Critical Youth Participatory Explorations of STEM Pathways

• In Event: 18.045 - Science Capital => STEM Capitxl: Practicing Theory in a Science Museum Youth Informal Learning Program

Abstract

Objective:
Researchers link informal STEM learning to expanded opportunities in STEM (NRC, 2015), yet stark inequalities in such opportunities persist for youth from marginalized communities (NAE, 2014). There is limited research on how youth living in marginalized communities move within and across informal STEM learning spaces. Little research engages youth expertise on how they define supportive informal STEM learning or on what practices and resources can better support them in leveraging and mobilizing such learning across settings and time.

Perspective:
I explored informal (out-of-school) STEM learning and development pathways for youth living in marginalized communities. Learners construct pathways in-the-moment, through learners’ efforts to co-construct spaces as they both move within and/or across those spaces. I define spaces as comprising both physical locations and virtual or imagined contexts where practice occurs.

Methods:
Using critical youth participatory research methods, I explored how/why youth participate in informal STEM learning over time and space. I partnered with youth I have known for at least two years (some up to five years). Participants are currently involved in an after school STEM and making program we run in a Boys and Girls Club, either as middle school program members or as paid teen mentors. We leveraged strong relationships to co-research our lives as we continue to work together in STEM learning and practice.

We co-constructed a collection of pathway representation portfolios as multimodal cases. Over 10 weeks, I hosted over 30 hours of group meetings to co-curate interactive digital artifacts. Participants mapped critical events in their STEM pathways, connections across events, and mentors and tools that supported their pathway connection-making efforts. Data include youth photos essays and written portfolio artifacts, youth videos and podcasts, critical ethnographic interview transcripts, and youth-adult co-analysis of more than 4 years of my participant observations and field notes as their after school teacher.

Results:
Youth revealed complex relationships across space and time that shape pathways, and key actions that shift pathway movement (e.g., having a ride from a peer’s parent, one crucial phone call from a mentor, etc.). Youth also revealed how specific aspects and components of informal STEM learning can better support their efforts to construct STEM pathways to the future. For example, youth discussed the importance of a co-constructed community culture (e.g., a program-governing structure that respects youth-led decision-making and youth-adult partnership work as legitimate) for aiding their development of ownership and agency in STEM. Educators who positioned themselves as co-learners alongside youth were perceived as more helpful to youth efforts to create unique and meaningful pathways in STEM.

Significance:
Youth expertise on their out-of-school STEM learning mobilities and geographies—the actions and structures over time and space that create life-wide learner engagement—can inform researchers and policymakers who seek to support such life-wide learning, especially for youth fighting against inequity factors both in and out of school. This work addresses how informal STEM learning can become more equitable and transformative for youth who seek STEM pathways for their lives.

Author

• Day W Greenberg, Michigan State University