CARIAA Working Paper no. 1

This study was commissioned by the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA). CARIAA is funding research consortia—groupings of 5 partner organizations with expertise in climate and development research, policy or practice to participate in the design and delivery of a common research program for climate change hotspots. While research consortia differ in their objectives and contexts, insights from this study can inform overall design and management of research, under themes of knowledge co-creation, collaboration, and oversight of partnerships. Defining indicators to monitor complex programs is a major challenge for boundary-spanning research consortia

Local to global policy as a catalyst for change: key messages

Feeding and nourishing a growing and changing global population in the face of rising numbers of chronically hungry people, slow progress on malnutrition, environmental degradation, systemic inequality, and the dire projections of climate change, demands a transformation in global food systems. Policy change at multiple levels is critical for catalysing an inclusive and sustainable transformation in food systems; global and regional policy are transformative only insofar as they are translated into ambitious national action with adequate support, including both public and private investment. Three areas of policy change show potential to be catalytic: 1) reducing emissions and increasing resilience, 2) tackling food loss and waste, and 3) shifting diets to promote nutrition and sustainability. Trade-offs mean a multi-sectoral approach to policymaking is needed, while inequalities in food systems necessitate transparent, inclusive processes and results. Gender inequality, in particular, must be addressed. Transformation demands participation and action from all actors

Young Peoples’ Online Science Practices as a Gateway to Higher Education STEM

The purpose of this manuscript is to explore how students perceive that online practices have enabled their participation in university physics programmes. In order to conceptualise how students bridge their science participation across physical and online spaces, we make use of the learning ecology perspective. This perspective is complemented with the notion of science capital, analysing how students have been able to strengthen different aspects of science capital through online participation. Data has been generated through semi-structured interviews guided by a timeline, constructed in collaboration between the interviewer and the interviewee. Twenty-one students enrolled in higher education physics have been interviewed, with a focus on their trajectories into higher education physics. The findings focus on four students who in various ways all have struggled to access science learning resources and found ways to utilise online spaces as a complement to their physical learning ecologies. In the manuscript, we show how online practices have contributed to the students’ learning ecologies, e.g. in terms of building networks and functioning as learning support, and how resources acquired through online science practices have both use and exchange value in the wider science community. Online science participation is thus both curiosity driven and founded in instrumental reasons (using online tutoring to pass school science). Furthermore, we argue that online spaces have the potential to offer opportunities for participation and network building for students who do not have access to science activities and science people in their everyday surroundings.The purpose of this manuscript is to explore how students perceive that online practices have enabled their participation in university physics programmes. In order to conceptualise how students bridge their science participation across physical and online spaces, we make use of the learning ecology perspective. This perspective is complemented with the notion of science capital, analysing how students have been able to strengthen different aspects of science capital through online participation. Data has been generated through semi-structured interviews guided by a timeline, constructed in collaboration between the interviewer and the interviewee. Twenty-one students enrolled in higher education physics have been interviewed, with a focus on their trajectories into higher education physics. The findings focus on four students who in various ways all have struggled to access science learning resources and found ways to utilise online spaces as a complement to their physical learning ecologies. In the manuscript, we show how online practices have contributed to the students’ learning ecologies, e.g. in terms of building networks and functioning as learning support, and how resources acquired through online science practices have both use and exchange value in the wider science community. Online science participation is thus both curiosity driven and founded in instrumental reasons (using online tutoring to pass school science). Furthermore, we argue that online spaces have the potential to offer opportunities for participation and network building for students who do not have access to science activities and science people in their everyday surroundings

Using story-based methodologies to explore physics identities:How do moments add up to a life in physics?

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Qualitative Methods in PER: A Critical Examination.] This article details methodologies employed to enable sharing and coconstructing the stories of three women’s lives in physics. The first case explores the usefulness of timeline interviewing, where participants narrate episodes that are coconstructed with the researcher as meaningful over time. We illustrate this method in the case of a mature student in Sweden from a working-class background who shared moments that added up to a life outside of physics and then a sharp turn into physics later in life. The second case explores life-history interviewing using a narrative-inquiry approach and deep relationship building which enabled the coconstruction of stories of experiences over time. These moments are coconstructed with the researcher and analyzed using an intersectionality lens to yield a story depicting the transnational experiences of a woman of color moving across various European contexts into the North American physics context. The final case is of a first-generation Canadian woman of color who shared her navigations of in and out of school physics via a method known as the “Rivers of Life.” Using this method, the participant narrates their experiences with physics as a river, using metaphorical tools like rafts, rocks, rapids, tributaries to discuss various moments described as twists and turns over time that together amount to a life in physics. We discuss the value of different approaches to coconstructing narratives with participants and, in particular, the need for this kind of research in physics contexts

