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Although research has highlighted the challenges of teaching in urban settings, particularly for science teachers, it has paid less attention to the development of science teaching identities in urban settings. This paper situates science teaching identity within societal discourses of science, education, and teaching to explore the ways in which macro‐level discourses influence the positions available to science teachers in urban schools. Using questionnaire data from 64 teachers, discourse analysis is used to demonstrate how participants reinscribe or disrupt prominent macro‐level discourses, including the elitism of science, accountability, and deficit views of urban areas, and the resulting positions that are created by this negotiation process. The findings include possible positions relative to science, education, and teaching as well as a consideration of differences between elementary and secondary teachers and between beginning and experienced teachers. Although many participants successfully disrupted damaging discourses of science as elite and disconnected, as well as discourses of accountability and the role of standardized testing, they were not able to disrupt deficit discourses that resulted in positioning themselves as outside of their students' worlds, often as saviors. The findings demonstrated the strong influence of deficit discourses on teachers' descriptions of their experiences as science teachers and the need to support teachers in understanding the historical and cultural contexts of urban education to identify and disrupt deficit discourses and create teacher positions based on asset and justice‐based views of students, schools, and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation of specialty science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) Schools has been presented as a way to improve both academic and STEM‐related outcomes, particularly in urban school districts where "failing" schools are converted the STEM Schools. This study examines this conversion process through the tenets of critical race theory, particularly the tenets of Whiteness as property, interest convergence, and the power of discourse. Using data collected from 28 textual sources and 29 interviews of teachers, students, and administrators at STEM Schools, a comparative case study approach was used to examine the historical development of two STEM Schools in one urban area. Findings indicated that the creation of STEM Schools was a way to protect STEM as a property of Whiteness by funneling resources toward White, middle‐class students. Additionally, the motivation for the conversions demonstrates how interest convergence functions in educational reform. In particular, the interests of White parents (to have access to high‐quality educational resources) and industry leaders (to develop a STEM workforce) temporarily converged with the interests of local families to improve neighborhood schools. However, ultimately, Black students and families, particularly those from lower socioeconomic status, were not served by the new STEM Schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Out of school time (OST) STEM opportunities are often presented as ways to support student achievement, understanding, and identity in STEM. Recent work has begun to explore how OST programs function within the STEM Learning Ecosystem, a holistic view of the various STEM learning opportunities available to youth in a given area. In order to increase understanding of how microcontexts impact the STEM Learning Ecosystem, this study explores the experiences and perspectives of three groups of participants in a network of after school STEM Clubs: youth participants, college student facilitators, and sponsor teachers. Based on interviews with all three groups, results of comparative case study analysis revealed two cases: Narrowed STEM and Expanded STEM. Youth in the Narrowed STEM case had traditional perspectives of STEM as hard, for smart people, and related to behavior; made only weak or no connections between STEM in different contexts; and had tentative STEM identities. Youth in the expanded STEM case had more active perspectives of STEM as exploration and problem solving, saw clear connections across contexts, and had decisive STEM identities. Critical Discourse Analysis was used to show how facilitators and club sponsors negotiated macro‐level discourses of STEM and urban education in ways that aligned with youth views and influenced interpretations of the STEM Club. We highlight a need for critical and multiscalar evaluation of STEM Learning Ecosystems, particularly in urban areas, so that learning opportunities are available to all students, particularly those from groups historically excluded from science and STEM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on previous research that has described the underrepresentation of women of color in science fields, this paper presents case studies of Black middle school girls to examine how their science identities developed over space and time. Data were collected over the course of their seventh‐grade year in both in school (science classroom) and out‐of‐school (afterschool club) contexts. The Multidimensionality of Black Girls' STEM Learning framework was used to explore the role of the afterschool club as a counterspace and how students made sense of science, science people, and their current and future selves based on their experiences in school and after school science contexts. All three participants struggled to see their future selves as scientists and made distinctions amongst being a science person, a person who likes science, or a scientist. They also negotiated views of science as active and hands‐on in the afterschool setting while experiencing more passive and decontextualized forms of science in the formal school setting. Implications include a need to disrupt the culture of science and reimagine formal science education by learning from out‐of‐school time science programs that function as counterspaces to support Black girls' science identity. We conclude that there remains a need to draw attention to and understand the role of race and racism in science education so that Black girls' science identities are affirmed beyond counterspaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how the figured world of school science is influenced by macro level discourses of science, education, race, and gender that are circulated in society and perpetuated through schooling. It also examines how the figured world of school science defines limited means of recognition, both positive and negative, for African American girls. As part of a larger critical ethnography, data was collected over 2 years in one middle school and in one seventh grade science class. We present an analysis of the figured world of school science present in the study, a description of how the macro level discourses at the school impacted that figured world, and a description of the Discourses (ways of saying, doing, and being that are recognized as certain types of people) available to students in the figured world. Our results reveal a limited, and inherently unjust, set of Discourses are available to students in this figured world. In addition, Discourses that would support learning and development in science were noticeably absent. This leads to a world in which African American girls gain positive recognition as good science students for being quiet, polite, passive, and fast workers. We argue that this not only unfairly marginalizes many students from school science, in fails to prepare any students for meaningful engagement with science. We conclude with implications for both teaching and research, calling for ways to allow African American girls to self‐define with respect to science and research to better understand the larger contextual factors influence on teachers and other settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Modeling is considered an important scientific practice, and modeling instruction has the potential to support conceptual change in students in physics. However, when students are not taught how to think about modeling, and how to develop and use models, the learning potential of modeling may be limited. This paper argues that the use and explicit teaching of metacognitive tools like interactive questioning and individual reflection increase students’ ability to use and make sense of models. We present a sequence of activities incorporating metacognitive tools with a variety of models (mental, physical, simulated, and mathematical) in a high school physics unit of electricity. Using data from classroom observations, individual student reflections, group‐created posters, and classroom discussion, we found evidence to demonstrate the complicated nature of conceptual change, the importance of using a variety of different representations (models) of a phenomenon, and the critical role of the teacher in learning. Teachers need to be aware of this process and able to give students the time they need to fully explore and develop multiple models and support to think critically about models. Although many classrooms are limited in time, this process is necessary to move beyond rote memorization toward meaningful conceptual change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]