classroom in a Title 1 elementary school. Both classrooms’ populations included mostly non-dominant youth. Both teachers used Engineering is Elementary (EiE) units (Museum of Science, Boston) and were knowledgeable about reform-based science instruction. We observed every engineering lesson in each classroom (20-25 hours each) and interviewed teachers and students pre- and post-unit. We analyzed practices youth identified as consequential, compared these with practices we identified from video analysis as normative, and then examined these practices in light of productive disciplinary engagement and historically enduring, narrow subject positions as implied by the figured world of traditional schooling.

We identified similar consequential practices in both classrooms and highlight three that overlapped the most. A “good” engineer: got along with others, was persistent, and used evidence. We demonstrate the nature of these practices in each classroom and how they contested and reproduced narrow subject positions implied by the figured world of traditional schooling. For example, the practice of “getting along with others” meant communicating well, getting to know classmates better, helping others, and using evidence to defend one’s design choices. At the same time, this was such a strong norm that students were hesitant to productively “argue” with one another, silenced themselves to “keep the peace”, and/or used a bit of everyone’s thinking in the production of their designs versus evaluating evidence to inform design choices.

Significance

Engineering shows promise in challenging cultural models implied by the figured world of traditional schooling. However, social practice theory directs us to understand the multiple levels of participants’ meaning-making. That the engineering practices and students’ meaning-making had enabling and constraining features makes sense, given schooling contexts in which they were operating—high-stakes failure, highly individualized, and fixed frames of academic competence.

Authors

• Heidi Carlone, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Megan Ruth Lancaster, University of North Carolina - Greensboro