"Run It Through Me": Newcomer Positioning on an Urban High School Robotics Team

• In Event: Innovations in Methods and Frameworks for Learning

Abstract

This study examines the role of a student, Denisse, in an urban high school robotics club in order to analyze how her participation and possibilities for learning are crafted. I perform an interaction analysis (Jordan and Hall, 1995) on two different video clips: one taken during practice and one taken at a competition. Particularly, participant contributions to social interaction are analyzed as chronotopes (Bakhtin 1981), or space-time interpretations, to understand how Denisse’s role as the driver is collaboratively crafted. Findings indicate that Denisse is positioned as an active driver with agency in example practice interactions; during the competition example winning is privileged at the cost of her participation as a decision-making driver. She becomes a “controlled driver” without agency.

Author

• Colin Hennessy Elliott, New York University