Collaborative Research: Latinx Families' Talk about Science in Stories with Young Children

该项目由EHR核心研究(ECR)计划资助，该计划支持推进STEM学习和学习环境的基础研究、扩大STEM的参与以及STEM劳动力发展的工作。它回应了人们对STEM领域中的种族和社会不平等的持续关切，这些不平等现象在儿童早期就开始出现。该项目的总体目标是确定支持拉丁美洲移民社区讲西班牙语的儿童早期科学学习机会的文化优势，这一群体传统上在STEM教育和职业追求中代表性不足。在人们对故事促进早期参与和理解科学的方式日益感兴趣的基础上，该项目将调查口头和书面故事作为具有文化相关性和潜在强大工具的作用，使年轻的拉丁裔儿童能够获得有意义的科学想法和探究实践。研究结果将揭示家庭讲故事实践如何为拉丁裔儿童的早期科学学习提供可接近的切入点，并推荐父母和教育工作者可以用来促进对科学实践的学习的方法，这些方法反过来可以增加对科学教育和领域的兴趣和参与。该项目将促进关于拉丁裔儿童的社会文化和家庭经验的知识，这有助于他们早期的科学学习和技能。该项目团队将调查330个拉丁裔家庭的口头故事和阅读练习，这些家庭有3到5岁的孩子，他们来自美国的三个地理位置：纽约、芝加哥和圣何塞。结合访谈和观察，项目组将调查：(1)关于科学和自然的对话如何发生在拉丁裔儿童的日常生活中，以及(2)叙事和说明性书籍、家庭个人叙事和阿迪维纳扎(谜语)是否以及在多大程度上会引起关于科学思想和科学实践的家庭对话。跨站和站内的比较将使项目团队能够考虑塑造Latinx家庭与科学相关的观点和实践的直接生态和更广泛的因素。尽管发展科学长期以来一直承认早期学习是处于文化背景下的，但大多数关于早期STEM的研究仍然基于主流经验，这些经验在很大程度上排除了STEM中代表性不足的群体的儿童的生活经验，特别是那些说英语以外的语言的儿童。拟议的工作将促进对故事作为文化资源的理解，以支持拉丁裔儿童的早期科学参与和学习，并为幼儿发展高质量、公平的非正式和正式科学教育机会提供信息。该奖项反映了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。

This project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. It responds to continuing concerns about racial and social inequities in STEM fields that begin to emerge in the early childhood years. The overarching goal of the project is to identify cultural strengths that support early science learning opportunities among Spanish-speaking children from immigrant Latin American communities, a population that is traditionally underrepresented in STEM educational and career pursuits. Building on a growing interest in the ways stories can promote early engagement in and understanding of science, this project will investigate the role of oral and written stories as culturally relevant and potentially powerful tools for making scientific ideas and inquiry practices meaningful and accessible for young Latinx children. Findings will reveal ways that family storytelling practices can provide accessible entry points for Latinx children's early science learning, and recommend methods that parents and educators can use to foster learning about scientific practices that can, in turn, increase interest and participation in science education and fields. The project will advance knowledge on the socio-cultural and familial experience of Latinx children that can contribute to their early science learning and skills. The project team will examine the oral story and reading practices of 330 Latinx families with 3- to 5-year-old children recruited from three geographic locations in the United States: New York, Chicago, and San Jose. Combining interviews and observations, the project team will investigate: (1) how conversations about science and nature occur in Latinx children's daily lives, and (2) whether and to what extent narrative and expository books, family personal narratives, and adivinanzas (riddles) engender family conversations about scientific ideas and science practices. Across- and within-site comparisons will allow the project team to consider the immediate ecology and broader factors that shape Latinx families’ science-related views and practices. Although developmental science has long acknowledged that early learning is culturally situated, most research on early STEM is still informed by mainstream experiences that largely exclude the lived experiences of children from groups underrepresented in STEM, especially those who speak languages other than English. The proposed work will advance understanding of stories as cultural resources to support early science engagement and learning among Latinx children and inform the development of high quality, equitable informal and formal science educational opportunities for young children.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.