Search results

Relatively few studies have examined the perspectives of informal learning facilitators who play key roles in cultivating an equitable learning environment for nondominant youth and families in making and tinkering spaces. This study aims to foreground the perspectives of facilitators and highlight the complexities and tensions that influence their equity work.

Interviews were conducted with facilitators of making and tinkering spaces across three informal learning organizations: a museum, a public library system and a network of community technology centers. This study then used a framework that examined equity along dimensions of access to what, for whom, based on whose values and toward what ends to analyze both the explicit and implicit conceptions of equity that surfaced in these interviews.

Across organizations, this study identified similarities and differences in facilitators’ conceptualizations of equity that were influenced by their different contexts and had implications for practice at each organization. Highlighting the complexity of enacting equity in practice, this study found moments when dimensions of equity came together in resonant ways, while other moments showed how dimensions can be in tension with each other.

The complexity that facilitators must navigate to enact equity in their practice emphasizes the need for professional development and support for facilitators to deepen their conceptions and practices around equity beyond access – not just skill building in making and tinkering.

This study recognizes the important role that facilitators play in enabling equity-oriented participation in making and tinkering spaces and contributes the “on the ground” perspectives of facilitators to highlight the complexity and tensions of enacting equity in practice.

Many initiatives are seeking to engage children in learning to code. However, few studies have examined how children’s engagement in learning and using coding develops over time. This study aims to seek young people’s perspectives on what they viewed as important in their long-term participation in a coding community.

This study identified youth with a high level of participation and who demonstrated emergent leadership in the Scratch online community. Using methods from qualitative research on youth development, individual interviews were conducted in which these youth were asked about memorable moments in their participation and how these experiences influenced them.

While each young person described a unique pathway and perspective, this study identified key experiences that motivated their participation, influenced their development and inspired their emergent leadership. These experiences included opportunities to learn through exploration, to receive feedback from peers, to engage in creative collaboration and to contribute to the community.

This study discussed these findings in light of previous research on youth development, and it suggests that building on practices and principles from research on youth programs can help more young people become engaged in developing broader skills with coding.

Youth highlighted experiences that enabled them to express their ideas, to build relationships, to help others and to see themselves in new ways. Their perspectives expand beyond the predominant focus of coding initiatives on computational thinking and problem-solving skills to also support social, leadership and identity development.