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

Following or defying expectations – the choice narratives of “unexpected” physics students

Higher education physics has long been a field with a disproportionately skewed representation in terms of gender, class, and ethnicity. Responding to this challenge, this study explores the trajectories into higher education physics, with a particular focus on “unexpected” physics students. Drawing on semi-structured timeline-guided interviews with 20 students enrolled in university physics programmes across Sweden, we analyze the students’ accounts of their trajectories into physics as “choice narratives” (Holmegaard, 2015) and as “narratives of location” (Anthias, 2005). We ask which choice narratives are used, and how these become (im)possible and legitimate in relation to narratives of location and wider societal discourses.In line with earlier research, many of our interviewees describe a fascination for science and for understanding the world, often described as established already in childhood. When growing up in a supporting academically oriented family, cultivating an interest in physics often becomes an obvious and easy path, and this is the case for many of the women in our sample growing up in middle-class families. For others, being given an opportunity to express a passion for science despite family and society not expecting it is an important transformative experience.Interviewees describe wanting to be challenged and recognized for their performance. Here, physics is seen as a difficult subject, bestowing prestige when mastered. Achieving this kind of recognition can be an expected attainment in middle-class families and striving migrant families, but also a way of proving oneself against all odds for those from a non-academic background.The choice of physics is also described by some as a possibility to contribute to one’s community. In earlier research, this has not been highlighted as a common motivation for choosing physics, but we find that this is narrated in relation to marginalized class and ethnic positions, and still uncommon among the women with middle-class background. However, some of the women frame the choice of studying physics as a contribution simply because it breaks expectations and may provide a role model for other underrepresented students.In contrast to the traditional picture of physics as a “pure”, “smart”, and “prestigious” field of study pursued by students interested in understanding how the world works, our results show that alternate ways of approaching physics studies are possible. However, these approaches are both limited and possibilized by the gendered, classed, and racialized locations of prospective students. An opportunity for reconceiving the role of physics for all students, both in and outside school, is given by considering these alternative approaches to the subject.Anthias, F. (2005). Social Stratification and Social Inequality: Models of Intersectionality and Identity. In F. Devine, M. Savage, J. Scott, & R. Crompton (Eds.), Rethinking class: culture, identities and lifestyles (pp. 24–45). Palgrave Macmillan.Holmegaard, H. T. (2015). Performing a choice-narrative: A qualitative study of the patterns in STEM students’ higher education choices. International Journal of Science Education, 37(9), 1454–1477. https://doi.org/10/gctkn

Possibilities in physics: Students’ retrospective narratives about safe spaces, beautiful boundaries, and emancipation

The paper aims to explore students’ commitment to science, focusing three existential-orientated narrations about physics trajectories and well-being/ill-being. The paper draws from an on-going interview study with ‘non-traditional’ university physics education entrants, examining the conditions and encounters that made enrolment in selective higher education possible. Previous research on science identity contributes with insights into how interactions in everyday life – in schooling and beyond – promote and hinder young peoples’ science aspirations, accomplishments and persistence. Indeed, the advancement of knowledge about social reproduction, social mobility and strategies for widening participation in higher science education is motivated, in the Nordic countries and elsewhere, by social justice and national economic arguments. While this paper is informed by research on young people’s ‘choice-narratives’ (Holmegaard, 2015), it mainly draws on insights from research on well-being and, in particular, Sayer’s sociological work on suffering and conditions for human flourishing. Hence, we look into experiences of physics as a mediator for self-realization and resilience in hardships, rather than examining the conditions for young people’s physics commitments.The data comprise twenty timeline interviews (60-120 minutes) with 1st and 2nd year students enrolled in university physics programmes in Sweden. The students were encouraged to give accounts and construct a visual timeline (Sheridan et al, 2011) of their personal trajectory into higher physics education, with special attention to persons, events and conditions that they recognized as important in retrospect. Their accounts covered science commitment and non-commitment from a life-history perspective, delineated supportive encounters and conditions as well as barriers. This paper uses narrative analysis to explore three life-histories that were characterized by an emphasized existential narrative. The interviewees, two men and one woman, were re-entry students with diverse ethnic and social backgrounds.Findings comprise four elements that shaped the narratives: resilience, safe spaces, beautiful boundaries, and emancipation. 1) The trajectories were structured as stories about overcoming adversity (e.g. bullying, poverty and mental illness), in which attachment to Physics was narrated as vital for cultivating resilience. 2) Furthermore, Physics – not ‘school physics’ – was represented as a safe space in their overall chaotic and distressing childhood and youth, in part related to 3) its universal laws and orientation towards nature instead of man. 4) Undertaking formal higher physics education was narrated as a turning-point in that they had accumulated the resources to choose ‘oneself’ in spite of difficulties and doubts. Concluding, the paper seeks to contribute with insights into ‘under-represented’ students’ engagement in higher science education, bringing forward life-histories about physics as a mediator for well-being.Holmegaard, H. T. (2015). Performing a choice-narrative: A qualitative study of the patterns in STEM students’ higher education choices. International Journal of Science Education, 37(9), 1454–1477.Sayer, A. (2011). Why things matter to people: Social science, values and ethical life. New York: Cambridge University PressSheridan, J., Chamberlain, K. & Dupuis, A. (2011). ‘Timelining: Visualizing Experience’. Qualitative Research 11 (5): 552–69

