Co-designing STEM Education with Communities: Centering History, Heterogeneity, Power, and Place

该项目考察了伊利诺斯州埃文斯顿的散居黑人社区对STEM教育正义的愿望的历史和当代表现形式和可能性。埃文斯顿是芝加哥的一个种族多元化的郊区，拥有一个长期存在的、多元化的、充满活力的黑人社区。埃文斯顿计划在该市历史悠久的黑人第五区重新开设一所校园模式社区学校，这一消息引发了新闻。该项目将与当地学区、城市、黑人家庭和社区合作伙伴密切合作，为新学校和毗邻的社区中心设计公平的STEM机会。该项目将通过特别关注黑人流散认识论、文化价值观和教学设计，推进在文化上维持STEM学习和教学的关键知识。该项目将对埃文斯顿黑人青年的教育经历产生短期影响，并超越当地环境。教学和学习资源（以及课堂和课外（OST）环境中资源使用的深入案例研究）将免费提供给全国的教育工作者和研究人员。共同设计伙伴关系方法协调整个学区的努力，包括众多校内外利益相关者，将为种族平等、STEM教育和学校改革等重叠领域做出实质性贡献，同时为社区研究-实践伙伴关系作为一种方法学干预的重要性提供一个例子。该项目将调查研究-社区-实践伙伴关系（RCPP）模式如何专注于历史/人种学，项目共同设计和系统共同设计，为黑人青年及其家庭提供更公平和文化上可持续的STEM学习体验。RCPP将在埃文斯顿的校内和校外STEM生态中创建以黑人社区目标和价值观为中心的工具和流程。该项目将在多个学术领域做出实证和理论贡献。对档案和口述历史的分析，将为研究黑人家庭和社区如何将STEM教育理解为他们几十年来争取公平、经济流动性和正义的斗争的一部分，做出重要贡献。人种学研究将促进对黑人家庭和社区如何在当地环境中积极组织起来实现STEM教育正义的本地化性质的强有力的社会科学理解。在方法上，家庭访谈将有助于研究文化与儿童认知和身份之间相互作用的新方法。RCPP系统的工作将在制度理论和组织变革以及教育技术如何支持社区赋权方面创造新的知识。总体而言，该项目将对黑人教育历史和未来的研究以及更广泛的黑人教育研究领域做出重要贡献。该项目由STEM教育中的种族平等活动（EDU种族平等）资助。该活动支持研究和实践项目，调查种族平等因素如何影响科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教育和劳动力的改善。获奖项目旨在将STEM企业中受系统性不平等影响最大的个人、社区和机构的声音、知识和经验集中起来。这项活动符合美国国家科学基金会的核心价值，即支持来自全国不同人口群体、地区和组织类型的杰出研究人员和创新思想家。EDU的项目为种族平等活动提供资金，以表彰其项目与董事会四个部门的集体研究和发展重点相一致。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project examines the historical and contemporary manifestations and possibilities of a diasporic Black community’s aspirations for STEM educational justice in Evanston, Illinois, a racially diverse suburb of Chicago with a longstanding, diverse, and dynamic Black community. Evanston made news with plans to reopen a campus-model community school in its historically Black 5th Ward of the city. The project will work in close partnership with the local school district, the city, as well as Black families and community partners, to support the efforts to design equitable STEM opportunities for the new school and adjoined community center. The project will advance key knowledge in culturally sustaining STEM learning and teaching, through a specific focus on Black diasporic epistemologies, cultural values, and pedagogical design. The project will make near-term impacts on the educational experiences of Black youth in Evanston and beyond the local context. Teaching and learning resources (as well as in-depth case studies of resource use in classrooms and out-of-school-time (OST) contexts) will be freely available for educators and researchers across the nation. The co-design partnership approach that coordinates efforts across the school district including numerous in- and out-of-school stakeholders, will make substantive contributions to the overlapping fields of racial equity, STEM education, and school reform, while providing an example of the significance of community research-practice partnerships as a methodological intervention. The project will investigate how a research-community-practice partnership (RCPP) model focused on history/ethnography, project co-design, and systems co-design can facilitate more equitable and culturally sustaining STEM learning experiences for Black youth and their families. The RCPP will create tools and processes centering Black community goals and values within in-school and out of school STEM ecologies in Evanston. The project will make empirical and theoretical contributions in multiple areas of scholarship. Analysis of archival and oral histories will make important contributions to the scholarly record on how Black families and communities have understood STEM education as part of their decades long struggle towards equity, economic mobility, and justice. The ethnographic study will advance a robust social scientific understanding of the localized nature of how Black families and communities are actively organizing towards STEM educational justice in local contexts. Methodologically, the family interviews will contribute to novel methods for studies of interplay among culture and child cognition and identity. The systems RCPP work will create new knowledge in institutional theory and organizational change, as well as how educational technologies can support community empowerment. Overall, the project will make important contributions to the study of Black educational histories and futures, and the field of Black Education Studies more broadly.This project is funded through the Racial Equity in STEM Education activity (EDU Racial Equity). The activity supports research and practice projects that investigate how considerations of racial equity factor into the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce. Awarded projects seek to center the voices, knowledge, and experiences of the individuals, communities, and institutions most impacted by systemic inequities within the STEM enterprise. This activity aligns with NSF’s core value of supporting outstanding researchers and innovative thinkers from across the Nation's diversity of demographic groups, regions, and types of organizations. Programs across EDU contribute funds to the Racial Equity activity in recognition of the alignment of its projects with the collective research and development thrusts of the four divisions of the directorate.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.