UC Irvine
UC Irvine Previously Published Works
Title
Desiring a career in STEM-related fields: How middle school girls articulate and negotiate
identities-in-practice in science
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4xb144nm
Journal
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50(10)
ISSN
0022-4308
Authors
Tan, E
Calabrese Barton, A
Kang, H
et al.
Publication Date
2013-12-01
DOI
10.1002/tea.21123
Peer reviewed
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University of California
Desiring a career in STEM-related fields: How middle school girls articulate and negotiate
identities-in-practice in science
Edna Tan
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Angela Calabrese Barton
Michigan State University
Hosun Kang
University of Washington
Tara O’Neill
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Desiring a career in STEM-related fields: How middle school girls articulate and negotiate
identities-in-practice in science
Abstract. The underrepresentation of non-White students and girls in STEM fields is an ongoing
problem that is well documented. In K-12 science education, girls, and especially non-White
girls, often do not identify with science regardless of test scores. In this study, we examine the
narrated and embodied identities-in-practice of non-White, middle school girls who articulate
future career goals in STEM related fields. For these girls who desire a STEM-related career, we
examine how their narrated and embodied identities-in-practice interact and inform one another
(or not). Drawing on interview and ethnographic data in both school and after-school science
contexts, we examine how STEM-career minded middle school girls articulate and negotiate a
path for themselves through their narratives and actions. We present four modes of interactions,
each with a representative case study highlighting the kinds of interaction between girls’ narrated
and embodied identities-in-practice: 1) Partial overlaps, 2) Significant overlaps, 3) Contrasting,
and 4) Transformative. The implications of these interactions with regards to both hurdles and
support structures that need to equip and empower girls in pursuit of their STEM trajectories are
discussed.
Key words: identity, gender, sociocultural, science education
Over the last two decades it has been shown that more girls in the U.S. are taking high-
level math and science classes in high school then in previous years (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2009a). Recent data also show that girls, in general, are performing equal to
or better than their male counterparts on math and science state and national assessments at both
the middle and high school level (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2007; nces.ed.gov,
2010). In addition, girls are pursuing post secondary education at rates much higher than their
male counterparts. For example, in 2007, women received nearly 60% of all bachelor degrees in
the United States (Digest of Educational Statistics, 2009b).
However, a closer look at these changing trends indicates concern. As noted by Buchmann
and DiPrete (2006), despite the reversal of the gender gap in educational attainment of women, a
significantly higher percentage of boys pursue post secondary STEM degrees and careers in
STEM fields. In 2008 and 2009, while women were the majority of bachelor and associate degree
recipients, they represented fewer than 30% of the total STEM field degrees awarded (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2008- 2009). If we break down the STEM areas, it is clear that the
largest gender gaps are in the physical sciences and engineering. The American Institute of
Physics (AIP Statistical Research Center, 2012) reports that only one-fifth of bachelors degrees in
physics go to women, and only 7% are African American and Hispanic (combined). In 2010, only
18.1% of four-year engineering degrees were awarded to women (Gibbons, 2011). In the same
year, while women made up 58% of two-year college enrollment, they received only 15% of the
associate degrees in engineering technologies (Milrgam, 2010). The rates of movement into the
STEM pipeline are even more limited among girls from nondominant backgrounds (linguistic,
ethnic minority and low-income).
In recent years the United States has begun to make students’ exposure to STEM experiences
and pursuit of STEM careers an educational priority. However, despite one of the three goals of
President Obama’s “Education to Innovate” campaign being to “expand STEM education and
career opportunities for underrepresented groups, including women and girls” (whitehouse.gov,
2012), the statistics presented above clearly indicate a disconnect between girls’ science
achievement and their desire to pursue STEM careers. In K-12 science education, girls, and
DESIRING A CAREER IN STEM-RELATED FIELDS
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especially non-White girls, often do not identify with science regardless of test scores (e.g.
Sadker, Sadker & Zittleman, 2009). Part of the reason for this disconnect is that while we have
spent decades addressing the academic achievement gap between girls and boys, very little time
has been spent addressing the science identity gap. We argue that it is in part because of this
science identity gap that girls’ participation in science beyond secondary schooling is limited.
In this study, we are interested in better understanding the disjuncture in girls’ academic
performance and pursuing STEM related careers through the lens of identity. All students,
including girls, engage in identity work while participating in science, whether such work is
intentional or not (Calabrese Barton, Kang, Tan, O’Neill & Brecklin, 2013). In this study, we are
interested in the kinds of identity work among girls who do well in and articulate an interest in
future STEM careers over the course of middle school across school, after school and home. We
are interested in making sense of the kinds of experiences that shape the identity work of the
STEM minded girls in ways that support or work against future STEM trajectories. Our research
questions include:
1. What science identities do middle school girls narrate with respect to who they are and
who they want to be in science?
2. What actions do girls take in support of their developing science identities? How are these
actions informed by contexts, in particular the people and resources that make up
those contexts (school science, after school science, and home)?
