Not in Their Name: Reinterpreting Discourses of STEM Learning Through the Subjective Experiences of Minoritized Girls

• In Event: 79.019 - Disrupting "Truth": Theorizing the Cultural Politics of STEM Education Through a Plurality of Perspectives

Abstract

This paper explores how two girls of color - one Palestinian, one Mexican, both growing up in the U.S. - experience two STEM learning environments: a low-track Algebra class and a STEAM based after-school program. We offer micro-ethnographic analyses of their subjective experiences in relation to larger normative discourses of STEM learning that otherwise neglect the intellectual and social possibilities of becoming that their experiences name. Studying students’ subjective experiences makes visible their sensemaking in context, who they are and how they develop, and how they are (or can be) actively involved in improving educational settings (Erickson et al., 2007, p. 2). In this analysis we ask: How are the girls’ subjective experiences and perspectives related to larger discourses of STEM education as a national project? How might their experiences and perspective reflect, refract or rewrite such discourses? Answering these questions leads us to engage others: What are the racial and economic logics that inform how STEM is deployed as a “justice” and/or “civil rights” intervention in communities of color? How might the “logics” of STEM learning be widened through the everyday talk and interaction that constitute in-school and out-of-school learning environments, and through a close analysis of young people’s experiences and reasons for learning?

This comparative case study utilizes sociocultural learning theory and draws on fieldnotes, interviews, sociometric network surveys, and video data to describe how these young people articulate and embody their relationships to larger logics of STEM education as well as their own reasons for STEM learning. Specifically, we identify the inadequacy of representational and respectability politics - normative logics that associate racially minoritized female bodies with STEM - in ascribing meaning to their experiences. These related logics/discourses reflect racial capitalism and patriarchy in the ways they conspire to suggest racially minoritized women demonstrate their “value” to society (or classrooms, schools) by demonstrating their “value” in the marketplace (i.e., the STEM workforce).

By centering the subjective experiences and perspectives of these two girls - separated by time, place, age, and social histories but bound by sensibilities grown in their Immigrant families and learning contexts – we find the girls themselves problematizing and contesting U.S. hegemony as the primary rationale for STEM learning; challenging individual gain at the expense of another; problematizing what counts as science while insisting on its creative convergence with joy; and honoring their ingenuity and humanity through connecting learning and family. Drawing insight from the girls, this paper challenges representational and respectability politics and considers instead how educational dignity (Colleague & Author 6, 2014) may better account for the complexity of their experiences. Further, we discuss how dignity can serve as a resource for research, pedagogy and design within a larger movement to seek more expansive vocabularies and views of justice in STEM education, and of who and what constitutes the political.

Authors

• Tesha Sengupta-Irving, Vanderbilt University

• Shirin Vossoughi, Northwestern University