ABSTRACT

Background: STEM identity has emerged as an important research topic and a predictor of how youth engage with STEM inside and outside of school. Although there is a growing body of literature in this area, less work has been done specific to engineering, especially in out-of-school learning contexts.

Methods: To address this need, we conducted a qualitative investigation of five adolescent youth participating in a four-month afterschool engineering program. The study focused on how participants negotiated engineering-related identities through ongoing interactions with activities, peers, and adults, and the patterns of identity negotiation that emerged across program sessions.

Findings: Through the investigation, we developed an Identity-Frame Model, positing that identity negotiation is an ongoing process of performance and definition work by an individual and recognition and positioning work by other adults and peers that creates emergent, context-specific identities and activity frames that are made particularly salient during critical identity moments. We also categorized model elements that appeared to be specific to engineering, such as situated identities and activity frames related to failure, collaboration, and competition.

Contribution: The study advances the understanding of identity negotiation related to engineering and provides a new framework for investigating situated identity in informal STEM learning contexts.

摘要

背景：STEM身份已成为重要的研究课题，并且成为预测年轻人在学校内外如何与STEM互动的指标。尽管该领域的文学越来越多，但是针对工程的工作却很少，尤其是在校外学习的情况下。

方法：为了满足这一需求，我们对参加四个月课后工程计划的五名青年进行了定性调查。这项研究的重点是参与者如何通过与活动，同伴和成年人的持续互动来协商与工程相关的身份，以及跨计划会议出现的身份协商的模式。

调查结果：通过调查，我们开发了一个身份框架模型，认为身份协商是个人进行绩效和定义工作以及其他成年人和同龄人识别和定位工作的持续过程，该过程创建了特定于上下文的身份和活动。在关键身份时刻特别突出的镜框。我们还对似乎特定于工程的模型元素进行了分类，例如与故障，协作和竞争有关的位置标识和活动框架。

贡献：这项研究提高了对与工程相关的身份协商的理解，并提供了一个新的框架来研究非正式STEM学习环境中的位置身份。