Young women of color figuring science and identity within and beyond an afterschool science program

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background To attend to the social production of girls of color in science through the lens of history in person and local contentious practice, we propose a relational and nonrepresentational reading of STEM pathways. We invoke the conceptual lenses of wayfaring, knots, and meshwork to highlight the infinite ways of figuring science and becoming a science person in movement. We understand this as a life-long embodied process, entangled and marked by intersectionality and emotions. Methods Drawing on video recordings, fieldnotes, artifacts, interviews, and focus groups, collected from young women of color participating in an after-school program and over time (2009–2016), we examine moments of figuring science and identity in science. Findings Our analysis depicts identity work as a meshwork of trails emerging in the flow of the program activities and from deep relations of dignity among the young women of color extending beyond the afterschool program and through time. Contributions This paper offers a critique of the linear, unidirectional, and representational pipeline model of STEM education through a focus on wayfaring. In doing so, we call for a reframing of informal science learning experiences as contributing in important ways to a meshwork of lives and learning in science.