Urban youths’ hybrid positioning in science practices at the margin: a look inside a school–museum–scientist partnership project and an after-school science program

In what ways do urban youths’ hybridity constitute positioning and engagement in science-as-practice? In what ways are they “hybridizing” and hence surviving in a system that positions them as certain types of learners and within which they come to position themselves often as other than envisioned? To answer these questions, I draw from two ethnographic case studies, one a scientist–museum–school partnership initiative, and the other, an after-school science program for girls only, both serving poor, ethnically and linguistically diverse youth in Montreal, Canada. Through a study of the micro dialectics from the perspective of youth, I show what we can learn from examples of doing science in a formal and informal educational context supportive of marginalized science practices resembling in part, at least, science-as-practice. Through an integration of the findings with current discourses of relevance in science education such as funds of knowledge and youth centered, co-opted science, I contribute to the formulation of a global pedagogy of science education and in particular, what such may imply in the eyes of youth in French Canada.

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