Hacking a Path into and through STEM: Exploring how Youth Build Connecting Pathways between STEM-Related Landscapes

Abstract

Background/Context Minoritized youth from historically marginalized backgrounds continue to face systemic inequities in STEM. Existing strategies aimed at increasing diversity in STEM, which are guided by the STEM “pipeline” metaphor and are deficit-oriented, have yielded lackluster results. Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study This paper investigates how mi-noritized youth attempted to build connecting pathways between STEM-related worlds, how such attempts unfolded, and the resultant outcomes pertaining to their developing STEM expertise and subsequent STEM engagement. We introduce the idea of pathhacking, where youth had to create their own pathways into STEM, often with improvised tools and in treacherous territory, because there were no pre-laid paths. Research Design/Data Collection and Analysis Data were drawn from longitudinal critical ethnography of 48 youths across STEM-engagement spaces, in both community and formal school spaces. Attention is paid to the particular resources, both relational and material, and the barriers that affect youths’ efforts to hack pathways toward deeper and more connected engagement in STEM. Spaces included school classrooms, school settings, after-school STEM programs held in community clubs, other spaces in communities such as residential neighborhoods, and local universities. Findings/Results Three broad claims are presented: (a) Pathhacking involves youth engaging in practices that challenge and expand ways of being in STEM-related spaces; (b) Pathhacking practices, when coordinated through social activity, reorganize social worlds for both individuals and collectives, expanding future pathhacking possibilities; (c) To aid in pathhacking, youth utilize tools including critical STEM-mobility artifacts and allies as brokers across scales of activity. Conclusions The current U.S. education-policy climate focuses attention on student achievement in individual subject areas, highlighting the achievement gap. We illustrate the challenges minoritized youth face as they seek more consequential STEM engagement through hacking connecting pathways. Institutions, people, tools, and practices—all imbued with and embedded in histories—have structured these youths’ opportunities to hack connecting pathways and have also provided points of access and resistance for the youth to resist mar-ginalization during the process.