The Consequentiality of Agency-Structure Dialectics in School-Based Makerspaces

• In Event: Structured Poster Session: Analytical Frameworks to Advance the Study of Making: Themes in Research and Development on Makerspaces

Abstract

Objectives
Makerspaces are widely considered to enhance students’ agency as they work on creative projects in personally valued and socially significant ways (Honey, & Kanter, 2013; Halverson & Sheridan, 2014). As most research on makerspaces is situated in more informal settings (Peppler, Halverson, & Kafai, 2016), little is yet known how makerspaces are adapted as part of formal schooling.

This study addressed this gap by investigating agency-structure dialectics in two Finnish school-based makerspaces. It asks a) How do school-based makerspaces frame students’ opportunities to expand agency-structure dialectics and b) In what ways is agency-structure dialectics consequential for personal, relational and institutional transformation?

Theoretical framework
Informed by sociocultural theorizing (Lipponen, & Kumpulainen, 2011), agency is viewed as an interactional process that results from the dialectics of individual efforts, available resources and contextual and structural elements. Our framework assumes that person, relations and institutions are inextricably bound together; makerspaces position learners as active agents whose interactions can consequentially expand the personal, relational and sociocultural contexts in which they function. The principle of conseuqentiality directs this study, emphasizing the intended as well as unpredictable nature of learning in makerspace activities.

Methods
The empirical data comprise of video-records and fieldnotes, artefacts, and student and teacher interviews collected intermittently over one academic year. Sociolinguistic and ethnographic discourse analysis (Gee, & Green, 1998) and interaction analysis (Jordan, & Henderson, 1995) have guided the analyses.

Data sources
The empirical data are derived from two Finnish public schools with children aged 7 to 12 years old (School 1: 251 students and 16 teachers, School 2: 535 students and 28 teachers). The makerspaces of these two schools are based on a FUSE Studio model, a choice-based digital infrastructure for STEAM learning (Stevens, et al., 2016).

Results
The findings, presented as “telling cases” (Mitchell, 1984), illustrate an expansion in the agency-structure dialectics that transcended the normative expectations and structures of the school in how they allowed for different kinds of participation, learning and becoming. Yet, these transformations also required teacher agency who on their part contributed to transcending the structures of the school to create more space for student agency.

For instance, at a personal spheres of activity, students actively applied and validated their previous experiences and knowledge for solving and further developing maker challenges of their preference. The students’ developing expertise and interests were also recognized by the teachers and peers, as students were officially nominated as expert tutors of specific STEAM challenges. At a relational sphere, the traditional teacher-student roles expanded, as expertise became more relative. At an institutional sphere, the recognition of students’ expertise resulted in transformed structures, as students were called upon from their regular class to the makerspace to act as experts for a challenge that no teacher or other student could solve.

Scientific significance of the study
Exploring the consequentiality of agency-structure dialectics in the school-based makerspaces can lead to a more enriched understanding of structural affordances and hindrances for students’ engagement, learning and becoming, and how these are transformed via students' and teachers’ agentic interactions.

Authors

• Kristiina P. Kumpulainen, University of Helsinki

• Anu Kajamaa, University of Helsinki

• Antti Juhani Rajala, University of Oulu

• Sinikka Kaartinen, University of Jyväskylä