Consequential Arrangements for Becoming: Considering Identity Work in STEM Across Social, Institutional, and Practice Spaces

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Research in STEM identity has demonstrated the ways dominant structures of power and privilege permeate our notions of what counts as “scientific” and whose knowledge and practices are recognized as such. Yet, studies of and designs for STEM identity continue to lack embedded, structural connections to the social, cultural, political, and institutional arrangements that shape interactional dynamics in STEM related spaces. This paper set brings into collective view various approaches for conceptualizing, studying, and designing for STEM identities across multiple social, institutional, and practice spaces of youths’ lives. Specifically, the papers in this set provide guidance for researchers and program developers interested in systematically accounting for contextual factors that shape youth development within and across formal and informal environments.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Learning Sciences

Chair

• Carrie D. Allen, University of North Texas

Papers

• Weaving in and out of School Experiences to Craft STEM Identities - Carrie D. Allen, University of North Texas; Joanna Weidler-Lewis, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Familial STEM identity: Reframing "STEM Identity" to Consider Social Units - Remy Dou, Florida International University; Heidi Cian, Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance

• "Those Kinds of Students": Designing for Teachers' Sense-Making of Students' STEM Identities - Sara C. Heredia, University of North Carolina - Greensboro; Carrie D. Allen, University of North Texas

• Context-Dependent Expressions of STEM Identity-Related Behaviors - Heidi Cian, Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance; Remy Dou, Florida International University

• STEM Identity Work in Hybrid Activity Spaces - Mary Alice Carlson, Montana State University; Frederick Peck, University of Montana

Discussant

• Angela Calabrese Barton, University of Michigan