Making connections: Exploring culturally embedded making practices and perceptions (Work in Progress)

Abstract

Since 2006, the exponential growth of the Maker Movement has catalyzed the development of tools, spaces, programs, and events that allow people to engage in activities and processes that have clear links to STEM learning1,2, and in particular, engineering skills, knowledge, and ways of thinking3. Informal learning environments, such as museums, science centers, and libraries, have increasingly embraced these practices4, setting up Maker spaces, advancing Making activities, and sharing practices across institutions, through informal conversations and meetings and also through workshops and sessions at national conferences5. While Maker activities and events have been shown to be quite successful at attracting traditional informal STEM learning audiences - commonly white, male, and middle/upper-middle class - to an expansive range of design-based activities, emerging leaders in the Maker Movement have identified a need to better engage a broader range of participants, including people of color6,7,8. As can be the case with other informal STEM learning experiences9, members of communities of color may not identify with - or even be aware of - the Maker Movement and the Maker Community as it currently exists. This lack of awareness and connection to the Maker Community by members of traditionally underrepresented audiences may become a growing challenge for the STEM community, particularly because Making is being championed by educational leaders across the country - as well as the White House and President Obama himself - as a catalyst for developing interest and understanding in STEM. Indeed, if Making is to be acknowledged as a prominent pathway to science and engineering careers, then it is increasingly problematic for it to be yet another context in which the persistent underrepresentation of women and people of color tends to be reified - despite, of course, the fact that all communities and cultures have been engaged in design and generative practices throughout history and circumstance. In seeking to contribute to the knowledge base about how to better engage underrepresented groups - and in particular, people of color - in Making, the Making Connections project has three goals: 1) to better understand the perceptions people of color may hold about Making; 2) to better understand the culturally-embedded making practices that people of color may engage in, and 3) to leverage the themes identified in parts 1 and 2 to develop a range of museum-based Making activities that may be more inclusive of, and engaging for, members of underrepresented communities. In this paper, we focus on the first two goals of the project, and present preliminary findings from our exploratory data.