Attending to Time, Equity, and Design in an Informal Science Learning Community

Presenter: Kevin Nguyen

Presenter Status: Faculty

Academic Year: 22-23

Semester: Spring

Department: Hutchins School of Liberal Studies

Funding Source/Sponsor: RSCAP

President's Strategic Plan Goal: Diversity and Social Justice

Abstract:
Objectives This research poster addresses dimensions of time and equity in the design and examination of informal science learning organizations. Specifically, I evaluate an undergraduate student club called the River Team. The River Team is a citizen science group that monitors water quality and paddles canoes throughout the Southwestern United States. Theoretical Framework For this poster, I intersect sociocultural learning theory (Esmonde & Booker, 2017) with considerations of time, equity, and design. For the construct of time, I draw on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice. Specifically, I emphasize their not often discussed constructs of continuity and displacement, which revolve around the idea that newcomers must replace old-timers over time. For equity, I consider how scientific organizations are uneven in terms of both race, gender, and their intersections (Ong et al., 2018). To address this unevenness, I look at the design and infrastructure (Penuel, 2019) of these organizations, and how this allows certain members into the community. Methods and Data Sources I collected data through the ethnographic tradition (Emerson et al., 1995) of participant observation, fieldnotes, and video recordings across four years. I attended and wrote notes at every team meeting, and I would film each time we went on river trips. For this analysis, I primarily used fieldnotes from team meetings to chart out how members made structuring decisions about the organization and future members. My analysis included re-reading the fieldnotes and coding for considerations of time, equity, and design. Results The River Team addressed time, design, and equity in a few different ways. First, as a student organization, they knew that members would graduate every academic year, and the River Team would have to be in a constant state of recruitment. Recruitment would ensure continuity, as old-timers were displaced. However, what was more interesting is how the River Team purposely designed and structured recruitment. In multiple meetings, a predominantly white team discussed both how white-dominated science and outdoor river sports were. In what I call a more self-conscious perspective, they were very much aware of how white their own members were but acknowledged at least a gendered balance, especially since much of the team leadership were white women. This led to multiple discussions centered on intersectionality, and the team decided to collect data on both the race and gender of incoming applicants for the first time. However, this decision faced some resistance, as some members believed being race and gender-blind was more fair. In the end, the team moved forward with considering race and gender, and they hoped that the incoming generations (a term they frequently used) of the team cohorts would be more diverse and break at least some barriers in science and outdoor sports. Scholarly significance In this research poster, I recommend considering equity, time, and design in informal science learning organizations, specifically in terms of: generations or cohorts of its members, the time it takes for members to be displaced, and how the recruitment of new members addresses desired goals of equity.