Science, Identity, and Science Identity: Unpacking Science Experience GOALS for Girls, Trans, and Nonbinary Youth

• In Event: Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships for Developing and Assessing Informal STEM Learning Experiences

Abstract

Despite decades of effort, gender diversity in STEM remains sparse, with some scholars posing a model that is more explicitly gendered than the “leaky pipeline” (Blickenstaff, 2005). Research in girls’ science education demonstrates that factors of access, identity, pedagogy, and nature of science all contribute to engagement or disaffectation (see review by Brotman & Moore, 2008). Our poster presents a case study of GOALS (Girls’ Outdoor Adventure in Leadership and Science), a field-based summer program that is a partnership between a large Western US university and two National Parks. A volunteer team of university undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers, as well as scientists and staff at the National Parks Service, are collectively responsible for program planning and implementation. High school-aged youth participants backpack through the mountains with undergraduate trip leaders while participating in contributory citizen science activities (Shirk et al., 2012) and developing their own independent research projects. In terms of outcomes, youth learn place-based science content and general field science inquiry practices. Youth and mentors are encouraged to express themselves fully in terms of their gender identities, while engaging in embodied activities (backpacking and backcountry science) not typically associated with those identities. Finally, youth develop science and leadership identities in which they build environmental science agency (Ballard, Dixon, & Harris, 2016) that is aligned with their sense of self. The aim of this study is to make sense of these distinct yet interrelated goals, processes, and outcomes.

Theory & Modes of Inquiry: Three related theoretical assertions inform our program development, our methods, and our analytic approach. First, learning and identity are sociocultural and contextualized within communities, institutions, and figured worlds (Holland, et al, 2001; Urietta, 2007). Second, embodiment is not merely an instrumental means to cognitive understanding but a fundamental process of knowing and becoming (Hall & Nemirovsky, 2012; Lakoff & Johnson, 2008). And third, self-story is critical as aim and method for identity development, since it functions in descriptive and prescriptive ways (Sfard & Prusak, 2005; Wortham, 2001). In terms of method, we map the roles, functions, and practices of volunteers and youth in GOALS overall using case study methods (Merriam, 2009). Our examination of youth learning and identity development employs field observations, semi-structured interviews with youth, PhotoVoice (Hergenrather, et al, 2009), and analysis of youth field journals and independent presentations.

Results & Significance: Learning and identity/leadership development in GOALS are both grounded in immediate and emergent experiences: in the social community, in the body, and in tensions between typical and atypical conceptions of who does backcountry field science and why. Goals and development also shift over time as participants (youth and volunteers) are engaged in preparing for the backcountry trip, on the trip itself, presenting or engaging with students’ inquiry projects after the trip, and reflecting on meanings and retained understandings six months later. Insights gained from this research-practice partnership can influence the design of other STEM-diversity interventions and also inform the immediate revision and improvement of subsequent GOALS iterations.

Authors

• Christopher Jadallah, University of California - Davis

• Kaitlyn Murray, University of California - Davis

• Cynthia Carter Ching, University of California - Davis

• Maria Ospina, University of California - Davis

• Sarah Abusaa, University of California - Davis

• Jenna Turpin, University of California - Davis

• Alycia Drwencke, University of California - Davis

• Emily Pascoe, University of California - Davis