CAREER: Analyzing the Nexus between Advantaged Social Positioning and Science Identity Development Among English Language Learners

超过540万的美国公立学校学生被确定为英语学习者（ELLs），其中440万为西班牙语学生。尽管ELL人口不断增加，对STEM工作的需求也不断增长，但研究发现，ELL的科学成就差距越来越大，他们在STEM劳动力中的代表性严重不足。解决ELL与STEM领域的同行之间日益扩大的差距仍然是国家的优先事项。这个CAREER项目研究了ELL学生的语言身份和科学身份发展之间的经验联系。该项目解决了迫切需要的实证研究，联合收割机理论观点，从第二语言教育，语言学，科学教育，了解科学身份的发展ELLs。基于社会定位理论，本研究认为，英语学习者在教育经历中的弱势地位（由于他们有限的语言知识）破坏了他们发展中的教育身份。拟议的研究发生在STEM夏季校外（OST）计划在南马萨诸塞州的大学设置。该项目包括来自马萨诸塞州南部门户城市的族裔/种族、语言多样化和低收入城市教育背景的英语学习中学生。NSF的职业生涯计划是一个基金会范围内的活动，提供国家科学基金会最负盛名的奖项，以支持初级教师谁通过杰出的研究，优秀的教育和教育与研究的整合在其组织的使命的背景下，发挥教师学者的作用。该项目采用纵向混合方法和实验研究设计，其中心假设是，支持提高英语学习者语言身份的干预措施，如将他们定位为认知上的语言身份，将与英语学习者的学习和科学认同，即他们的科学身份产生积极的互动。这项研究将产生的作用，基于语言的看法，在ELLs的语言身份的理解，更具体地说，将衡量随着时间的推移，ELL的科学身份发展的定位的影响。此外，该项目还将制定教师可用于认可和促进ELL科学表现和语言认同发展的新方法。研究结果将帮助教育工作者、政策制定者和研究人员设计有效的教学计划，以支持ELL的长期教育成就和身份发展。该项目由学习研究部的发现研究PreK-12计划（DRK-12）资助，该计划旨在通过研究和开发STEM教育创新和方法，显着提高PreK-12学生和教师对科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）的学习和教学。

Over 5.4 million of the U.S. public school students are identified as English language learners (ELLs), with 4.4 million being Spanish-speaking. Despite the increasing ELL population and growing demands for STEM jobs, research has noted mounting disparities in ELLs' science achievement and their substantial underrepresentation in the STEM workforce. Addressing the growing disparities between ELLs and their counterparts in STEM fields remains a national priority. This CAREER project examines the empirical nexus between ELL students' language identity and science identity development. The project addresses the pressing need for empirical studies that combine theoretical perspectives from second language education, linguistics, and science education to understand science identity development among ELLs. Based on social positioning theory, the research argues that ELLs' disadvantaged positioning in their educational experiences (due to their limited language proficiencies) undermines their developing educational identities. The proposed research takes place at a STEM Summer Out-of-School (OST) Program in a university setting in Southern Massachusetts. The project includes ELL middle school students, who come from ethnically/racially, linguistically diverse and a low-income urban educational context from Gateway cities in Southern Massachusetts. NSF's CAREER Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Using longitudinal mixed-methods and experimental research design, the project's central hypothesis is that interventions that support boosting ELLs' language identities, such as positioning them as cognitively advantaged, will positively interact with ELLs' learning and identifying with science, namely their science identities. The research will generate understandings about the role language-based perceptions have in ELLs' language identities, and more specifically, will measure the impact of advantaged positioning on ELLs' science identity development over time. Further, the project will formulate new and innovative methods teachers can use to recognize and promote competent science performance and language identity development among ELLs. Results will help educators, policy-makers, and researchers design effective instructional programs that support long-term educational achievement and identity development among ELLs. This project is funded by the Division of Research on Learning's Discovery Research PreK-12 program (DRK-12), which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by PreK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of STEM education innovations and approaches.