Research has indicated that students can exhibit different levels of engagement with science that depend on the context in which learning takes place. This paper describes a study of how engagement in science can be fostered within the context of a community-based after-school science program targeted at Burmese refugee youth. We adapted the framework of material, relational, and ideational resources proposed by Nasir and Cooks (2009) to analyze how the refugee students utilized these after-school resources. We applied multimodal transcription techniques to ethnographic data to analyze interactions between students in the sample population. Multimodal transcription is a way of analyzing observational data that accounts for language, gaze, body posture, gesture, use of images, proxemics and all other modes that constitute a communicative activity. Analysis revealed multiple examples of how minoritized learners used resources to foster engagement productively in the after-school setting. The goal of this study was to supplement existing research that primarily focused on language acquisition and youths' traumatic experiences as refugees, but did not address key issues in disciplinary learning. Our work is based on the assumption that leveraging insights gained from the after-school settings and applying them into formal school contexts could be an effective way to engage minoritized youth towards science learning. Moreover, the use of multimodal analysis in analyzing multilingual youths' science engagement can expand current understandings of how youth engage beyond solely verbal avenues

Investigating productive science engagement of resettled Burmese refugee youth in an afterschool program

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.