“The Thing That Makes It So Important is Also the Thing That Makes It Challenging”: One University’s Experience with Diversity Planning

While the importance of diversity is increasingly recognized by colleges and universities, these institutions face challenges to create environments where students, faculty, and staff are fully engaged in the work of diversity. Research focused on the process of developing and implementing a successful, integrated diversity plan is very limited. This dissertation aims to study the challenges of integrated diversity planning and implementation by exploring how one specific institution struggled to move from rhetoric to action. The primary purpose of this study was to examine and explore the perceptions and experiences of members of the Task Force for Diversity at a comprehensive university in order to better understand their viewpoints and their efforts to draft a diversity plan. Another goal was to contribute to better understanding of the complex issues that surround the issue of diversity planning in higher education. Applying the lens of critical theory to the data resulted in a detailed exploration of emergent themes such as apathy, futility, buy-in and leadership, and communication and follow-up. As a result of this study, stakeholders in higher education will be more informed of the complex issues surrounding diversity planning and the implementation of integrated diversity initiatives in higher education

Functionalized carbon nanomaterials: exploring the interactions with Caco-2 cells for potential oral drug delivery

Although carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) have been increasingly studied for their biomedical applications, there is limited research on these novel materials for oral drug delivery. As such, this study aimed to explore the potential of CNMs in oral drug delivery, and the objectives were to evaluate CNM cytotoxicity and their abilities to modulate paracellular transport and the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) efflux pump. Three types of functionalized CNMs were studied, including polyhydroxy small-gap fullerenes (OH-fullerenes), carboxylic acid functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes (f SWCNT-COOH) and poly(ethylene glycol) functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes (f SWCNT-PEG), using the well-established Caco-2 cell monolayer to represent the intestinal epithelium. All three CNMs had minimum cytotoxicity on Caco-2 cells, as demonstrated through lactose dehydrogenase release and 3-(4,5-dimethyliazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assays. Of the three CNMs, f SWCNT-COOH significantly reduced transepithelial electrical resistance and enhanced transport of Lucifer Yellow across the Caco-2 monolayer. Confocal fluorescence microscopy showed that f SWCNT-COOH treated cells had the highest perturbation in the distribution of ZO-1, a protein marker of tight junction, suggesting that f SWCNT-COOH could enhance paracellular permeability via disruption of tight junctions. This modulating effect of f SWCNT-COOH can be reversed over time. Furthermore, cellular accumulation of the P-gp substrate, rhodamine-123, was significantly increased in cells treated with f SWCNT-COOH, suggestive of P-gp inhibition. Of note, f SWCNT-PEG could increase rhodamine-123 accumulation without modifying the tight junction. Collectively, these results suggest that the functionalized CNMs could be useful as modulators for oral drug delivery, and the differential effects on the intestinal epithelium imparted by different types of CNMs would create unique opportunities for drug-specific oral delivery applications

Designing for Rightful Presence in STEM: The Role of Making Present Practices

Opportunities to learn in consequential ways are shaped by the historicized injustices students encounter in relation to participation in STEM and schooling. In this article, it is argued that the construct of rightful presence, and the coconstructed “making present” practices that give rise to moments of rightful presence, is 1 way to consider how to make sense of the historicized and relational nature of consequential learning. Drawing on theories of consequential learning and critical justice, we analyze ethnographic data from 3 urban middle school classrooms in 2 states during a STEM unit focused on engineering for sustainable communities. Findings describe 2 making present practices students enacted as they engaged in engineering design: modeling ethnographic data and reperforming injustices toward solidarity building. We discuss how these practices supported moments of rightful presence in the STEM classrooms by inscribing youths’ marginalizing school experiences as a part of classroom science discourse and co-opting school science tasks as tools for exposing, critiquing, and addressing these unjust experiences. That which was silent and previously concealed from school authority figures gained a rightful place through the voices and scientific actions of the youth and their allies

A Longitudinal Study of Equity-Oriented STEM-Rich Making Among Youth From Historically Marginalized Communities

The maker movement has evoked interest for its role in breaking down barriers to STEM learning. However, few empirical studies document how youth are supported over time in STEM-rich making projects or their outcomes. This longitudinal critical ethnographic study traces the development of 41 youth maker projects in two community-centered making programs. Building a conceptual argument for an equity-oriented culture of making, the authors discuss the ways in which making with and in community opened opportunities for youth to project their communities’ rich culture knowledge and wisdom onto their making while also troubling and negotiating the historicized injustices they experience. The authors also discuss how community engagement legitimized a practice of co-making, which supported equity-oriented goals and outcomes

Internalization of Aeromonas hydrophila by fish epithelial cells can be inhibited with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor

