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  1. Shakhnoza Kayumova
  2. https://www.steamidentity.com
  3. Associate Professor
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
  1. Akira Harper
  2. Doctoral Student
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
  1. Eleanor Richard
  2. Doctoral Student
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
  1. Nazia Tasnim
  2. Doctoral Student
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
  1. Kimberly Welty
  2. Grant Support Specialist
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

CAREER: Analyzing the Nexus between Advantaged Social Positioning and Science...

NSF Awards: 1652752

2022 (see original presentation & discussion)

Grades 6-8

Our research is focused on questions aimed at improving equitable outcomes in science education among culturally and linguistically diverse multilingual learners, also known as English language learners. Specifically, our longitudinal study draws on social positioning theory to examine the relationship between language and science identity development among diverse multilingual youth. We partnered with local schools, families, and university STEM faculty to design a two-week summer program, called STEAM Your Way To College over the past three summers. Our preliminary findings show that when teachers are trained to position students as linguistic and epistemic agents and understand how to explicitly subvert deficit-based perspectives, they are more likely to see students' backgrounds as valuable assets. As a result, students demonstrate a greater investment in their learning of science. 

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Discussion from the 2022 STEM For All Video Showcase (16 posts)
  • Icon for: Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 10, 2022 | 01:16 p.m.

    Our preliminary findings showed that when teachers are trained to position students' as linguistic and epistemic agents and understand how to explicitly subvert deficit-based perspectives, they are more likely to see students' backgrounds as valuable assets. As a result, students demonstrate a greater investment in their learning of science. However, our longitudinal findings suggest that disrupting language-based deficits is necessary but not sufficient to support youth’s developing identities as science people. We wonder about your experience, observations, and perspective, and whether you think language and asset-based interventions are enough to support youth identities in science. 

     
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    Remy Dou
  • Icon for: Cory Buxton

    Cory Buxton

    Researcher
    May 10, 2022 | 07:37 p.m.

    Hi Shakhnoza and team! I really enjoyed the video and the authentic engagement of students who are clearly being positioned and positioning themselves as competent and valued science knowers and learners.

    I love the idea of supporting students in learning to explicitly subvert deficit perspectives. Could you share an example of what this looked like in the project?

     
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    Remy Dou
  • Icon for: Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 11, 2022 | 03:48 a.m.

    Dear Cory,

    Thank you for your kind words and your questions. Teachers have utilized multiple approaches to subvert language-based deficits. Some examples in which these approaches were directly enacted by teachers during learning included teachers' explicit encouragement of youth to use multiple modalities and home/community languages to make and express meaning as science people. Teachers would also explicitly enact translanguaging as a part of valid science communication. Because young people's home and community language were celebrated as valuable forms of science communication in a classroom, teachers often positioned themselves as the learners of language and science. In addition to pedagogical moves, teachers and the team had dedicated time to discuss with the youth, through purposeful activities (e.g., inner and outer voices; inner-self outer-self portraits; identity maps), and disrupt various language-based deficit stereotypes and ability perceptions.  

     
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    Remy Dou
  • Icon for: Remy Dou

    Remy Dou

    Facilitator
    Assistant Professor
    May 11, 2022 | 09:33 p.m.

    Hi Dr. Kayumova! I'm so excited to see your work represented in the showcase. As a multilingual learner myself, having migrated to the U.S. well after having constructed a sociocultural language frame in a non-English language, I resonate with the population of students you work with and the major findings of your work. I'm very curious about the role you see language learning playing in science identity development both from the perspective of the ages of the youth at the time of the study and the number of years they they have lived in the US if born in another country. Relatedly, whose work do you turn to when thinking about the intersection of language development from a developmental perspective and social identity development? This is a space I keep coming back to in my own work and I'm curious about your thoughts (and others').

  • Icon for: Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 12, 2022 | 02:46 a.m.

    Dear Remy,

    Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us and your questions. I share a similar background with you in relation to English and language. The question of identity and its relation to language is an excellent question, something that I have been thinking for more than a decade, and now with our team, we have been given the privilege and opportunity to study this issue empirically. We conceptualize language in a more corporeal sense, meaning we view language to be an inseparable part of "who we are": including our accents, intonations, ways of thinking with language, and making sense of the world. Multilingualism is an asset for the country, communities, and intellectual/creative/economic development. However, many of the multilingual youth who we work with come from nondominant communities and their language identities are racialized intersectionally. One thing that our research is uncovering is that because "science" language (often referred to as "academic") or school language (also referred as "standard" English)  is often connected to cognitive work, attempts to increase proficiency in "academic" or "standard" English may adversely affect and racialize identities of multilingual youth-based on their language backgrounds. At the age when kids are developing their sense of self and their relations to the world, constantly being corrected or making emphasis on the importance of dominant language (communication) may send a message to youth that their languages (or the ways in which they think and communicate), hence who they are, may not be enough in the context of learning or being a science person. The work of Heidi Carlone, Zahra Hazari, Jrene Rahm, Na'liah Suad Nasir, and Victoria Hand around identity issues has been central to our understanding. When it comes to issues related to language, the work of Cory Buxton, Martha Allexsaht Snider, Rochelle Gutierrez, Nelson Flores, and Jonathan Rosa's work has been an immense inspiration. When it comes to cultural and developmental understanding the work of Barbara Rogoff, Eugene Matusov, and Kris Gutiérrez.

