Burmese Youths' Enactment of Critical STEM Literacy Practices in an After-School Program

• In Event: 31.031 - Multimodal STEM Learning With Emerging Bilingual Students

Abstract

Objectives. This paper draws from video data collected in community-based afterschool program for resettled Burmese refugee teens. Based on multimodal analysis of video data, we show how resettled refugee youth engaged in critical STEM literacy through their interactions, practices, and goals within an urban refugee youth program.

Theoretical Framing. Recent scholarship in STEM education challenges traditional perspectives of science literacy, in which STEM literacy is measured by standardized tests and equity is defined as closing gaps between racial, linguistic, and socioeconomic groups in those tests. Aligned with this perspective, we shed light on rich and heterogeneous resources that learners bring to learning settings (Rosebery, Ogonowski, DiSchino, & Warren, 2010), the complementary development of science content and language learning through the engagement in disciplinary practices and flexible use of multiple languages (Lee, Quinn, and Valdés, 2013), and agentive and critical practices that learners craft in order to (re)figure their relationship with STEM (Tan & Calabrese Barton, 2008). To advance this new perspective, Basu, Calabrese Barton, and Tan (2011) argued for promoting critical science literacy, characterized as transformation of discourses and practices of science, learners’ identities, and the world around them for building democratic and just societies. This approach moves beyond static and functional views of literacy and redefines literacy as an engagement in practices that are (re)constructed in the ecological contexts in which it is practiced (Nasir & Hand, 2008). Building on this line of research, we define critical STEM literacy as agentive appropriation of knowledge for transformation of discourses and practices of STEM, learners’ identities, and the world around us, in order to build democratic and just societies.

Methods/Data. Throughout 2016-2017 implementation of the afterschool program, we collected ethnographic research data, which resulted in approximately 60 hours of session videorecordings, 30 hours of screencasts that record the participants’ computer use, 22 interviews, 73 image files of youth-generated artifacts, and intensive field notes. In analyzing this large scope of data, we draw on principles of video-based interactional analysis (Derry, et al., 2010; Jordan & Henderson, 1995), multimodal interactional analysis utilizing multimodal transcription (Flewitt, Hampel, Hauck, & Lancaster, 2014), and focused ethnography (Knoblauch & Schnettler, 2012). Operationalizing our definition of critical STEM literacy, we selected episodes wherein youth appropriated STEM knowledge, transformed STEM discourse and practices, and aimed to build democratic and just societies within and across learning settings and local and global communities. We generated a list of actions in these episodes, which then were categorized into upper-level themes.

Results and Scholarly Significance. Our analysis generated four themes: The youth participants translanguaged to negotiate participation and scientific meanings; connected a wide range of experiences, which are not alwaysvalued in formal education settings, for new STEM learning; skillfully positioned themselves and others to build solidarity; and demonstrated their desire for social changes that help underprivileged people. By sharing findings about how refugee youth engage in critical STEM literacy practice, we aim to provide pedagogical insights for and contribute to the construction of empowering narratives about refugee youth.

Authors

• Minjung Ryu, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Shannon Mary Daniel, Vanderbilt University

• Mavreen Rose Sta Ana Tuvilla, Purdue University

• Casey E. Wright, Purdue University