Aeromonas hydrophila is a Gram-negative bacterium that is pathogenic in fish, causing motile aeromonad septicaemia. It can enter (invade) fish cells, and survive as an intracellular parasite. The host-pathogen interaction and signal transduction pathway were studied by screening signal transduction inhibitors using carp epithelial cells and a virulent strain of the bacterium, PPD134/91. Genistein, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, postponed internalization of A. hydrophila into host cells, suggesting that tyrosine phosphorylation plays a role in internalization. In contrast, staurosporine, a protein kinase C inhibitor, and sodium orthovanadate, a protein tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor, accelerated internalization of PPD134/91. Other virulent strains of A. hydrophila were also examined and it is likely that all strains, irrespective of serogroup, use the same signalling pathway to facilitate bacterial uptake

Transforming Science Learning and Student Participation in Sixth Grade Science: A Case Study of a Low-Income, Urban, Racial Minority Classroom

Recent criticisms of the goal of “science for all” with regard to minority students have alluded to the onerous culture of school science characterized by white, middle-class values that eschew personal everyday science experiences and nontraditional funds of knowledge, in addition to alienating science instruction. Using critically-oriented, sociocultural perspectives, this article explores the sixth grade classroom of a male, white, science teacher in an urban school that serves only minority students. Using Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain's (2001) notion of figured worlds, we look at what learning science looks like in Mr. M's classroom and how he provides the structural support to increase student participation by creating different figured worlds of sixth grade science. In these different figured worlds, we discuss the pedagogical strategies Mr. M uses to purposefully recruit nontraditional funds of knowledge of racial minority and low-income students, thereby positioning them with more authority for participation. Through this case study of Mr. M and the racial minority and low-income students he teaches, we discuss the role science teachers play in urban school science education and the agency and achievement racial minority and low-income students are capable of with appropriate support

Creating hybrid spaces for engaging school science among urban middle school girls

The middle grades are a crucial time for girls in making decisions about how or if they want to follow science trajectories. In this article, the authors report on how urban middle school girls enact meaningful strategies of engagement in science class in their efforts to merge their social worlds with the worlds of school science and on the unsanctioned resources and identities they take up to do so. The authors argue that such merging science practices are generative both in terms of how they develop over time and in how they impact the science learning community of practice. They discuss the implications these findings have for current policy and practice surrounding gender equity in science education

How do middle school girls of color develop STEM identities? Middle school girls’ participation in science activities and identification with STEM careers

This study explores ways to support girls of color in forming their senses of selves in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) during the middle school years. Guided by social practice theory, we analyzed a large data set of survey responses (n=1,821) collected at five middle schools in low-income communities across four states in the United States. Analyses focus on the extent to which key constructs that inform girls’ development of senses of self and relations among those indicators of STEM identities varied by their race/ethnicity. Though the means of indicators sometimes varied across racial/ethnic groups, multigroup structural equation modeling analyses indicate no significant racial/ethnic differences in the relations of STEM identities, suggesting that similar supports would be equally effective for all girls during the middle school years. Girls’ self-perception in relation to science was the strongest predictor of their identification with STEM-related careers, and this self-perception was positively and distinctively associated with their experiences with science at home, outside of school, and in school science classes. This study argues for strategically expanding girls’ experiences with science across multiple settings during middle school in a way that increases their positive self-perception in and with STEM

Critically engaging engineering in place by localizing counternarratives in engineering design

In this manuscript, we use the construct of critical epistemologies of place to frame our exploration of how to support engineering design among youth who have historically been marginalized from the domain, and its implications for educational settings. We present an in-depth longitudinal case study of one 12-year-old African American boy to raise questions of what it means for this youth to engage in engineering design in collaboration with the people around in him—experts and knowledgeable others in his community space and how this engagement supports his work in science and engineering. This study suggests that engaging engineering design through a critical epistemology of place involves an iterative and generative process of layering community wisdom and knowledge onto STEM toward (a) how epistemologies of place—and their layers—challenge dominant master narratives, (b) reimagining practices in place, and (c) transforming the dangerous territory of STEM. Our study expands upon current understandings of supporting youth in engaging engineering through highlighting the vital role of sociohistorically constructed understandings of STEM and community in determining when, how, and why engineering takes place

From peripheral to central, the story of Melanie’s metamorphosis in an urban middle school science class

Identity formation is a critical dimension of how and why students engage in science to varying degrees. In this paper, we use the lens of identity formation, and in particular identities in practice, to make sense of how and why Melanie, over the course of sixth grade, transformed from a marginalized member of the science class with a failing grade to a highly valued member of the sixth-grade science community with a perfect score of a 100% for the sixth-grade exit project. Our findings reveal that the different figured worlds of the science classroom, such as whole class, small group work, and individual work, offered Melanie different affordances for identity formation that were built upon across such spaces, in both productive and unproductive ways. Our findings also take up the kinds of critical roles that members of her classroom community, in particular teacher and peers, play in supporting and constraining such a transformation. We discuss the implications identity formation has for understanding issues of gender equity and science learning