Investigating the Development of STEM-Positive Identities of Refugee Teens in a Physics Out-of-School Time Experience

调查难民青少年在课外物理经历中 STEM 积极身份的发展

• 批准号: 2005973
• 负责人: Tino Nyawelo
• 金额: $ 113.78万
• 依托单位: University of Utah
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2005973&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Investigating; Development; STEM; Positive; Identities

Refugee youth are particularly vulnerable to STEM disenfranchisement due to factors including limited or interrupted schooling following displacement; restricted exposure to STEM education; and linguistic, cultural, ethnic, socioeconomic, and racial minority status. Refugee youth may experience a gap in STEM skills and knowledge, and a conflict between the identities necessary for participation in their families and communities, and those expected for success in STEM settings. To conduct research to better understand these challenges, an interrelated set of activities will be developed. First, youth will learn principles of physics and computing by participating in cosmic ray research with physicists using an instructional approach that builds from their home languages and cultures. Then youth periodically share what they are learning in the cosmic ray research with their parents, siblings, and science teachers at family and community science events. Finally, youth conduct reflective research on their own STEM identity development over the course of the project. Research on learning will be conducted within and across these three strands to better understand how refugee youth develop STEM-positive identities. This project will benefit society by improving equity and diversity in STEM through (1) creating opportunities for refugee youth to participate in physics research and to develop computing skills and (2) producing knowledge on STEM identity development that may be applied more broadly to improve STEM education. Deliverables from this project include: (a) research publications on STEM identity and learning; (b) curriculum resources for teaching physics and computing to multilingual youth; (c) an online digital storytelling exhibit offering narratives about belonging in STEM research which can be shared with STEM stakeholders (policy makers, scientists, educators, etc.); and (d) an online database of cosmic ray data which will be available to physicists worldwide for research purposes. This Innovations in Development proposal is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.This program is designed to provide multiple contexts, relationships, and modes across and within which the identity work of individual students can be studied to look for convergence or divergence. To achieve this goal, the research applies a linguistic anthropological framework embedding discourse analysis in a larger ethnography. Data collected in this study include field notes, audio and video recordings of naturalistic interactions in the cosmic ray research and other program activities, multimodal artifacts (e.g., students’ digital stories), student work products, interviews, and surveys. Critically, this methodology combines the analysis of identity formation as it unfolds in moment-to-moment conversations (during STEM learning, and in conversations about STEM and STEM learning) with reflective tasks and the production of personal narratives (e.g., in digital stories and interviews). Documenting convergence and divergence of STEM identities across these sources of data offers both methodological and theoretical contributions to the field. The research will offer thick description of the discursive practices of refugee youth to reveal how they construct identities related to STEM and STEM disciplines across settings (e.g., during cosmic ray research, while creating digital stories), relationships (e.g., peer, parent, teacher), and the languages they speak (e.g., English, Swahili). The findings will be of potential value to instructional designers of informal learning experiences including those working with afterschool, museums, science centers and the like, educators, and scholars of learning and identity.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

难民青年特别容易受到STEM剥夺权利的影响，原因包括流离失所后就学有限或中断；接受STEM教育的机会有限；以及语言、文化、族裔、社会经济和种族少数地位。难民青年可能会经历STEM技能和知识方面的差距，以及参与其家庭和社区所必需的身份与那些期望在STEM环境中取得成功的身份之间的冲突。为了进行研究以更好地了解这些挑战，将制定一套相互关联的活动。首先，年轻人将通过与物理学家一起参与宇宙射线研究来学习物理和计算原理，方法是使用基于他们本国语言和文化的教学方法。然后，年轻人定期在家庭和社区科学活动中与父母、兄弟姐妹和科学教师分享他们在宇宙射线研究中所学到的知识。最后，青年在项目过程中对自己的STEM身份发展进行反思性研究。将在这三个方面进行学习研究，以更好地了解难民青年如何形成STEM积极的身份认同。该项目将通过以下方式改善STEM的公平性和多样性，从而造福社会：(1)为难民青年创造参与物理研究和发展计算机技能的机会；(2)产生可更广泛应用于改善STEM教育的STEM特性发展知识。该项目的成果包括：(A)关于STEM身份和学习的研究出版物；(B)向多语言青年教授物理和计算机课程的课程资源；(C)在线数字讲故事展览，介绍属于STEM研究的内容，可与STEM利益攸关方(政策制定者、科学家、教育工作者等)分享；以及(D)将向世界各地的物理学家提供宇宙射线数据的在线数据库，用于研究目的。这一发展创新计划由推进非正式STEM学习(AISL)计划资助，该计划旨在促进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和发展的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括提供多种途径，以扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验的途径，推进对非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及促进参与者对更深层次学习的理解。该计划旨在提供多种背景、关系和模式，通过这些背景、关系和模式可以研究个别学生的身份工作，以寻找趋同或分歧。为了实现这一目标，本研究应用了一个语言人类学框架，将话语分析嵌入到一个更大的民族志中。在这项研究中收集的数据包括实地笔记、宇宙线研究和其他项目活动中自然互动的音频和视频记录、多模式人工制品(例如，学生的数字故事)、学生作品、访谈和调查。关键的是，这种方法结合了对身份形成的分析，因为它在时刻对话中展开(在STEM学习期间，以及在关于STEM和STEM学习的对话中)与反思任务和个人叙述的产生(例如，在数字故事和访谈中)。记录这些数据来源的STEM特性的趋同和差异，为该领域提供了方法论和理论上的贡献。这项研究将详细描述难民青年的话语实践，以揭示他们如何在各种环境(例如，在宇宙射线研究期间，在创作数字故事时)、关系(例如，同伴、父母、教师)和他们所说的语言(例如，英语、斯瓦希里语)之间构建与STEM和STEM学科相关的身份认同。这些发现将对非正式学习经验的教学设计者，包括那些在课外、博物馆、科学中心等工作的人，教育工作者，以及学习和身份认同的学者具有潜在的价值。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。