While issues of (in)justice in K12 STEM learning have garnered increasing attention, limited research has attended to learning as "social-spatial transformation." We draw upon a justice-oriented framework of equitably consequential learning to call attention to how learning and engagement in K12 STEM is rooted in the history and…

Supporting more equitable participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) remains a key, persistent educational challenge. This paper employs a sociological Bourdieusian lens to explore how equitable youth outcomes might be supported through informal science learning (ISL). Drawing on multimodal, ethnographic data from…

Background: This paper explores traditional iterations of, and new challenges to, the tightly linked discourses of entrepreneurship and innovation within the maker movement. Methods: In a yearlong critical ethnographic study with 12 youth makers, we investigated how youth engaged with and redefined entrepreneurialism through their identity work as…

Promoting critical science agency (CSA) may be one way to promote educational justice. CSA is using science with other powerful forms of knowledge to address issues of injustice. However, the process of enacting CSA is always embedded within a sociopolitical context, which positions some students with more power than others. Drawing upon a social…

The maker movement has evoked interest for its role in breaking down barriers to STEM learning. However, few empirical studies document how youth are supported over time in STEM-rich making projects or their outcomes. This longitudinal critical ethnographic study traces the development of 41 youth maker projects in two community-centered making…

Despite the promise of Informal Science Learning settings (ISLs) in supporting youth science engagement in ways that value their experiences and communities, in practice, such opportunities are limited. While some ISLs promote more culturally relevant approaches to science engagement, many still reflect White supremacist and patriarchal worldviews…

This brief essay offers an introduction to a special symposium on equity in STEM-rich making. The introduction provides context that frames current equity issues in the Maker Movement, as well as short descriptions of the four articles included in the symposium. Collectively the papers in this symposium examine how complex power dynamics shape…

Justice-oriented teaching must address how classroom-based disciplinary learning is shaped by interactions among local practice "and" systems of privilege and oppression. Our work advances current scholarship on high-leverage practices [HLPs] by emphasizing the need for teaching practices that restructure power relations in classrooms…

The maker movement has evoked interest for its role in breaking down barriers to STEM learning. However, few empirical studies document how youth are supported over time, in STEM-rich making projects or their outcomes. This longitudinal critical ethnographic study traces the development of 41 youth maker projects in two community-centered making…

In this special issue, the structure-agency dialectic is used to shift the analytic frame in science education from focusing on youth as in need of remediation to rethinking new arrangements, tools, and forms of assistance and participation in support of youth learning science. This shift from "fixing" the individual to re-mediating and…