Analysis

1
Abstract In this research project, we
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.
Urban Girls Merging Science Practices Angela
Calabrese Barton1, PhD (PI) Ann E. Rivet, PhD
Edna Tan, Meghan Groome, Doctoral
candidatesDepartment of Mathematics, Science,
and Technology -- Teachers College Columbia
University525 W. 120th St., New York, NY 10027
1acb33_at_columbia.edu, [phone] NSF 0429109

• Objectives
• To document, describe and analyze high-poverty
  urban girls merging science practices in the
  context of urban ecology and body systems
• To document and describe reform-based pedagogical
  strategies that help girls to leverage their
  science practices in their efforts to engage
  meaningfully in science

Findings

• Merging Practices
• Blends social worlds of girls with worlds of
  school science
• Are extended narratives made up of a cycle of
  actions and intentions
• Builds upon and extends existing resources and
  identities available in the figured world of
  school science, either by recruiting novel
  resources/identities or authorizing previously
  unsanctioned ones
• Practices have both individual and social
  outcomes

• Types of Practices
• Making a product Story telling
• Making new rules Questioning
• Playing with Aligning
• identity oneself

Third space
Social worlds
Worlds of school science
Merging Science Practice

• Changes in Discourse
• Extending
• Facilitating
• Negotiating

Context Two high poverty middle schools in
the Bronx and Harlem Commitment to equity
Majority African American and Hispanic
enrollment Adoption of reform based
curriculum
Conceptual Framework We have drawn on research in
literacy studies around literacy as a social
practice and the conceptualization of youths
literacy practices. We assert that one way to
better understand how urban youth appropriate,
organize, and activate scientific literacy is by
documenting and analyzing what we refer to as
their science practices'. In applying a science
practices lens, we view engagement in science
as having three parts directly implicated in
science learning developing conceptual
understandings of scientific concepts
(meaning-making) developing and using the habits
of mind that reflect a propensity towards
scientific thinking (expression of scientific
identity) and doing science in authentic ways
(participation). Science practices, which can be
understood at both a macro and micro analytic
level, are deeply grounded in context (i.e.,
cultural background, peer groups, learning
environment, etc.) and content (i.e., the study
of food and ecology). We have operationalized
science practices through three constructs (1)
Resources available for engaging in science, (2)
Strategies students use to activate those
resources, and (3) Events and spaces where
science engagement takes place.
Analytic Model of Girls Merging Science Practices
Context
Identities Identities include who girls are and
want to become. Identities shape how girls
interact in science class and the goals and
expectations they hold for themselves and others.
Identity categories drawn from include Potential
Scientists, Other smart kids, I dont know
students, Outsiders, Inside outsiders
(Costa, 1995)
Classroom
School
Curricular
Positionality
Third Space Pathways
Analysis

• Methods
• Year 1 - Identify girls practices in the
  classroom and how they leverage them in support
  of learning
• Year 2 - Identify reform based pedagogical
  strategies that support girls science practices
• Year 3 - To test pedagogical strategies that
  facilitate girls science practices across
  sites/curricula

Open and closed coding from two perspectives
Resources Appropriated
Outcomes 1. Extended Agency 2. Deeper
understanding
Third Space 1. Authority expressed 2. Identity
supported 3.Extended resources leveraged

• Classroom
• Funds of knowledge
• epistemic authority
• Classroom knowledge
• Relational authority with
• -Teacher
• -peers
• Materials in the classroom
• Fieldtrips

• Individual
• Funds of knowledge
• narrative authority
• Community knowledge
• Dispositions and
• ways of talking/acting/being
• Personal and family values
• Talents and Interests

manifested by intentioned activities actions
teacher peer response

• Event Guided
• Event Maps
• Shifts in episodes
• Chains of activities
• Analysis of selected events
• Identity
• Structure
• meaning making
• Purpose/function

• Case Guided
• Portraiture
• Family background
• School experiences
• Social relationships
• Authority/ participation
• Meaning making (skills, content, habits of mind,
  culture)
• Linking portraits with events

Supporting Instructional Practice Year II

• Specific Lessons from LIFE Curriculum
• M1L3 salad extension
• M1L8,12,13 interviewing green market farmer and
  produce manager
• M3 inviting family experts for panel

4 Pedagogical Approaches Grounded in 2
Adaptations 1. Multiple Expertise
2. Science Narratives in Our Lives 1. Sharing
Stories Personal stories, oral histories or
community panels that involve role playing that
extends beyond roles in science classroom to
bring in student stories 2. Role Play Taking
on new roles/identities and can involve community
or personal expertise 3. Fieldtrips Extending
resources for engaging in/doing science in the
community (not just seeing science) as well as
blending of science and community 4. myLIFE
Portfolio Five selected pieces of work that
showcase student community knowledge and their
relationship with science that can be used as an
exit project.

• Identified Girls Practices
• Making a Product
• Playing with Identities
• Aligning Oneself
• Story Telling
• Question-Asking

• M1L8 M1L12 M1L13
• -Debate on organic versus industrial farming with
  assigned roles for each panel
• M2L4 - Design a package and then debate on the
  best design
• M3 - Anti-smoking skit

Axial and selective coding within and across
perspectives

• M1L8 M1L12 M1L13
• - Fieldtrip to the green market and supermarket,
  comparing and taste-testing the produce

Reflection pieces and selected extended homework
pieces related to the above lessons can be used
for the portfolio.

• Project Website http//www.columbia.edu/acb33/
• Symposium at NARST, San Francisco, CA April 2006
• Urban Girls Science Practices (402324) Strand
  6 Colloquium
• Panelists Angela Calabrese Barton, Ann Rivet,
  Meghan Groome, and Edna Tan, Teachers College
  Columbia
• Discussants Phillip Bell, University of
  Washington and Leoni Rennie, Curtin University
• Paper presentations at AERA, San Francisco, CA
  April 2006
• Calabrese Barton, A., Tan, E., Rivet, A.,
  Groome, M. (2006). Urban girls merging science
  practices.
• Tan, E., Calabrese Barton, A. Rivet. A. (2006).
  Understanding how girls identities shape their
  science practices.
• Rivet, A. Calabrese Barton, A. (2006). Urban
  girls science practices Changing classroom
  discourse.
• Groome, M., Calabrese Barton, A. Rivet, A.
  (2006). On the edge Two girls negotiate
  participation in an urban middle school science
  classroom.
• Discussant Elizabeth Moje, University of Michigan

Year II Data Collection Guidelines

• Strategic Intentioned Use of Resources
• What resources (funds of knowledge, traditional
  non-traditional) are being leveraged?
• How, when and by whom are these resources drawn
  upon?
• What are the individual and social outcomes
  resulting from the use of these resources?

• Supported Identities
• Do pedagogical adaptations support these
  intended outcomes?
• o Who is supported and who is not supported?
• o How are these intended outcomes supported?