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Computing fields are foundational to most STEM disciplines and the only STEM discipline to show a consistent decline in women's representation since 1990, making it an important field for STEM educators to study. The explanation for the underrepresentation of women and girls in computing is twofold: a sense that they do not fit within the stereotypes associated with computing and a lack of access to computer games and technologies beginning at an early age (Richard, 2016). Informal coding education programs are uniquely situated to counter these hurdles because they can offer additional resources and time for engagement in specially designed activities developed around best practices to improve girls coding identities (National Research Council [NRC], 2009). We draw upon research by Calabrese Barton et al. (2013) and Carlone and Johnson's (2007) research as a lens by which to examine girls' coding identity work in an informal coding education setting—a concept not currently defined in the science education research literature. In this paper, we describe the coding identity trajectories of three middle school girls who participated in a coding camp: Lilly, Victoria, and Beth. Our results provide a conceptual framework that will guide future research on coding identity that better encompasses the role of recognition by educators and peers on youth's coding identity development. This framework can be used to guide broader science education identity research, particularly as it applies to informal STEM education settings that work to engage students, especially girls, across the STEM spectrum.

In this study, we argue that current conceptual frameworks used to understand how novices make sense of science ignore K‐12 teachers' understanding to a detriment. If teachers are supposed to translate the content, context, and culture of science to their students, then it is important for researchers and policymakers to understand how this happens. Communities of science practice (COSP) research identify the ways in which novices make sense of the practices of science within a space where they interact with, observe, and are affected by other members at varying levels of legitimacy. In brief, K‐12 students are rarely exposed to the COSP; therefore, teachers must translate these cultural pieces to their students while simultaneously teaching the content and practices of sciences. We chose to focus on teachers who participated in a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program. The RET program served as a brief exposure to a COSP for these teachers. The goal for our study was to develop a conceptual framework to study teachers' experiences as spectator novices within a RET program. Spectator novice was the term we used to define teachers' roles as novices moving toward legitimacy within the COSP but with a different goal—that of observing the culture and translating it to their students—from science undergraduate and graduate students who are attempting to become full legitimate participants within the community. Through interviews with teachers, we developed a conceptual framework that can guide future research on the unique experiences of teachers asspectator noviceswithin the COSP.