Young women of color figuring science and identity within and beyond an afterschool science program

ABSTRACT

Background

To attend to the social production of girls of color in science through the lens of history in person and local contentious practice, we propose a relational and nonrepresentational reading of STEM pathways. We invoke the conceptual lenses of wayfaring, knots, and meshwork to highlight the infinite ways of figuring science and becoming a science person in movement. We understand this as a life-long embodied process, entangled and marked by intersectionality and emotions.

Methods

Drawing on video recordings, fieldnotes, artifacts, interviews, and focus groups, collected from young women of color participating in an after-school program and over time (2009–2016), we examine moments of figuring science and identity in science.

Findings

Our analysis depicts identity work as a meshwork of trails emerging in the flow of the program activities and from deep relations of dignity among the young women of color extending beyond the afterschool program and through time.

Contributions

This paper offers a critique of the linear, unidirectional, and representational pipeline model of STEM education through a focus on wayfaring. In doing so, we call for a reframing of informal science learning experiences as contributing in important ways to a meshwork of lives and learning in science.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the students and staff of ScienceGirls and the six youth/young women for working with us over the extended time period. Thanks also to Susan Jurow, Ailie Cleghorn, James Kisiel, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This work was also supported in part by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and a Society and Culture Grant by the Research Foundation of Quebec. That said, the ideas expressed are ours.

Dedication

We dedicate this paper to the memory of Dorothy Holland whose work has inspired our own.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ In Quebec, Canada, an allophone is an individual whose mother tongue is neither French or English.

² Note that one of the six young women was often absent given time constraints and did not feature in the video clip in the end.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et Culture; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.