Blackness and STEM Identity Through Social Media: Discourses of Care, Belonging, and Becoming (Poster 11)

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

Abstract

Purpose: Social media is now a dominant influence in the lives of most young adults. Despite a call for research on the use of social media in STEM (Ardoin et al., 2013; Rosenberg et al., 2020), researchers have only recently started to examine its use as to expand science learning and identity. Most new research revolves around individuals’ online social networking around the environment (Robelia et al., 2011; Typhina, 2017), or as ways to counter scientific misinformation (Höttecke & Allchin, 2020). This poster explores how two informal STEM organizations use social media to connect with BIPOC youth to explore STEM identities. In turn, social media reveals how youth and young adults in these informal science groups create safe spaces for STEM learning.

Methods & Data: This research is guided by intersectional theory (Cho et al., 2013) that interrogates the ways that race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and other ways of being are used to exclude particular people from STEM. Data analyzed includes six months (January-June 2022) of social media content from Instagram and Twitter from two birdwatching organization that were formed to a response to the Black Lives Matter movement (e.g., Feminist Bird Club and the BlackAFinSTEM Collective). Data include original posts made by each organization and members’ responses to these posts. Data were analyzed for their content (Patton, 2014), discourse (Wodak & Meyer, 2015), and social semiotics (Hodge, 2014). These two organizations represent demographically and economically contrasting communities, an urban group and a suburban group, both situated in the mid-Atlantic region of the US.

Results: The analysis of social media content in both organizations reveals a strong interest in promoting inclusivity, as well as social justice as an act of care for more-than-human inhabitants and the environment. The results were dominated by portraits of BIPOC birders who worked alongside scientists or as scientists themselves. Discourses ranged from celebrating the diversity within the community to an emphasis on one’s individual agency when engaging with community action. The urban group more often referred to racial and gender diversity in its postings, such as offering bilingual birdwatching walks or including more diverse images across age, gender, race, and ability. Content in the suburban group posting strongly emphasized partnerships among other non-profits, with repeated invitations to families. Each group had different approaches that emphasized care beyond oneself – caring for family, community, the more-than-human inhabitants, and the environment.

Implications: Through this research, we see ways that anti-racism and STEM identity is being promoted with social media as a powerful tool to assist in dismantling structures of exclusion in STEM (Yammine et al., 2018). The urban group focused on leveraging language diversity and images that fostered identifying nature as an extension of one’s family and urban community. In contrast, the suburban group reinforced notions of civic responsibility, volunteerism, and one’s direct role in environmental action. These results offer insights to the ways that BIPOC organizations are re-imagining how diverse young adults might be involved in STEM as an extension of their everyday lives.

Author

• Carol B. Brandt, Temple University
  Presenting Author