“They See Me!” Identifying Injustices Through the Co-Design of a Stress Unit in Middle School

• In Event: Designing for Social Change: Justice-Oriented Interventions in K–12 STEM Settings

Abstract

PURPOSE AND FRAMEWORKS
This study investigates the injustices experienced by middle-school youth through the co-design and enactment of a “Stressed!” curriculum We draw from the Rightful Presence framework (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2020), specifically the second tenet -- Rightfulness is claimed through presence: making justice/injustice visible—to guide this study. Our research question is: What are some stressors in middle-school that were identified in the co-design and enactment of the Stressed! unit? In what ways might they be connected to students’ science learning and well-being in school?

METHODS AND DATA SOURCES
We engaged in participatory design-based research with parents, youth, and teachers from minoritized communities to co-design a life science curriculum (Stressed!). The goal was to investigate the connections between social interactions and the physiological aspects of stress. Stressed! was enacted in two 7th grade classrooms (32 youth) and one 8th grade classroom (28 youth) across 4 weeks. Data sources included fieldnotes from classroom science session observations and youth-parent-teacher-researcher design meetings; interview data with students and teachers; and student artifacts.

RESULTS AND SIGNIFICANCE
1) “Schools are not celebrating the brilliance of our children.”
Parents discussed the strengths and talents of their children that they felt were unrecognized in school. Talents and interests included learning different languages, acting, writing short stories and multimedia-savvy. Parents and youth contrasted the narrow modes of expression allowed in schools– “filling in packets” (worksheets). The group codesigned classroom activities that drew on youth talents including 1) using an online comic-creating platform to create personal stress stories; 2) creating a community stress map with a blueprint of school grounds; 3) an educational 30-to-60 second public service announcement made on i-movie on stress in their school. We analyze these artifacts to show how they highlight students’ developing epistemic knowledge and their insights into the socio-spatial relationalities as related to specific kinds of stressors in school.
2) “Bullying is a serious issue and cause us long-term stress.”
Parents and youth shared school-related stress stories during co-design meetings. For example, Amy, a top 7th grade Latina student, endured daily taunting and demands to share her answers with a bully every day. The team then designed a community survey activity for the Stressed! unit. Students came up with 10 questions guided by their prior community stress map activity. An example: How much does each of the following stress you out? Grades, homework, bathrooms, bullying dress code, cafeteria, teachers, discipline measures, not enough transition time” Rate on a scale of 0 (not at all) to 5 (A lot). The survey was sent to students in their school and the results analyzed by students during the unit. Students used survey results to create their public service announcements on i-movie.
This study involved minoritized parents, youth, teachers and researchers in the co-design and enactment of a middle-school unit on Stress and the environment. The insights gleaned from novel parental participation and youth-centered classroom activities are productive towards social justice in STEM education.

Authors

• Virginia Swindell, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Edna Tan, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Angela Calabrese, University of Michigan