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1. Becoming Somebody in STEM: Developing a cultural of criticality in the space between person and history

   Calabrese Barton, A. (April 2018, American Education Research Association)

   Autumn, a young white woman growing up in multi-generational poverty in an economically challenged midwestern city, has authored a STEM-empowered life against the dominant sociohistorical narrative in American society. She has attended public schools that served significant populations living in high poverty – overcrowded classrooms, high teacher turnovers, out-of-field teaching, and limited STEM resources. Yet, she has authored herself into STEM despite these mitigating circumstances. Autumn is currently a high school senior with aspirations to become an engineer or a hairdresser working in an eco-salon. She spends part of her time after school in a makerspace housed in her local community center, building things to solve other people’s problems. She reminds us that her out-of-school efforts to participate in STEM exist worlds away from schooling. However, she takes the optimistic view that if she could tell teachers about her out-of-school STEM experiences, her teachers might be better able to help her and her peers serve the interests and needs of her community, as well as see Autumn’s potential in STEM. Now a rising 12th grader, we have followed Autumn since 5th grade through school and afterschool. As she grew older, she became more interested in helping us to document and tell her story. She is an author on this paper. Also during this time, Autumn has shifted from wanting to be a hair designer (5th grade) to wanting to own a “green” (environmentally friendly) hair salon (8th grade), to considering engineering as a possible career (10th grade). Autumn has struggled with being labeled “a girl in the background” and someone whom her mother described in 7th grade as “if she would just get Ds, I would be happy.” However, over the past 6 years, Autumn has engaged in an ever-increasing range of STEM-rich actions and relationships, including building a Little Free STEM Library, leading workshops on energy efficiency, making educational movies for her community to teach about green energy, and writing for her afterschool STEM club blog. We are interested in Autumn’s engagement with others in these activities over time and space, and how they shape her own and her community’s engagement in STEM. The overarching question that guides this manuscript is: What are the interactional forces that operating across space and time that influence Autumn’s becoming in STEM, as a white girl, growing up in multi-generational poverty in a Midwestern city. Using Holland & Lave’s (2009) two forms of history –“history in person” and “history in institutionalized struggles”–we examined several pivotal events, and the micro-dynamics at play, identified by Autumn with respect to becoming in STEM. We sought to make sense of the ways in which Autumn’s STEM experiences were carried out in local practice but also enacted against the broader background of cultural/historical narratives. In this process we traced Autumn’s core commitments-in-practice in STEM & Community. We also examined how these core commitments-in-practice led, at times, to conflict and new forms of “contentious local practice” (LCP) as these commitments-in-practice pushed back against particular local, historical and sociocultural contexts. 

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2. Bop or Flop?: Integrating Music and Data Science in an Elementary Classroom

   https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2023.2201570  

   Arastoopour Irgens, Golnaz; Herro, Danielle; Fisher, Ashton; Adisa, Ibrahim; Abimbade, Oluwadara (April 2023, The Journal of Experimental Education)

   The importance of data literacies and the shortage of research surrounding data science in elementary schools motivated this research-practice partnership (RPP) between researchers and teachers from a STEM elementary school. We used a narrative case study methodology to describe the instructional practices of one music teacher who co-designed a data science curricular unit during a summer professional development program and implemented it in her 5th-grade music classroom. Data collected for this study include in-person and video observations, reflective journals, artifacts, and interviews. Findings suggest that this teacher integrated data science literacies into her classroom by supporting multiple avenues for data storytelling and relying on learners’ everyday discourse and experiences. Our study details a practical example of implementing data science with non-STEM domains in elementary classrooms. 

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3. “There is no room for me, for a Hawaiian, in science”: Rightful presence in community science

   https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21849  

   Tofel‐Grehl, Colby (February 2023, Journal of Research in Science Teaching)

   Abstract This paper shares the experiences, engagement, and struggle of one young Indigenous Hawaiian woman as she grapples with her sense of disconnect with STEM while serving as a land protector on the Mauna Kea, the home of the Thirty Meter Telescope being built over the objection of the local Indigenous community. I examine her changing perspectives and connections to STEM through her engagement during a summer school enrichment class focused on science and technology learning in service of community goals. Findings indicate that her sense of agency and autonomy were greatly improved by engaging in a space where science and technology were tools serving her goals of protecting the Mauna Kea from further development. 

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4. Math CEO: A Mutually Beneficial Partnership between College Mentors and Latinx Youths.

   Pantano, Alessandra (August 2024, Springer Nature Switzerland)

   This practice-oriented chapter highlights Math CEO, a university–community partnership at UC Irvine that connects middle school students from Santa Ana Title I schools with undergraduate mentors for weekly sessions of math enrichment. Its relationship‑driven mentoring, asset‑based curriculum design, and intentional integration of social‑emotional learning provide concrete strategies for building capacity in inclusive informal STEM education. Relevance and Implications for Practice: This chapter provides a practice‑based model for identifying and implementing culturally‑responsive informal pedagogical practices (CIPPs) in STEM afterschool programs. A mixed‑methods research study at Math CEO has documented reciprocal benefits: youth gain confidence, enjoyment of math, and early exposure to college life, while mentors develop instructional skills, self‑efficacy, and an interest in teaching or community‑focused careers. These dual impacts align closely with the grant’s goals of understanding how CIPPs influence both youth and afterschool staff, as well as building long‑term capacity for high‑quality, research‑informed informal STEM programming. 

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5. “We didn’t know we were doing science”: Engaging with science and mathematics in an archaeology afterschool program

   https://doi.org/10.51355/jstem.2023.135  

   Simpson, Amber; Miroff, Laurie E; Carroll, Lynda; Versaggi, Nina M; McCann, Jada; Murtaugh, Diana; Coles, Jessica (December 2023, Journal of Research in STEM Education)

   An extensive number of empirical research studies support the engagement of young children and youth in out-of-school science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics learning experiences. In this case study, we add to this knowledge base through examining how rural middle school learners engage with science and math concepts and practices through an afterschool program that emphasized the development of STEM content, skills, and practices using the field of archaeology, as well as Indigenous knowledges, as mediums. Results highlighted how various syncretic approaches within the afterschool program afforded 61 middle school aged learners’ opportunities to engage with math and science concepts common to archaeologists and Indigenous peoples. We illustrate this through five “doings.” For example, learners engaged in similar science practices to Indigenous peoples through considering how local landscapes and the natural environment informed decisions regarding settlements. This study concludes with recommendations for professional archaeologists and educators to adapt and/or develop a similar afterschool program to support students’ participation as ARCH + STEM learners. 

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