MAKER: An Ethnography of Maker and Hacker Spaces Achieving Diverse Participation

创客空间被广泛认为是科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教育的潜在解放时刻，它提供了一个机会，通过让传统上代表性不足的群体参与到开放、创造性和支持各种背景的人的空间中来，将他们带入STEM领域。与此同时，早期的报告表明，许多创客和黑客空间已经制定了某些规范，更有利于白人、男性、中产阶级、身体健全的业余爱好者的参与。尽管有这种趋势，但还是有一些空间明显地脱颖而出，包括无家可归的创造者、女性、有色人种和不同能力的人。本项目探讨了多样化的创客空间如何欢迎传统上在STEM中代表性不足的群体，以及这些实践如何为目前努力实现多样性的校园和社区创客或黑客空间的设计和运营提供信息。民族志方法和批判性话语分析（CDA）被用来从物理和语言的角度来理解这些空间。这项参与式行动研究（PAR）包括6至8个包容性创客和黑客空间的民族志，一个开放空间技术（OST）研讨会，专注于识别和分析可转移的包容性实践的核心属性，以及CDA，以适用的方式总结和传播这些信息到学术和社区站点。研究问题包括：(1)不同创客和黑客空间的参与者采用什么实践和工件来建立和维护多样化和包容性的环境？(2)在不同的创客和黑客空间中，关于意义和价值如何围绕身份、创造力和生产文化/工程中的文化生产共同构建的话语揭示了什么？(3)从不同的创客和黑客空间中产生了哪些最佳实践，这些实践如何转化为校园和社区现有创客空间的设计或改造？智力优势：本研究较早地使用了CDA、汉兰式PAR和OST，这些方法在工程教育中都是新颖的；并在早期寻求特征特征有助于新兴的多样化创客空间的解放性质。这项工作是跨学科的，在利用语言分析和社会理论来寻找排他性STEM实践的根本原因方面具有潜在的变革性，从而为建立包容性的校园和社区创客空间（以及其他STEM空间）带来潜在的高回报。更广泛的影响：该项目共同构建了在体验式课程中激发创新设计思维的方法；通过融入包容性实践，提高STEM的留存率和参与度；通过本地和全国的制造商、学生和教师网络，赋予公民工程师权力；并通过为本科工程师提供渐进式学习环境，实现STEM学习和设计思维的新方式，丰富美国的创新生态系统。除了传统的通过STEM教育文献和150名工程学院院长和其他学术领袖组成的校园网络进行传播外，研究结果还通过创客虚拟社区、创客博览会和非正式网络进行非传统的传播。

Maker spaces have been widely touted as a potentially liberative moment for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, presenting an opportunity to bring traditionally underrepresented groups into STEM fields by engaging them in spaces that are open, creative, and supportive of people from all backgrounds. At the same time, early reports indicate that many maker and hacker spaces are already enacting certain norms that are more conducive to participation of white, male, middle-class, able-bodied hobbyists. Despite this trend, there are spaces that explicitly stand out in their inclusion of homeless makers, women, people of color, and people with different kinds of abilities. This project examines how diverse maker spaces welcome groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM, and how these practices can inform the design and operation of campus and community maker or hacker spaces that presently struggle to achieve diversity. Ethnographic methods and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) are used to understand these spaces in terms of their physical and linguistic artifacts. This Participatory Action Research (PAR) includes ethnographies at 6 to 8 inclusive maker and hacker spaces, an Open Space Technology (OST) workshop focused on identifying and analyzing core attributes of transferable inclusive practices, and CDA that reflexively summarizes and propagates this information in applicable ways to academic and community sites. Research questions include: (1) What practices and artifacts do participants in diverse maker and hacker spaces employ to establish and maintain environments that are diverse and inclusive? (2) What does the discourse in diverse maker and hacker spaces reveal about how meaning and value are co-constructed around identity, creativity, and the culture of production / the production of culture in engineering? (3) What best practices emerge from diverse maker and hacker spaces, and how can these translate to design or transformation of existing maker spaces on campuses and in communities? Intellectual Merit: This work is early in its use of CDA, the Highlander strain of PAR, and OST, all novel in engineering education; and early in seeking to characterize features contributing to the liberatory nature of emergent diverse maker spaces. The work is interdisciplinary and potentially transformative in leveraging linguistic analysis and social theories to ferret out root causes of exclusionary STEM practices for the potential high payoff of building campus and community maker spaces (and other STEM spaces) that are inclusive. Broader Impacts: This project co-constructs ways to stimulate innovative design thinking in experiential curricula; increases retention and broadens participation in STEM by embedding inclusive practices; empowers citizen engineers through local and national networks of makers, students, and faculty; and enables new ways of STEM learning and design thinking that will enrich the U.S. innovation ecosystem through progressive learning environments for undergraduate engineers. Findings are propagated non-tradtionally via maker virtual communities, maker faires, and informal networks, in addition to traditional propagation through the STEM education literature and the network of 150 engineering deans and other academic leaders committed to making on campus.