     
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    Remy Dou
  • Icon for: Remy Dou

    Remy Dou

    Facilitator
    Assistant Professor
    May 12, 2022 | 09:58 a.m.

    Thank you for the thoughtful and informative reply!

  • Icon for: LaShawnda Lindsay

    LaShawnda Lindsay

    Facilitator
    Research Scientist
    May 11, 2022 | 10:34 p.m.

    This is very exciting and interesting work!  I love how project centers on the assets of participants.  I would love to learn more about the content of teacher training.  I am curious about the translanguaging aspect of the program. Where the teachers multilingual themselves? Lastly, college what mentioned in the title. Was college preparation was addressed in the project? If so, what type? 

  • Icon for: Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 12, 2022 | 02:55 a.m.

    Dear Dr. Lindsay,

     

    Thank you for your comments and questions. While we had some multilingual teachers, we also purposefully worked with monolingual science, mathematics, CS teachers from the local school districts to be able to "test" the Professional Development part of the project on the population of teachers who constitute the majority in our partner schools. Teachers go through a series of professional learning engagements with us in order to work at our program, which includes anti-deficit and anti-racist pedagogies (we have been developing the PD approach based on our experience with youth and the project community) as a part of the asset-based approach to language and science. We have been working with youth since their late elementary and early middle school years, students who are in high school we work with them on college-related support. Since this year majority of the youth in the program will be starting high school, we will be working with all families and youth around STEM and college-related resources. 

  • Icon for: LaShawnda Lindsay

    LaShawnda Lindsay

    Facilitator
    Research Scientist
    May 16, 2022 | 12:00 p.m.

    I am interested in learning more about asset-based approach PD  and work that you are doing to address anti-deficit and anti-racist pedagogies.  Please send me more information to lashawnda.lindsay@gmail.com.

    Thank you. 

  • Icon for: Harrison Pinckney

    Harrison Pinckney

    Facilitator
    Assistant Professor
    May 11, 2022 | 11:21 p.m.

    Unfortunately, deficit-based models are still prevalent in projects aimed at serving youth, especially those from marginalized communities. Positioning culture, social and linguistic identities as assets is critical to engaging marginalized students in STEM learning. What thoughts has your team given to engaging these youth beyond the two week program? What recommendations would you make to hold youth's attention in STEM when they are interacting with their daily environments away from the program?

  • Icon for: Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 12, 2022 | 02:47 a.m.

    Dear Dr. Pinckney,

    Thank you for your comments and your question. Your point is excellent and reflective of the realities we are experiencing and witnessing with unintended consequences of the projects aimed at serving youth from racialized multilingual communities! We are making conscious decisions and practical interventions not to come into young people's lives, making "temporary disruptions" and "leaving" them at the end of the two weeks. Some of these decisions include following the same set of youth and staying in touch with their families beyond the summer weeks and over the years (we have been in touch with some of our families and youth for over three years now). One of the features of the project is to equip youth with tools to reposition themselves in the face of deficits that could be cast on them away from the program. These tools include awareness of the structural and cultural issues at the macro and meso levels, as well as opportunities to disrupt deficit-based discourses by recognizing young people's and their families/communities' cultural, linguistic, and epistemic brilliance.   

  • Icon for: Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 12, 2022 | 02:18 a.m.

    Dear Dr. Pinckney,

    Thank you for your comments and your question. Your point is excellent and reflective of the realities we are experiencing and witnessing with unintended consequences of the projects aimed at serving youth from racialized multilingual communities! We are making conscious decisions and practical interventions not to come into young people's lives, making "temporary disruptions" and "leaving" them at the end of the two weeks. Some of these decisions include following the same set of youth and staying in touch with their families beyond the summer weeks and over the years (we have been in touch with some of our families and youth for over three years now). One of the features of the project is to equip youth with tools to reposition themselves in the face of deficits that could be cast on them away from the program. These tools include awareness of the structural and cultural issues at the macro and meso levels, as well as opportunities to disrupt deficit-based discourses by recognizing young people's and their families/communities' cultural, linguistic, and epistemic brilliance.   

  • Icon for: Heather Leary

    Heather Leary

    Researcher
    May 15, 2022 | 01:39 a.m.

    When I saw this title, "STEAM your way to college", I thought you would be doing science with arts (performing, visual, digital, etc.). But it doesn't look like you are doing art or defining art that way. You are doing language arts and language learning. Is that correct, or did I miss something? I am fascinated by this work though. To what magnitude are you seeing changes in the students identity as scientists?

  • Icon for: Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Shakhnoza Kayumova

    Lead Presenter
    Associate Professor
    May 16, 2022 | 08:48 a.m.

    Hello Heather,

    Thank you for your questions and comments. Youth do engage in art projects, but as you said A stands for broader notions including language arts and is not necessarily the sole focus of the program. We definitely see the changes in the ways students identify themselves as science or STEAM people, however, our research is not complete yet in relation to understanding the necessary and sufficient conditions for such change.  

  • Icon for: Jamie Bell

    Jamie Bell

    Project Director
    May 17, 2022 | 05:33 p.m.

    Thank you for sharing this thoughtful project, very clearly described. 

  • Icon for: Eleanor Richard

    Eleanor Richard

    Co-Presenter
    Doctoral Student
    May 17, 2022 | 05:41 p.m.

    Thank you for watching our video and for the kind comment! We are happy to have the opportunity to be able to share our work on this platform.  

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.