Complexifying Identity in Science Education: Affective Mo(ve)ments of, In-Between, and Beyond Consolidating Bodies (of Work) (Poster 10)

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

Abstract

Purpose. Researchers have argued for some time now that science education practices-as-usual work to (re)produce systems of dominance: be it patriarchy, heteronormativity, white supremacy, eurocentrism, (neo-)colonialism, able-ism, classism, labor inequity, anthropocentrism, and more (Bullock, 2017; Higgins et al., 2018; McKinely, 2000; Vakil & Ayers, 2010); thus tinkering with methodologies are essential for staying with the trouble of science education (Higgins et al., 2019). These persistent discourses demand more creative and care-full interrogations to trouble the ways in which “settled phenomena settle perspectives and relations to phenomena” (Bang & Marin, 2015, p. 531). We argue that this challenge includes notions of “consolidating” bodies of work and territorializing discourses of “science identity”. This project considers one persistent, ever-unfolding question: What assumptions, narratives, and materials shape research on science identity? In response, we attempt to co-compose with always-already-existing rhythms of identity research in science education.

Theoretical Perspectives. Assumptions. Narratives. Materials. These are all bodily concepts (i.e., embodied and bodies of knowledge) that can generate new bodily understandings. Describing the difficulty of inhabiting a body of work or knowledge that reveals a perpetual “trying” toward something not yet (Ahmed, 2017) is a strenuous process. In the context of our analysis, we employed Ahmed’s (2017) account of words as sweaty concepts (e.g., identity) since they carry orientations or leanings—because of what they pick up over time and who they pick up. Thinking with sweaty concepts, like identity, has reverberating effects and affects across multiple temporalities.

Methods. Grounded in Ahmed’s work, and co-crafting a poetic response (Author 2 & Author 1, 2021) to a recent comprehensive review of 198 articles on science identity (Danielson et al., forthcoming), our artful analysis complexifies the notion of “consolidation” of identity research in science education. Danielson et al. identify three major themes and offer an in-depth synthesis and discussion of the affordances and limitations of these themes, utilizing unique cases present in the field. We work in dynamic conversation with Danielson et al.’s project to invite affective movements of, in-between, and beyond static (re)presentations of identity work - rendering all involved, including the more-than-human, more capable (Haraway, 2016).

Findings & Significance. We highlight rhythmic mo(ve)ments for new questions and imaginations within research on science identity. For example, our findings engage common everyday issues shaping research in science education (e.g., citational politics, funding streams, diverse positionalities, and key words utilized for indexing publications). This is complex work. Research on science identities is at a pressing crossroad: not only must researchers utilize complex theories to understand science learning, but science educators must also cultivate complex practices within dynamic discourses, ecologies, identities, and diverse knowledge economies. As such, this research looks beyond mere critique to render an-other embodied practice visible (Author 2 & Author 1, 2021). Unlike other previous paradigms of research on teaching, the complex turn is a turn to questions of ontology and epistemology (Strom & Viesca, 2021). A turn that uses both complex emergent theories while also grappling with the shared response-ability of methodological practices in creating a particular type of research product.

Authors

• Maria Ferris Greene Wallace, University of Southern Mississippi
  Presenting Author

• Christie Byers, George Mason University
  Presenting Author