Epistemic Actors: Double Binds and the Negotiation of Epistemic Participation

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Theoretical and Philosophical Dilemmas in Science Learning

Abstract

This paper theorizes epistemic agency (Miller, Manz, Russ, Stroupe, & Berland, 2018) using a cultural historical activity theoretical lens (Engestrom & Cole 2003). It engages the concept of epistemic actors as learners who respond to a dilemma in how they can participate in an epistemic system by renegotiating (1) how knowledge is produced, and (2) how the learner is positioned in epistemic power relations. The analysis of a middle school data literacy project using the epistemic actor concept makes visible how epistemic actors negotiate two inseparable aspects of epistemic participation (knowledge production and positioning) for consequential learning in the face of double binds (Engestrom, 1986). Educators may build on that skillful negotiation to design productive double binds for all learners.

Authors

• M. Lisette Lopez, University of California - Berkeley

• Kris D. Gutiérrez, University of California - Berkeley

• Michelle Hoda Wilkerson, University of California - Berkeley