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

难民青年特别容易被剥夺STEM权利，原因包括流离失所后学校教育有限或中断;接触STEM教育的机会有限;以及语言，文化，种族，社会经济和种族少数群体地位。难民青年可能在STEM技能和知识方面存在差距，参与家庭和社区所需的身份与在STEM环境中取得成功所需的身份之间存在冲突。为了开展研究以更好地了解这些挑战，将开展一系列相互关联的活动。首先，青年将通过与物理学家一起参与宇宙射线研究，使用基于其母语和文化的教学方法，学习物理学和计算原理。然后，年轻人定期在家庭和社区科学活动中与父母、兄弟姐妹和科学老师分享他们在宇宙射线研究中学到的东西。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。将在这三个方面内和之间进行学习研究，以更好地了解难民青年如何发展STEM积极身份。该项目将通过以下方式改善STEM领域的公平性和多样性，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技能的机会;（2）产生关于STEM身份发展的知识，这些知识可以更广泛地应用于改善STEM教育。这一项目的成果包括：（a）关于科学、技术、工程和数学特性和学习的研究出版物;（B）向讲多种语言的青年教授物理和计算的课程资源;（c）在线数字讲故事展览，提供关于科学、技术、工程和数学研究归属感的叙述，可与科学、技术、工程和数学利益攸关方（决策者、科学家、教育工作者等）分享;及（d）一个宇宙射线资料的网上数据库，供世界各地的物理学家作研究用途。这项发展创新提案由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发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，推进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及发展参与者对更深入学习的理解。该计划旨在提供多种背景，关系和模式，跨和在其中可以研究单个学生的身份工作，以寻找收敛或发散。为了实现这一目标，本研究应用了一个语言人类学框架，在一个更大的民族志中嵌入话语分析。在这项研究中收集的数据包括野外笔记，宇宙射线研究和其他计划活动中自然主义相互作用的音频和视频记录，多模态人工制品（例如，学生的数字故事）、学生工作产品、访谈和调查。重要的是，这种方法结合了身份形成的分析，因为它在即时对话中（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，在数字故事和采访中）。记录这些数据源中STEM身份的趋同和分歧为该领域提供了方法和理论贡献。该研究将提供对难民青年话语实践的详细描述，以揭示他们如何在不同环境中构建与STEM和STEM学科相关的身份（例如，在宇宙射线研究期间，同时创建数字故事），关系（例如，同伴、父母、老师），以及他们所讲的语言（例如，英文、斯瓦希里文）。研究结果将是潜在的价值，以教学设计师的非正式学习经验，包括那些与课后，博物馆，科学中心等，教育工作者，学者的学习和identity.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

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.