Transforming food systems under climate change: Local to global policy as a catalyst for change

Feeding and nourishing a growing and changing global population in the face of rising numbers of chronically hungry people, slow progress on malnutrition, environmental degradation, systemic inequality, and the dire projections of climate change, demands a transformation in global food systems. Policy change at multiple levels is critical for catalysing an inclusive and sustainable transformation in food systems; global and regional policy are transformative only insofar as they are translated into ambitious national action with adequate support, including both public and private investment. Three areas of policy change show potential to be catalytic: 1) reducing emissions and increasing resilience, 2) tackling food loss and waste, and 3) shifting diets to promote nutrition and sustainability. Trade-offs mean a multi-sectoral approach to policymaking is needed, while inequalities in food systems necessitate transparent, inclusive processes and results. Gender inequality, in particular, must be addressed. Transformation demands participation and action from all actors

Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium: Accelerating Evidence-Based Practice of Genomic Medicine

Despite rapid technical progress and demonstrable effectiveness for some types of diagnosis and therapy, much remains to be learned about clinical genome and exome sequencing (CGES) and its role within the practice of medicine. The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) consortium includes 18 extramural research projects, one National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) intramural project, and a coordinating center funded by the NHGRI and National Cancer Institute. The consortium is exploring analytic and clinical validity and utility, as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications of sequencing via multidisciplinary approaches; it has thus far recruited 5,577 participants across a spectrum of symptomatic and healthy children and adults by utilizing both germline and cancer sequencing. The CSER consortium is analyzing data and creating publically available procedures and tools related to participant preferences and consent, variant classification, disclosure and management of primary and secondary findings, health outcomes, and integration with electronic health records. Future research directions will refine measures of clinical utility of CGES in both germline and somatic testing, evaluate the use of CGES for screening in healthy individuals, explore the penetrance of pathogenic variants through extensive phenotyping, reduce discordances in public databases of genes and variants, examine social and ethnic disparities in the provision of genomics services, explore regulatory issues, and estimate the value and downstream costs of sequencing. The CSER consortium has established a shared community of research sites by using diverse approaches to pursue the evidence-based development of best practices in genomic medicine

“Science isn’t just what we learn in school”: Using video and arts-based methods to engage youth in science conversations

In this article, I explore what happens when digital media activities designed to stimulate science conversations are introduced to an out-of-school-time (OST) space usually reserved for talks about girls’ issues. The goals of this study were to provide a space that values youth voice and creates positive emotional energy around science-related subjects. In this article, I identify episodes of interaction rituals that provoke positive emotional energy toward science among a group of adolescent girls in a community centre in a low-income urban neighbourhood. Results highlight moments when youth mobilize their funds of knowledge and demonstrate emotionally positive charged engagement with science. I then conclude with an exploration of the limitations of shifting ideas about what counts as “real science” and the implications for science teaching both in and out of the classroom.RésuméCet article explore ce qui s’est passé lorsque des activités médiatiques digitales, destinées à stimuler les conversations à propos des sciences, ont été intégrées à un programme parascolaire habituellement réservé aux conversations entre adolescentes. Les objectifs de cette étude étaient de fournir un espace valorisant les voix des jeunes et créant une charge affective positive envers les sujets scientifiques. Cet article identifie les épisodes d’interaction ayant provoqué une charge affective positive envers les sciences chez un groupe d’adolescentes, dans un centre communautaire situé dans un quartier urbain défavorisé. Nous identifions les moments d’engagement positif avec la science grâce à la mobilisation de «fonds de connaissance» et par leurs «répertoires de pratique». Cependant, nous identifions également les limites des tentatives de changer ce qui est perçu comme «la vraie science» ou comment les jeunes se considèrent en relation avec la science, tant dans la classe qu’à l’extérieur de celle-ci

