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This paper describes preliminary findings from NSF-funded research conducted at the New York Hall of Science with an established after school maker education and social entrepreneurship program called Innovation Institute. Using social entrepreneurship (Peredo & McLean, 2006) and hands–on making activities in a maker space environment, participants address community-focused problems they identify on their own in low-income neighborhoods in Queens,, New York. This project studied whether and how specific aspects of this nine-month, after-school computational making (defined by Rode, et al [2015] as combining computational thinking with skills in aesthetics, creativity, constructing, visualizing multiple representations, and understanding materials) program for 13–17-year-olds from recent immigrant populations may influence participants’ perceptions of the relevance, usefulness and accessibility of computer science and engineering as potential academic and career pathways.
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What to “make” of school: Revealing the conflicting institutional logics of grassroots making and formal education
This article explores the experiences and opinions of young makers and their parents regarding the integration of maker technologies, activities, and spaces into their schools. By utilizing institutional logic theory as an analytical lens, conflicts between the values, goals, and norms of making and schooling were revealed. The findings suggest that participants view engagement with making as peripheral to, or incommensurate with, the core institutional logic of formal education. While participants showed inter- est in formalizing maker education, they generally concluded that making could not, and perhaps should not, be integral to school. The authors believe that the findings will help educators address these conflicts and cre- ate more sustainable, integrated, and authentic maker-based programs.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2010696
- PAR ID:
- 10214808
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Research on Technology in Education
- ISSN:
- 1539-1523
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 15
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2020.1767526
