GSE/RES Girls' Science Practices in Urban High Poverty Communities

哥伦比亚大学师范学院提议研究城市高度贫困社区女孩的科学实践。在城市科学教育和性别教育的论述中，缺少一个框架，说明城市女孩如何在追求自己的生活中，作为个人和更大社区的成员，适当、组织和激活科学素养。科学素养是指个人对关键科学概念、原理、过程技能、话语和思维习惯的理解和使用能力。更好地了解城市女孩如何适应、组织和激活科学素养的一种方法是记录和分析她们的“科学实践”。根据对“识字实践”的研究（Moje, 2000），该团队将科学实践定义为人们从事科学的手段以及从事科学的原因和动机。因此，调查的重点是城市生态和力量和运动的内容领域，作为深入了解城市女孩如何以及为什么有意义地从事科学的一种手段。“参与科学”被认为有三个部分与莫杰的扫盲实践目的相似：发展对科学概念的概念性理解（意义形成）；培养和使用反映科学思维倾向的思维习惯（科学认同的表达）；以真实的方式参与或从事科学研究（参与）。这项为期三年的研究有以下目标：在两个特定的中学内容领域背景下，记录、描述和分析高贫困城市女孩的科学实践的形式和功能；2 .记录和描述教师制定的以改革为基础的教学策略，这些策略帮助女孩成功地利用他们的科学实践，努力有意义地参与科学；3 .探讨女生科学实践与科学学习的关系；有效地将研究成果传播给更广泛的研究和实践团体。采用混合方法（大规模调查、案例研究和设计实验），该团队将在纽约市哈莱姆区和南布朗克斯地区的四所中学进行研究，这些中学为不同民族和种族以及高度贫困人口提供服务。这项研究的智力价值在于，它应该产生一套关于女孩科学实践和支持这些实践的教学策略的工作猜想。如果我们能够更好地理解、记录和分析女童在基于改革的科学教育环境中的科学实践及其对女童参与科学的影响，那么我们将能够更好地与教师和课程开发人员合作，定制课程设计和教学实践，以最好地支持女童。这项研究的更广泛的影响是，它将有助于提高高贫困城市中学女生的成就和参与科学的动机。研究结果将对在科学和科学相关领域尚未得到充分代表的特定人口统计数据具有直接意义。

Teachers College, Columbia University, proposes to study girls' science practices in urban high poverty communities.Missing from the discourse in urban science education and gender education is a framework for how urban girls appropriate, organize, and activate scientific literacy in pursuit of their own lives, as individuals and as members of larger communities. Scientific literacy refers to an individual's understanding of and abilities to access and utilize key scientific concepts, principles, process skills, discourses, and habits of mind. One way to better understand how urban girls appropriate, organize, and activate scientific literacy is to document and analyze their "science practices."Drawing from research on "literacy practices" (Moje, 2000), the team defines science practices as the means by which one engages in science and the reasons and motivations for doing so. Thus, the investigation focuses on the content areas of urban ecology and forces and motion as a means to obtain insight into how and why urban girls engage in science meaningfully. "Engagement in science" is viewed as having three parts similar to Moje's purposes for literacy practices: developing conceptual understandings of scientific concepts (meaning-making); developing and using the habits of mind that reflect a propensity towards scientific thinking (expression of scientific identity); and participating in or doing science in authentic ways (participation).The three-year study has the following objectives:1. To document, describe and analyze high-poverty urban girls' science practices in both form and function in the context of two specific middle school content areas;2. To document and describe those reform-based pedagogical strategies enacted by teachers that help girls to successfully leverage their science practices in their efforts to engage meaningfully in science;3. To explore the relationship between girls' science practices and science learning;4. To disseminate effectively research findings to the broader research and practice communities.Using a mixed-methods approach (broad scale survey, case study, and design experiments), the team will conduct the study in four middle schools that serve diverse ethnic and racial and high-poverty populations in the Harlem and South Bronx regions of New York City.The intellectual merit of this research is that it should yield a set of working conjectures about girls' science practices and the pedagogical strategies that support those practices. If we can better understand, document, and analytically describe girls' science practices in reform-based science education settings and their impact on girls' engagement with science, then we will be better able to work with teachers and curriculum developers to tailor program design and instructional practice to best support girls.The broader impact of this study is that it will contribute to increasing the achievement and motivation for engaging in science among high-poverty, urban, middle school girls. The findings will have direct import for specific demographics that have not been represented well in the sciences and science related fields.