Equity in informal science learning: a practice-research brief

This briefi ng paper reports fi ndings from the Youth Access & Equity in Informal Science Learning (ISL) project, a UK-US researcher-practitioner partnership funded by the Science Learning+ scheme. Our project focuses on young people aged 11-14 primarily from under-served and non-dominant communities and includes researchers and practitioners from a range of ISL settings: designed spaces (eg museums, zoos), community-based (eg after school clubs) and everyday science spaces (eg science media)

Science Learning+ Youth Equity Pathways in Informal Science Learning: Survey findings

This document presents an overview of the quantitative survey data findings from the SL+ Equity Pathways in Informal Science Learning project. Further qualitative analysis on some of the open response data is yet to be completed. Findings are grouped into four areas: about the individuals taking part in the survey; their definitions and understanding of equity and related terms; their current equity practice; and their practices around equity work including reading, talking with colleagues and evaluation

Youth equity pathways in informal science learning

This infographic reports findings from the Youth Access & Equity in Informal Science Learning (ISL) project, a UK-US researcher-practitioner partnership funded by the Science Learning+ Phase 1 scheme. Our project focuses on young people aged 11-14 primarily from under-served and non-dominant communities and includes researchers and practitioners from a range of ISL settings: designed spaces (eg museums, zoos), community-based (eg afterschool clubs) and everyday science spaces (eg science media)

Pathways in informal science learning: a practice-research brief

This briefing paper reports findings from the Youth Access & Equity in Informal Science Learning (ISL) project, a UK-US researcher-practitioner partnership funded by the Science Learning+ Phase 1 scheme. Our project focuses on young people aged 11-14 primarily from under-served and non-dominant communities and includes researchers and practitioners from a range of ISL settings, including designed spaces (eg museums, zoos), community based (eg afterschool clubs) and everyday science spaces (eg science media)

Fun moments or consequential experiences? A model for conceptualising and researching equitable youth outcomes from informal STEM learning

While there are many different frameworks seeking to identify what benefits young people might derive from participation in informal STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) learning (ISL), this paper argues that the sector would benefit from an approach that foregrounds equity and social justice outcomes. We propose a new model for reflecting on equitable youth outcomes from ISL that identifies five key areas: (1) Grounded fun; (2) STEM capital; (3) STEM trajectories; (4) STEM identity work; and (5) Agency+ . The model is applied to empirical data (interviews, observations and youth portfolios) collected over one year in four UK-based ISL settings with 33 young people (aged 11–14), largely from communities that are traditionally under-represented in STEM. Analysis considers the extent to which participating youth experienced equitable outcomes, or not, in relation to the five areas. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for ISL and how the model might support ongoing efforts to reimagine ISL as vehicle for social justice

Disruptive moments as opportunities towards justice-oriented pedagogical practice in Informal Science Learning

Despite the promise of Informal Science Learning settings (ISLs) in supporting youth science engagement in ways that value their experiences and communities, in practice, such opportunities are limited. While some ISLs promote more culturally relevant approaches to science engagement, many still reflect White supremacist and patriarchal worldviews in discourse and practice. In Research Practice Partnerships, we engaged eight ISL educators from two partner sites—a community center and science center, and youth from across their six programs. Using participatory ethnography we explore how educators' pedagogical practices supported youth in codeveloping more justice-oriented ISL experiences—experiences which disrupt these dominant and oppressive norms. Our analysis pays attention, in particular, to those fraught moments when youth, in interaction with peers and educators, sought to disrupt their ISL experience in ways that centered and amplified their lives, hopes, and desires for being and learning in ISL and humanized the ISL learning community. Two kinds of pedagogical response patterns emerged that we report on in our findings: (1) collaborative critique and (2) critically being with each other towards new relationalities. We discuss how these two practices centered political and ethical dimensions of teaching and learning, fundamentally shifting power and relationalities towards new ISL possibilities. We also discuss how these practices involved leveraging specific moments to resee youths' activities in new ways, making visible how an ISL space limited opportunities for youth visibility of presence in science—a kind of pausing for justice

Resarch & practice agenda: equity pathways in informal STEM learning

This Research & Practice Agenda is a synthesis of findings from the Youth Access & Equity in Informal Science Learning (ISL) partnership, a UK-US researcher-practitioner project, funded by the Science Learning+ Initiative. Activities included a survey administered in the UK and US with 134 ISL researchers and/ or practitioners; workshops with 111 participants in both the UK and US; a literature review; and a joint UK-US workshop conducted in the UK. This set of activities generated a range of data, resources and raised questions, both research questions and questions of practice, which we have integrated into a research & practice agenda. The project focused on youth aged 11-14, primarily from under-represented and non-dominant communities. Participants were researchers and practitioners from ISL settings, including designed spaces (eg museums, zoos, science centres); community-based offerings (eg after school clubs, Boys and Girls Clubs) and everyday science spaces/experiences (eg media, at home)

‘It really has made me think’: Exploring how informal STEM learning practitioners developed critical reflective practice for social justice using the Equity Compass tool

Critical reflective practice is a foundation of socially just pedagogy. This paper focuses on the informal STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) learning sector, where there is an acute shortage of support for critical reflective practice despite long-standing, entrenched issues of inequity. We analyse how practitioners used a new reflective tool, the Equity Compass, co-developed by researchers and practitioners through a five-year partnership. We report on multimodal qualitative data (interviews, ethnographic observations, group discussions, partner site visits, and workshops) from 12 practitioners in four settings in the UK: a community zoo, regional science centre, digital arts centre and an initiative supporting girls and non-binary young people into STEM. We discuss how using the Equity Compass: (i) increased and deepened practitioners’ knowledge and understanding of equity issues; (ii) supported personal and institutional critical reflection, helping practitioners move beyond ‘gut instinct’ to interrogate their own positionality, ask new questions, and critically evaluate the effectiveness of attempts at inclusive practice; and (iii) fostered more intentional equitable planning and practice, such as participatory approaches that shared authority with learners and introduced more inclusive forms of representation. We conclude by discussing the challenges, limitations, and implications for supporting critical reflective practice among educators

Changing the field: a Bourdieusian analysis of educational practices that support equitable outcomes among minoritized youth on two informal science learning programs

Supporting more equitable participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) remains a key, persistent educational challenge. This paper employs a sociological Bourdieusian lens to explore how equitable youth outcomes might be supported through informal science learning (ISL). Drawing on multimodal, ethnographic data from four case study youth aged 11–14 from two ISL programs, we identify four areas of practice that were enacted to a greater or lesser extent in the programs in support of equitable youth outcomes. We identify how the equitable potential of these practices was realized through a disruption of dominant power relations. It is argued that ISL should focus on changing the field, rather than young people. Affordances and limitations of the Bourdieusian lens are discussed

Going, Going, Gone: A Feminist Bourdieusian Analysis of Young Women's Trajectories in, Through and Out of Physics, Age 10–19

This chapter draws on longitudinal interview data collected from seven young woman in England who were tracked from age 10–19 and who had all expressed an aspiration at age 16 to study Advanced level (A level) physics. Applying a feminist Bourdieusian conceptual lens, we explore their trajectories in, through and out of physics: from Danielle, who is denied entry to A level physics; to Victoria and Thalia, who are debarred from the course before completion; to Davina, Kate and Mienie, who complete the A level but who choose not to pursue the subject further; and finally Hannah, who goes on to study physics at university. Attention is drawn to the pedagogic work conducted by the field of physics, notably the cultivation of habitus and hexis through the bodies, minds and identities of the young women, and its stringent gate-keeping practices, which ensure the reproduction of the elite status of the field and the simultaneous disadvantaging of women