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1. “I’m going to feel like a failure” – How group dynamics influence one Black girl’s agency

   Schellinger, J.; Jaber, L. Z.; Southerland, S. (January 2023, American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting)

   Science learning is thought to be best supported when students are positioned as epistemic agents. Using a case study approach, we explore the experiences of one Black middle school girl and her epistemic efforts and the ways in which her group members’ responses to her efforts either supported or constrained her epistemic agency during small group work in two argumentation lessons. Our findings show that Jessie’s epistemic efforts were not often taken up by her peers in ways that support her epistemic agency, findings that have implications for student learning and engagement in terms of the epistemic work we ask students to engage in, and the instructional strategies that support this work. 

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2. “Why aren’t you listening to me?!: Community and Individual roles in students’ epistemic agency in science

   Schellinger, J.; Gomez, K.; Jaber, L. Z.; Southerland, S. A. (April 2022, Annual meeting program American Educational Research Association)

   Science learning is thought to be best supported when students engage in sensemaking about phenomena in ways that mirror the work of scientists, work that requires that students are positioned as epistemic agents who share, discuss, and refine their thinking to make sense of science phenomena. Using a case study approach, we explore the experiences of one Black middle school girl, Jessie’s, epistemic efforts and the ways in which her group members’ responses to her efforts either supported or constrained her epistemic agency during small group work in two argumentation lessons. We view this work through the lenses of epistemic aspects of scientific argumentation, rhetorical argumentation, and pseudo argumentation. Our findings show that Jessie’s epistemic efforts were not often taken up by her peers in ways that support her epistemic agency, findings that have implications for student learning and engagement in terms of the epistemic work we ask students to engage in, and the instructional strategies that support this work. 

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3. An Anti-deficit Counter-story of a Black Girl’s Forms of Resilience in a Standards-based Mathematics Classroom

   https://doi.org/10.21423/jume-v17i1a514  

   Ellis, Brittney; Wrightsman, Elizabeth (August 2024, Journal of Urban Mathematics Education)

   Scholars have called for critical research that positions Black girls in a positive light while centering their constructed meanings and resistance against stereotypes and dominant discourses in mathematics spaces, particularly in reform-oriented instructional contexts. Black girls may have to resist deficit master narratives about the intellectual ability of Black women and girls (macro-level) in moment-to-moment classroom interactions (micro-level). In this article, we tell an anti-deficit counter-story (Adiredja, 2019) of how sense-making and silence became forms of resilience for a Black girl named Amari (pseudonym) during a standards-based whole-class mathematics discussion. Using theoretical perspectives rooted in critical race theory and positioning theory, we operationalized Black girls’ forms of resilience as repeated acts of resistance, evidenced by negotiated or rejected positions. Framing our positioning analysis using an anti-deficit counter-story method (Adiredja, 2019), Amari’s mathematical brilliance was centered while showcasing how forms of resilience emerged from repeated acts of resistance at a micro-interactional timescale. Implications of this work point to a need to specify micro-level responsibilities in classroom settings that challenge racism, sexism, and oppression in macro-level reform efforts. 

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4. Examining Rights to Participate and Struggles to Belong in Science Classrooms through a Black Girl’s Engagement in Argumentation

   Schellinger, J.; Jaber, L. Z.; Southerland, S. (January 2023, Annual meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences)

   If we are to support students to become epistemic agents in the ways envisioned in reforms, we must acknowledge that classrooms can be spaces of injustice, where instructional efforts can propagate inequitable systems of oppression. In this case study, we describe the epistemic efforts of one Black girl, Jessie, and the rights and privileges afforded or denied to her as she worked with a group of her peers to develop and negotiate a scientific claim. Through examination of video data, transcripts, and student work products, we characterized students’ efforts as about epistemic, rhetorical, and pseudo-argumentation, and how we explored how such efforts invited or constrained Jessie’s epistemic agency. Jessie’s pattern of persistence, which we understand to be her fight to have her rights as a scientific sensemaker acknowledged, surfaced issues of inequity in which Jessie’s ongoing efforts to engage in epistemic argumentation were rejected by her peers. 

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5. Authentic Invitations: Offering Girls of Color Voluntary, Contextual, and Responsive Opportunities to Develop Computing Identities

   https://doi.org/10.22318/icls2023.252471  

   Garcia, Patricia; Jacobs, Laura-Ann; Perez, Melissa (October 2023, International Society of the Learning Sciences)

   Blikstein, P; Van_Aalst, J; Kizito, R; Brennan, K (Ed.)

   Broadening participation in computing requires a deeper understanding of how to support girls of color in developing computing identities, or views of themselves as active participants within computing. We propose the concept of authentic invitations as a promising avenue for supporting girls of color in developing computing identities. To illustrate the three proposed dimensions of an authentic invitation, we highlight the experiences of Deandra, a 16- year-old Black girl who participated in an informal computing program for girls of color hosted in public libraries. Our findings show how offering voluntary, contextual, and responsive invitations to participate in computing can support girls of color in authoring computing identities that integrate their social and personal experiences. 

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