Discourses and gender in doctoral physics: a hard look inside a hard science

In Canada today, a gender disparity persists in the enrolment and persistence of doctoral students in physics. Scholarship on this disparity has, in the past, focused on issues of equity and difference in order to find ways to recruit and retain more women in physics. This approach offered a limited perspective on gender and relied on essentialist notions of being a man, woman or physicist. This study highlights the importance of a focus on gender as an aspect of identity construction, thus opening up possibilities for exploring how doctoral students navigate ideologies of gender at the same time that they learn how to become physicists. Doctoral physics students have stories about what kinds of actions, behaviours and ways of doing physics allow individuals to be recognized as physicists. Viewing a physics department as a case study, and individual participants as embedded cases, this study uses a sociocultural approach to examine the ways doctoral students construct these stories about becoming physicists. Through observations, photo-elicitation, and life history interviews, eleven men and women shared stories about their experiences with physics, and the contexts that have enabled or constrained their trajectories into doctoral physics. The results of this study revealed the salience of recognition in the constitution of physicist identities: individuals who saw themselves, or were seen by others, as physicists were more likely to pursue trajectories into academic physics. Further, various interchangeable forms of competence emerged as assets that can be used to achieve recognition in this physics community: technical, analytical, and academic competence were identified by participants as characteristics necessary to achieve recognition as a physicist. Additionally, achieving recognition as a competent physicist often involved a complex negotiation of gender roles and the practice of physics. The results demonstrated that a persistent tension exists betweAu Canada, aujourd'hui, une disparité entre les sexes persiste concernant les inscriptions et la rétention des étudiants qui poursuivent leurs études doctorales en physique. Dans le passé, les recherches sur cette disparité ont portées sur les questions d'égalité et de la différence afin de trouver des moyens pour recruter et garder davantage de femmes en physique. Cette approche a offert une perspective limitée sur les sexes et s'est appuyé sur les notions d'essentialiste d'être un homme, une femme ou un physicien. Cette étude souligne l'importance de l'égalité des sexes comme un aspect de la construction de l'identité, ouvrant ainsi des possibilités pour explorer comment les étudiants doctorales naviguent les idéologies des sexes en même temps qu'ils apprennent à devenir physiciens. Les étudiants poursuivant des études doctorales en physique ont des histoires des types d'actions, des comportements et des méthodes de la physique permettent aux individus d'être reconnus comme physiciens. En présentant un département de physique comme une étude de cas et des participants individuels comme des cas intégrés, cette étude utilise une approche socioculturelle pour examiner les manières que les étudiants poursuivant un doctorat construisent des histoires qui racontent comment ils deviennent physiciens. Grâce à des observations, extractions avec photos et entrevues d'histoire de la vie, onze hommes et femmes ont partagés des histoires au sujet de leurs expériences avec la physique et les contextes qui ont favorisé ou ont contraints leurs trajectoires menant au doctorat de physique. Les résultats de cette étude ont révélés la reconnaissance saillante dans la constitution des identités des physiciens : des individus qui se sont vus ou qui ont été vus par d'autres comme physiciens étaient plus susceptibles de poursuivre leurs trajectoires menant au doctorat en physique. De plus, diverses formes interchangeables de

Exploring how gender figures the identity trajectories of two doctoral students in observational astrophysics

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] This paper presents the cases of two doctoral students in observational astrophysics whose circumstances and experiences led them on a career trajectory out of academic research. In this article, I employ a sociocultural lens that provides insight into the dynamics of students’ experiences in astrophysics, which can in turn enrich our understandings of the lack of women in physics. I documented ethnographically two doctoral students’ experiences in a physics department at a large research university in Canada. In turn, I employed an analytic framework of figured worlds, cultural models, and identity trajectories to understand the challenges these two doctoral students faced. I use data drawn from observational field notes, interviews, and participants’ photo-narrative journals to explore the dominant cultural models of astrophysicist that were reproduced in their doctoral program. The analysis shows cultural models for recognizable astrophysicists in this doctoral program often did not fit neatly with these students’ experiences, and at times interfered with their trajectories into astrophysics careers. Additionally, results indicate that a prevailing discourse of gender neutrality and the rejection of normative femininity in astrophysics both afforded and constrained participants’ opportunities for recognition as insiders to astrophysics. However, the two participants repositioned themselves on alternative trajectories into physics teaching outside of academia, which had positive consequences for their astrophysicist identities. This study provides insights into the experiences of doctoral astrophysics that figure students’ insider or outsider identities, and the role that gender plays in the shaping of those identity and career trajectories