Other spaces for young pople\u27s identity work in physics: resources accessed through informal physics education in Sweden

For students from minoritized backgrounds in physics, especially White and racialized women and students from working class backgrounds, inbound identity trajectories into physics are generally regarded as exceptional. In this study, we investigate the experiences that minoritized students have which may support their sustained interest and achievement in physics, and their ongoing inbound trajectories into post-secondary physics education. To understand these experiences, in this presentation we look to the role of informal physics education (IPE) programs as “other spaces” which can offer resources that support students’ development of practice-linked identities. This study collected timeline interview data from 21 students enrolled in post-secondary physics programs in Sweden. In this presentation, we draw on data collected from 7 of these participants, all of them young women in their first year of physics at universities across Sweden. In the analysis we identify the various forms of resources made available through IPE learning contexts, and how these create possibilities for young people to engage in forms of identity work that contribute to the construction of new possible selves in physics. Findings suggest that students can access important relational and ideational resources through IPE programs. Relational resources included a) supportive social networks; b) enduring relationships; and c) relatability.\ua0 Ideational resources emerged as: a) sources of information which possibilized physics for participants; b) information that provided possibilities to learn about the life of a physicist; and c) important sources of recognition for participants seeking membership in the field. We argue that these resources are critical to support participants’ potential to disrupt the dominant narratives among young women that “physics is not for me” (Archer et al., 2020). Rather, IPE opportunities can support the imagination of “possible selves” in physics (Markus & Nurius, 1986). However, while we highlight the importance that IPE experiences play in the lives of young people in physics, we also discuss that these kinds of experiences remain inaccessible to most students, and thus reproduce a certain elitism in the field. This presentation will conclude with a discussion of how the relative inaccessibility of IPE experiences can preserve dominant relations in physics, and may do more to obscure social inequalities than it does to repair them.Archer, L., Moote, J., and MacLeod, E. (2020). Learning That Physics Is ‘Not for Me’: Pedagogic Work and the Cultivation of Habitus among Advanced Level Physics Students, Journal of the Learning Sciences. 29, 3, 347-384.Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American psychologist, 41(9), 954

Young peoples’ online science practices as a gateway to higher education STEM

The purpose of this presentation is to explore how students perceive that online practices have enabled their participation in university physics programmes. The presentation is part of a larger project, exploring students’ trajectories to higher education physics, with a particular focus on students from under-represented groups. In order to conceptualise how students bridge their science participation across physical and online spaces we make use of the learning ecology perspective (Barron 2006). This perspective is complemented with the notion of science capital (Archer et al. 2015), analysing how students have been able to strengthen different aspects of science capital through online participation.\ua0Data has been generated through semi-structured interviews guided by a timeline, constructed in collaboration between the interviewer and the interviewee. 20 students enrolled in higher education physics have been interviewed, with a focus on their trajectories into higher education physics.\ua0The findings focus on five 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 presentation 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 (Gonsalves et al. 2021).Online science participation is thus both curiosity driven and founded in instrumental reasons (using online tutoring to pass school science). Further, 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. However, this is not to say that online activities are equally and fairly accessible to all, and the potential gendering of online activities will be discussed in the presentation.Archer, L., Dawson, E., DeWitt, J., Seakins, A., & Wong, B. (2015). “Science capital”: A conceptual, methodological, and empirical argument for extending bourdieusian notions of capital beyond the arts. Journal of research in science teaching, 52(7), 922-948.Barron, B. (2006). Interest and self-sustained learning as catalysts of development: A learning ecology perspective. Human development, 49(4), 193-224.Gonsalves, A. J., Cavalcante, A. S., Sprowls, E. D., & Iacono, H. (2021). “Anybody can do science if they’re brave enough”: Understanding the role of science capital in science majors’ identity trajectories into and through postsecondary science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 58(8), 1117–115

