Make-Her-Spaces as Hybrid Places: Designing and Resisting Self Constructions in Urban Classrooms

Abstract

This qualitative study analyzes how an urban schoolteacher guided her 19 tenth grade Latina and African American young women in developing positive self-concepts as expressed through the implementation of design thinking processes. This work examines how young women who had limited access to digital media negotiated their identities as they created projects with a focus on developing positive self-images. Design thinking is a twenty-first century learning approach that suggests that students learn best by designing and making tangible artifacts in locales that are termed “makerspaces.” This research investigates the relationship between design thinking and the development of new and critical literacies. It also examines the ways that young women who lacked access to digital tools in their makerspace (classroom) used design thinking to negotiate their gendered and racialized identities. This study reveals how young women designed and resisted constructions of themselves by participation (and lack thereof) in design thinking activities.