Restorying STEM Identities: Reimagining STEM Connections Through Computational Quilts

• In Event: Science Teaching and Learning Toward Collaborative Social Transformation and Justice

Abstract

Objective: In this study, high school students of color from backgrounds excluded from STEM fields engaged in a collaborative counter-storytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) project to design interactive, electronic textiles (e-textiles) quilts. The “Restorying STEM Identities” approach seeks to reimagine access to STEM by promoting computing skills and identity development. By integrating coding, circuitry, and crafting skills with storytelling, this project created space through which youth of color drew upon their lived experiences to “restory” and reimagine both their connections to technology, as well as technology itself.

Framework: We draw upon the historical practice of quilting, restorying (Thomas & Stornaiuolo, 2016), and e-textiles research (Kafai, Fields, & Searle, 2014). As a tradition, quilting has been documented to conceptualize cultural identity and represent histories, particularly for marginalized groups (Cash, 1995; Brophy, 2004). A form of narrative agency, restorying is a process by which youth reshape dominant narratives to reflect perspectives and experiences that have been marginalized or silenced (Thomas & Stornaiuolo, 2016). Restorying the dominant narrative of technology, participants drew upon their experiences with STEM to reimagine access to the various fields by using digital technologies to challenge the reproduction of dominant narratives (e.g., that only white men can be scientists).

Methods: We developed a critical literacy-based (Janks, 2010) computing project for minoritized high school students ages 14 to 16 at a 40 hour-long STEM workshop at a local science museum. During the July portion of the workshop, youth designed interactive quilts using Micro:bit microcontrollers and soft circuit materials as a means to restory dominant narratives of CS. After the quilts were completed, groups exhibited their quilts to the rest of the class, acknowledging the dominant STEM narratives they drew upon and how their interactive quilt restoried those narratives through collective counter-storytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). Data included video observations, recorded field notes, post-workshop interviews with participants, design worksheets and participants’ artifacts.

Results: We provide a potential framework for how critical identities can be explored in STEM. By examining students’ process of identifying dominant STEM narratives and reimagining those narratives through the design of their quilts, we present themes illustrating how students restoried their connections to STEM based on their development of computing skills and engaging in critical literacy practices. Themes included: 1) how students reconstructed STEM identities based on multiple social identities, 2) how students negotiated tensions between reality and their imagination, and 3) how the physical act of interaction supported the restorying process.

Significance: Identity research in STEM education has highlighted how dominant images of science and scientists have contributed to youth feeling like outsiders to the world of science (Rahm, 2007). Outcomes for this poster session will include how: 1) the integration of counter-storytelling through restorying with computing skill building promoted minoritized youth’s connections to intersectional STEM identities, 2) restorying provided students with the opportunity to “prototype” STEM identities, and 3) reframing CS research with critical literacy scholarship impacted access to CS learning more broadly.

Authors

• Mia Shaw, University of Pennsylvania

• Josh Coleman, San Jose State University

• Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Yasmin B. Kafai, University of Pennsylvania