Abstract
BackgroundIdentity provides a useful conceptual lens for understanding educational inequalities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In this paper, we examine how paying attention to physical and digital ‘materiality’ enriches our understanding of identity work, by going beyond the spoken, written and embodied dimensions of identity performances that currently dominate the area of STEM identity scholarship. We draw on a multimodal ethnographic study with 36 young people aged 11–14 carried out over the course of one year at four UK-based informal STEM learning settings. Data collection included a series of interviews, observations and youth-created portfolios focused on STEM experiences. Illustrative case studies of two young men who took part in a community-based digital arts centre are discussed in detail through the theoretical lenses of Judith Butler’s identity performativity and Karen Barad’s intra-action.ResultsWe argue that physical and digital materiality mattered for the performances of ‘tech identity’ in that (i) the focus on the material changed our understanding of tech identity performances; (ii) digital spaces supported identity performances alongside, with and beyond physical bodies, and drew attention to new forms of identity recognition; (iii) identity performances across spaces were unpredictable and contained by the limits of material possibilities; and (iv) particular identity performances associated with technology were aligned with dominant enactments of masculinity and might thus be less accessible to some young people.ConclusionWe conclude the paper by suggesting that accounting for materiality in STEM identity research not only guides researchers in going beyond what participants say and are observed doing (and thus engendering richer insights), but also offers more equitable ways of enacting research. Further, we argue that more needs to be done to support the translation of identity resources across spaces, such as between experiences within informal and online spaces, on the one hand, and formal education, on the other.
Highlights
Camera, phone, school, avatar, animation, animation speed, self-portrait, pride, frustration, pleasure, friendship, humour, traffic, weight, bulk, silence, talk, hesitations, absence, attendance, silver casing, black box, 500 Gigs SSD, terabytes, YouTube and selfies ... perhaps all this stuff does not belong in Identity has been of growing interest in STEM education research (Simpson & Bouhafa, 2020)
The paper contributes to new understandings of identity performativity through exploring the role of materiality in the production of tech identity performances
While STEM education literature has previously, at least to an extent, considered the role played by physical objects in young people’s identity work (e.g. Calabrese Barton et al, 2013), our findings suggest that future research would usefully benefit from extending the focus to nontangible, digital materiality, especially given the role that technology and the internet play in young people’s lives
Summary
Phone, school, avatar, animation, animation speed, self-portrait, pride, frustration, pleasure, friendship, humour, traffic, weight, bulk, silence, talk, hesitations, absence, attendance, silver casing, black box, 500 Gigs SSD, terabytes, YouTube and selfies ... perhaps all this stuff does not belong in Identity has been of growing interest in STEM education research (Simpson & Bouhafa, 2020). While there is a growing number of STEM identity studies (either relating to a specific subject like physics or considering the broader ‘STEM identity’), research findings have to date largely been based on the participants’ narrated accounts. Verbal and written articulations of identity have become a methodological norm, as evident from the dominance of studies utilising interviews, discussion groups and surveys (Varelas, 2012). Such privileging of language has been critiqued in the wider literature for possibly silencing the complexity of lived experiences, for it ‘fail[s] to fully account for the complex materiality of life’ Illustrative case studies of two young men who took part in a community-based digital arts centre are discussed in detail through the theoretical lenses of Judith Butler’s identity performativity and Karen Barad’s intra-action
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