Instances of dis/juncture: STEM education and young people’s aspirations for development in the Malaysian luar bandar

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article foregrounds young people’s aspirations from one secondary school in the Malaysian luar bandar (literally meaning ‘outside of the city’ in Bahasa Melayu) as they encounter science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, a policy emphasis in service of national development. Together, a postcolonial perspective on development, subjectivity in science education and science’s role in development provide the conceptual apparatus for an ethnographic, comparative case study involving interviews and observation of eight rural young people, complemented by the perspectives of their teachers. Through instances of ‘dis/juncture’ between rural young people and the developmental state, which entail concurrence with modernity, appropriation, and resistance to the ‘STEM education for development’ model, this article advances understanding of scientific literacy and aspirations, as well as the production of scientifically educated persons in the Global South, an understudied nexus of cultural production through education.