Multilingual Youth as Researchers: When Youth Ask Questions and Define Problems (Poster 2)

• In Event: Reengaging (With) Care in Equity-Based STEM Research

Abstract

Problem. Identity development is a complex process that first begins with social, cultural, and everyday experiences and interpretations based on relational and interactional dynamics (Rahm & Moore, 2016). Given the traditional teacher-student, researcher-researched relationships, and the settled expectations of (in)formal learning spaces in terms of the unequal distribution of power and epistemic authority, more studies are needed to understand what it means to validate and center young people’s identities and everyday ways of knowing. Positioning youth as researchers and critical thinkers allows youth to be recognized not only as epistemic agents, but also validate “the forms of resistance and theories of change enacted by (racialized) youth” (Tuck & Yang, 2014, p. 10), which in turn can brings new ontological grounds from which we can re-imagine and transform dominant spaces of learning. This is especially true for racialized multilingual youth who are often positioned as lacking knowledge and skills, disengaged, disinterested, and apathetic (Authors, 2022; Fine et al, 2007). In this study, we draw on decolonial theories and the concept of a pluriverse to showcase how centering insurgent identities of racialized multilingual youth from Black and Brown communities as critical for research skills provided them with an opportunity to reclaim their onto-epistemological brilliances.

Design. The context is a longitudinal design-based STEAM Research Academy with dozens of emergent bilingual/multilingual youth (English learners) from Black and Brown communities. The youth were positioned as co-researchers and collected qualitative data such as video and dialogue based interview data. Together we collected data on issues related to multilingual and science identity development. In this study we present our findings on how repositioning youth as researchers helped us to rethink our epistemological practices but also ontological grounds upon which we made assumptions and interpretations.

Findings & Analysis. Racialized multilingual youth with insurgent identities sought to explore notions of care and humanization as they engaged in research based on injustices they experienced. They taught us to center dignity, community, and collective well-being before anything else. They taught us new ways of being a science person, which centered on friendship, community care, and respect. Their perspectives and ways of being generated a completely divergent language, meaning, and science sensemaking from what used to be done. Youth questions and definitions of constructs were diverse, and challenged settled notions of meaningful learning and teaching. Their pluriversal positions also challenged the universal views of experience and exposed dominant assumptions about what counts as science and who counts in science. Their ways of knowing and being granted us new visions and interpretations of identity positions in science education and the basis for more ethico-political actions toward a common good, justice, and flourishment (Authors, 2021).

Contribution/Significance. Similar to prior research, our study shows that “young people who witness injustice in schools, are willing to research the capillaries of inequity, and work hard to redesign school structures, policies, and practices” (Fine et al, 2007, p. 806). Moreover, the study contributes to understanding how positioning youth as epistemic agents is consequential for ontological reasons, providing new articulations of care and justice.

Authors

• Shakhnoza Kayumova, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth
  Presenting Author

• Akira Harper, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth
  Presenting Author

• Esma Nur Kahveci, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth
  Presenting Author