De ov\ue4ntade naturvetarna: Vad kan vi l\ue4ra av studenters olika v\ue4gar in i universitetsfysik?

Utbildningar inom fysik \ue4r i b\ue5de svensk och internationell kontext bland de minst j\ue4mst\ue4llda och med l\ue4gst m\ue5ngfald b\ue5de n\ue4r det g\ue4ller naturvetenskapliga och ingenj\uf6rsprogram [1]. I det p\ue5g\ue5ende VR-finansierade projektet “De ov\ue4ntade naturvetarna” st\ue4ller vi fr\ue5gan vad vi kan l\ue4ra oss av studenter som g\ue5tt mot str\uf6mmen och valt att l\ue4sa fysik. Projektet bygger p\ue5 livsber\ue4ttelseintervjuer med 21 fysikstudenter som p\ue5 n\ue5got s\ue4tt uppfattar sin egen bana till fysiken som icke-konventionell. Vi har unders\uf6kt vad som m\uf6jliggjort f\uf6r dessa studenter att ta sig till universitetet, och specifikt en fysikutbildning. I presentationen sammanfattas projektet. Resultatet visar hur aktiviteter utanf\uf6r skolan kan ha betydelse; informella men universitetsrelaterade aktiviteter som sommarskolor och forskarbes\uf6k, men ocks\ue5 deltagande i naturvetenskapliga sammanhang online, kan spela stor roll f\uf6r relations- och identitetsbyggande som m\uf6jligg\uf6r ett deltagande i fysiken och en v\ue4g till en universitetsutbildning [2], [3]. P\ue5g\ue5ende delstudier v\ue4nder p\ue5 perspektivet och st\ue4ller fr\ue5gorna: Vad m\uf6jligg\uf6rs f\uf6r individen genom ett deltagande i fysik, och hur blir vissa val av studier och karri\ue4r m\uf6jliga och legitima medan andra om\uf6jligg\uf6rs i relation till samh\ue4lleliga normer, k\uf6n, klass och etnicitet. F\uf6r n\ue5gra av v\ue5ra informanter har fysik och naturvetenskap varit central f\uf6r att m\uf6jligg\uf6ra en starkare k\ue4nsla av sammanhang, med v\ue4rlden och andra m\ue4nniskor. Detta har dock inte erbjudits av skolundervisningen i fysik, utan handlat om andra upplevelser, och f\uf6rst med st\uf6d av vuxenutbildning p\ue5 folkh\uf6gskola och bas\ue5r har fysiken kunnat ta en central plats i deras liv, vilket har inneburit ett brott fr\ue5n annars alienerande liv och karri\ue4rer. En central slutsats \ue4r att breddat deltagande p\ue5 s\ue5 vis inte beh\uf6ver handla om att delta i formell utbildning, eller att f\uf6lja f\uf6rv\ue4ntade karri\ue4rv\ue4gar, naturvetenskap kan vara starkt meningsfullt i m\ue4nniskors liv i andra formerReferenser[1] Universitets- och h\uf6gskoler\ue5det, “Antagningsstatistik,” 2022. <https://www.uhr.se/studier-och-antagning/antagningsstatistik/> (accessed Oct. 18, 2021).[2] A. J. Gonsalves, A. Johansson, A.-S. Nystr\uf6m, and A. T. Danielsson, “Other spaces for young women’s identity work in physics: Resources accessed through university-adjacent informal physics learning contexts in Sweden,” Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res., vol. 18, no. 2, p. 020118, Sep. 2022, doi: 10/gqwsp2.[3] A. T. Danielsson, A. Johansson, A.-S. Nystr\uf6m, and A. J. Gonsalves, “Young peoples’ online science practices as a gateway to higher education STEM,” Res Sci Educ, Jan. 2023, doi: 10/grvp8w