Establishing Virtual STEM Counter-Spaces by Leveraging Community Cultural Wealth

• In Event: For Us, by Us: The Power of Black STEM Counter-Spaces to Foster Holistic Well-Being and Learning

Abstract

My son is in the 2nd-3rd grade class. He has been introduced and exposed to so many concepts, materials, projects, ideas, and terms that he is actually excited about learning! The curriculum is engaging and challenging and has sparked his curiosity in so many ways... This is what school and learning is supposed to feel like.
(Parent – Ms. Hill, Email Correspondence, July 14, 2020)

During the final week of the Online Community STEM Camp (OCSC)* pseudonym – a summer enrichment program and research context of this paper, a parent sent this email. While OCSC has a decade of experience offering summer programs within Black and Brown communities, this was our first attempt recreating community-based educational spaces in an online platform due to closures resulting from COVID-19. Ms. Hill’s statement, “this is what school, and learning is supposed to feel like” served as an inspiration to explore aspects of the program model that were effective even in a virtual learning environment.

Purpose: Too often, in formal schools, curricular offerings are dictated by standards and workforce development, which can be dehumanizing and traumatizing for students. Equitable access to STEM programs and advanced curricular offerings remain a challenge, particularly in schools serving Black and Brown children (USDOE, 2018). Furthermore, children’s educational outcomes are influenced by family socioeconomic status; differences in availability of accepted forms of capital often result in opportunity gaps and educational disparities (Broer et al., 2019).

Theoretical Framework: OCSC is informed by Yosso’s (2005) strengths-based concept of community cultural wealth (CCW), which challenges traditional interpretations of cultural capital. The CCW model centers assets and resources that exist within Communities of Color that often go unacknowledged and elevates six sources of capital People of Color bring to their communities – aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, familial, and resistant. Various forms of capital were leveraged to inform the development of OCSC as a counterspace and provide Black and Brown children with access to high-quality STEM programs and culturally sustaining curricula.

Methods and Data Sources: This presentation shares theories that undergirded the development and enactment of the program, provides detailed descriptions of the curriculum, and elevates the voices of parents, K-12 scholars, and sponsors through camp artifacts.

Findings: OCSC’s explicit focus on recruiting diverse and skilled teachers, STEM professionals, and community partners fostered intergenerational STEM interests that developed meaningful relationships. A common consensus amongst participants was the lack of opportunities to learn about the contributions of people who looked like them in their schools. In providing access to their rich histories and mentors who served as role models, we leveraged aspirational, navigational, and resistant forms of capital, and stimulated intellectualism through a deep exploration of self and others.

Scholarly Significance: We must build capacity for programs to integrate culturally and historically responsive education (Muhammad, 2020) and promote Black excellence through positive identity development. The implementation of OCSC served as a model for how to leverage CCW to implement online transformative curricula and sustain programs that are often stymied by the demands of funding, resource allocation, and access to STEM professionals/educators who represent students’ multidimensional identities.

Author

• Natalie S. King, Georgia State University