Theorizing science-civic practices: Youth adaptation and remixing of scientific numeracies within digital civic media

Abstract

Informed civic engagement has long been a goal of science education. Yet, how youth civically engage using science—what knowledge and practices they draw on, when, how, and for what purposes—remains largely unknown. By examining youth civic digital media production around climate change and COVID-19, we shed light on this area. We view both scientific and civic engagement through the theoretical lens of social practice, which locates learning, knowledge, and cognition within culturally embedded social activities. With this theoretical disposition, we examined media produced by youth during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, asking: (1) What scientific numeracies did youth use in civic participation about climate change and COVID-19? And (2) In what ways did youth adapt and/or remix canonical scientific numeracies within their digital civic media production? Through qualitative coding of 249 media pieces, we identified ways in which youth engaged and adapted scientific civic numeracies. We found that youth often adapted canonical forms of numeracy, integrated or “remixed” scientific numeracies with other knowledges such as those of place and politics, and interwove multiple numeracies. We begin to theorize science-civic practices, or the locally-meaningful ways of participating and meaning-making that interweave multiple literacies used to advance one's civic aims. We use our findings to argue for the imperative of bringing the civic world into the science classroom.