3. In what ways do girls’ narrations of their science identities relate to the actions they take?
What are the interaction mechanisms that exist between the narrated and embodied
identities, and what role do contexts play in these mechanisms?
Theoretical Framework
Identity construction: Situated learning, figured worlds & identities-in-practice
Lave and Wenger’s (1991) framework of situated learning emphasizes the ineluctable link
between learning and identity formation. To learn in a particular community means to become “a
different person with respect to the possibilities enabled by these systems of relations” (p. 53).
Lave and Wenger use the phrase “identities-in-practice” to emphasize that identities take shape as
one engages in the practices of a community, and learns the ways of talking, knowing, doing and
being of that community. Identity is not merely a label to describe oneself. It is not something one
brings to learning or that is a result of learning. As Lave and Wenger (1991) suggest, learning
“implies becoming a full participant, a member, a kind of person. . .Who you are becoming
shapes crucially and fundamentally what you ‘know.’ ‘What you know’ may be better thought of
as doing rather than having something” (p. 53 &157). In other words, authoring identities in
practice is the work of learning.
A science classroom can be construed as such a community of practice. Students are
continually authoring identities-in-practice and developing certain ways of being in the science
classroom, while engaging in activities and tasks in relation to the teacher and their peers. These
identities-in-practice are related to who students are, who they can be, and who they want to be,
as sanctioned by the norms of the classroom. For example, a science teacher may expect a
successful student in her class to be a good collaborator, copy neat notes from teacher lectures,
and maintain at least an A- grade. Another science teacher may consider students as successful in
science if they are curious, asking questions, and designing experiments, regardless of their letter
DESIRING A CAREER IN STEM-RELATED FIELDS
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grade. Learning science is thus manifested through the transformation of “identity-in-practice” in
the science classroom (Carlone, Haun-Frank & Webb, 2011).
In earlier work we have shown that girls do not merely author a singular identity-in-
practice but rather author multiple, fluid identities-in-practice in the science classroom (Tan &
Calabrese Barton, 2008a, b). We have also pointed out that while the science classroom can be
considered as a community of practice, the different ways in which science classroom activities
are set up and carried out creates different “figured worlds” within that community of practice
(Holland, Lachiotte, Skinner & Cain, 2001). Each of these figured worlds has its own attending
norms and rules for participation that may afford distinctly different opportunities for students’
participation in science and identity authoring. Figured worlds are socially situated, and “[are]
peopled by the figures, characters, and types who carry out its tasks and who also have styles of
interacting within, distinguishable perspectives on, and orientations towards it” (p.51). An
example that Holland and her colleagues use as an example of a figured world is Alcoholics
Anonymous (AA), where members are bound by and subscribe to a specific code of conduct,
governed by clearly defined relationships (p. 67).
A science classroom is a compendium of many figured worlds (e.g. whole class teacher-
led discussions, small groups with different members, student presentation with peers and teacher
as audience). These figured worlds are fluid, have porous boundaries and exist concomitantly
with established rules and norms (Price & McNeill, 2013; Seiler, 2013). Thus, each figured world
offers girls differing affordances and constraints in terms of resources (human and material) in
which they draw upon to author specific identities-in-practice (Tan & Calabrese Barton, 2008a).
For example, a small group setting in a science classroom may have established norms such as
specific roles and responsibilities for the group leader and note-taker. However, the make-up of
different group members and one’s relationship with fellow group members create different
dynamics that impact how group work can unfold and what identities-in-practice students can
subsequently author. While a girl may always be relegated as note-taker with one group of peers,
in another group with more supportive peers, she may have opportunities to take on the role of
group-leader. This example also illustrates the struggle for agency inherent in carving out one’s
membership in a particular figured world. On initial entry into a figured world, novices gain
social positions that are accorded by the established members of that world. Such “positional
identities” (Holland et al, 2001, p. 125) are inextricably entangled with power, status and rank.
Alongside positional identities, there is a set of appropriate dispositions. How novices choose to
accept, engage, resist or ignore such dispositional cues shape their developing identity-in-practice
and determines the boundaries of their authoring space, which is driven by a sense of agency. In
the struggle to establish an identity in a new figured world, the other worlds in which one
simultaneously inhabits also influence their identity work. The girls in our study are not only
science students in school, they are also legitimate members of other out of school figured worlds,
and their memberships have bearing on what identities-in-practice they can author in school
science. Thus, in moment-to-moment interactions within figured worlds, girls are simultaneously
identifying as, and also being identified by other figured world members as particular persons in
specific contexts. The relationship between identity work and figured worlds illustrates three
important points that we have seen in our work with girls:1) the fluid nature of possible selves (or
identities-in-practice one narrates); 2) the influences across figured worlds in which one has
concurrent membership; and 3) the dialogic interactions between girls and the power structures of
the figured world inherent in contentious local struggles that impact the work of girls’ identities-
in-practice authoring. For example, we have shown how a Latina 6th grader Amelia’s identity-in-