Authors

1
Authors Angela Calabrese Barton, PhD Ann E.
Rivet, PhD Meghan Groome, Edna Tan, Doctoral
candidates Department of Mathematics, Science,
and Technology Teachers College Columbia
University Box 210, 412B Main Hall 525 W. 120th
St. NY, NY 10027 NSF 0429109
Urban Girls Science Practices

• Objectives
• To document, describe and analyze high-poverty
  urban girls science practices in both form and
  function in the context of two specific middle
  school content areas
• To document and describe those reform-based
  pedagogical strategies enacted by teachers that
  help girls to successfully leverage their science
  practices in their efforts to engage meaningfully
  in science

• Research Activities Methodological approaches
• Year 1 - Identify girls science practices in the
  classroom and how they leverage them in support
  of learning
• Methods
• Year 2 - Identify reform based pedagogical
  strategies (based on the same curricular units as
  Year 1) used by teachers that facilitate and/or
  constrain girls efforts to leverage science
  practices
• Methods

Abstract In this research project, we seek to
investigate the science practices in which high
poverty urban middle-school girls engage in their
science classrooms, to understand how these
practices are supported by reform-based
pedagogical strategies, and to explore the
relationship between girls science practices and
science learning. In our second and third years
we plan to disseminate our finding to align
teacher practices with effective student
practices that we have identified.
Context The contextal elements of high poverty
and urban are vital, in understanding the school
science experiences of our research population.
Our research population, of urban girls in high
poverty schools, are traditionally
underrepresented in the sciences and have
recieved less representation in the primary
science education research. Our research focuses
on three partnership school in the South Bronx
and Harlem areas of New York City and represent a
range of sizes and school focus, inclusive of
both small and large urban middle schools. All
three share a committment to equity, the
adoptation of reform-based, NSF funded (
communicable diseases) and NIH funded (farm to
store) curricular units, and a majority
enrollment of African American and Hispanic
Students. Two of the schools have a free lunch
program catering to more than 90 of the student
population while the other has a similar progam
serving more than 75 of students.
Analytical approaches
Conceptual Framework Students draw upon a
diversity of resources to learn science, many of
which are viewed as traditional science
practices. Science practices are the means by
which one engages in science and the reasons and
motivations for doing so. Science practices,
which can be understood at both a macro and micro
analytic level, are deeply grounded in the
context of students figured worlds. We have
begun to operationalize these practices through
three constucts (1) resources, (2) strategies,
and (3) spaces while attempting to understand
the relation of the constructs to authority and
identity in the process of meaningful science
learning.
Dissemination of Findings Our dissemination plan
is focused on providing theoretical and practical
insights to research, policy, curriculum
development and practice communities.