This article presents the curricular framework for a social justice driven STEM curriculum (i.e., STEMJ) within an out-of-school time program for Boston Public high school students (i.e., College Bound) at Boston College. Starting with a discussion of the authors’ ideological positionality within critical social justice discourses, the authors share how Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) General Ecological Model provides a conceptual framework for operationalizing social justice inquiry with and through STEM. Positioning this curriculum within the College Bound program’s overall design gives readers a

Discourse about girls and women of color in technology has followed the familiar path of using a single-unit analysis to explain disparity. Consequently, approaches to “motivate” girls of color overemphasize gender and engage in technological fetishization without fully considering how race, gender, class, and technology are co-constituted. Drawing on critical feminist theory, social justice education, and science and technology studies, this essay offers a critique of neoliberal approaches to technology education for girls of color and provides a broad overview of the conceptual catalysts

First, this paper argues that applications of SCOT in feminist science and technology studies (STS) have largely focused on analyzing how gender and technology are coproduced, resulting in lack of scholarship that examines the mutually constitutive relationship between technology, gender and other intersecting identity categories, such as race and class. Second, this paper argues that an intersectional view of technology can dismantle the language of objectivity deeply embedded in technological artifacts by revealing how gender, race, and class are integral components of “the social shaping of

Data gathered from 325 middle school students in four U.S. states indicate that both male (p .0005, RSQ = .33) and female (p .0005, RSQ = .36) career aspirations for being a scientist are predictable based on knowledge of dispositions toward mathematics, science and engineering, plus self-reported creative tendencies. For males, strong predictors are creative tendencies (beta = .348) and dispositions toward science (beta = .326), while dispositions toward mathematics is a weaker (beta = .137) but still a significant (p .05) predictor. For females, significant (p .05) predictors ordered

This article and my career as an educational researcher are grounded in two fundamental assumptions: (a) that research and practice can and should live in productive synergy, with each enhancing the other, and (b) that research focused on teaching and learning in a particular discipline can, if carefully framed, yield insights that have implications across a broad spectrum of disciplines. This article begins by describing in brief two bodies of work that exemplify these two fundamental assumptions. I then elaborate on a third example, the development of a new set of tools for understanding and

To explore the role and impact of Youth Radio’s NEXT: The Innovation Lab, Rockman et al, an independent research and evaluation organization, conducted an external evaluation of the project. With funding from the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, the Innovation Lab sought to develop and research a scalable, evidence-informed theory of action to engage underrepresented youth in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning through the collaborative creation and dissemination of original journalistic media, technology, and

Chapter in Mueller, M. & Tippins, D. (Eds.) EcoJustice, Citizen Science and Youth Activism: Situated Tensions for Science Education. Springer International Publishing. Book description: This volume draws on the ecojustice, citizen science and youth activism literature base in science education and applies the ideas to situated tensions as they are either analyzed theoretically or praxiologically within science education pedagogy. It uses ecojustice to evaluate the holistic connections between cultural and natural systems, environmentalism, sustainability and Earth-friendly marketing trends

Curriculum and instructional strategies that are personally meaningful are key to engaging students from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds.A “one size fits all” approach to curriculum development does not always translate to accessible education for many students, particularly in science,technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Meaningful and relevant activities that demonstrate a direct application of STEM to the lives of students or their communities can increase engagement in STEM. Specifically, students are more likely to relate to instructional activitiesthat draw

Access to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields serves as a key entry point to economic mobility and civic enfranchisement. Such access must take seriously the intellectual power of the knowledge and practices of non-dominant youth. In our case, this has meant to shift epistemic authority in mathematics from academic institutions to young people themselves. This article is about why high school-aged students, from underrepresented groups, choose to participate in an out-of-school time program in which they teach younger children in the domains of mathematics and computer

Numerous studies have indicated a need for a diverse workforce that is more highly educated in STEM and ICT fields, and one that is capable of responding creatively to demands for continual innovation. This paper, in response, chronicles the implementation of the Digital Pathways (DP) program, a two-time ITEST recipient and an ongoing initiative of the Bay Area Video Coalition. DP has provided low-income, underrepresented minority young people with 180 contact hours of activities in digital media production to prepare them to pursue higher education and technology careers. A design-based