Learning and Becoming in Movement at the Intersection of Formal and Informal Science

Abstract

This paper builds on the policy statement of the Informal Science Education “Ad Hoc” Committee (Dierking et al., 2003), and unpacks what a convincing story of real world and lifelong learning in science might entail, as called for in the policy document. The paper takes that policy statement a step further by bringing a critical lens to current research on informal science education, resulting in calls for action in future research, that are illustrated through vignettes from three collaborative research projects. Throughout, we pay attention to the emotional work youth participants in afterschool and community programs are engaged in, marked by intersectionality. We argue that it is this kind of emotional work entangled with assigned positions and the authoring of new selves, that informal science practices can support. One vignette focuses on a girls-only afterschool space in which science is refi gured through joint-work, another vignette explores a youths’ educational ecology and brings a space-time reading to learning and becoming in movement, while the last case focuses on navigations among epistemologies in the context of a water stewardship project led by Inuit. The three vignettes and subsequent discussions make possible the proposition of some new tools to think with for design studies and future joint projects committed to equity, deeply seated in and leading to expansive forms of participation, transformations and agency in and of science. In doing so, the paper aims to shift the performance range and positionality of learners and becoming in science and push us to attend more tightly to what happens outside the pipeline vision of science, and the manner science is entangled with learning lives.