The underrepresentation of non-White students and girls in STEM fields is an ongoing problem that is well documented. In K-12 science education, girls, and especially non-White girls, often do not identify with science regardless of test scores. In this study, we examine the narrated and embodied identitiesin-practice of non-White, middle school girls who articulate future career goals in STEM-related fields. For these girls who desire an STEM-related career, we examine the relationships between their narrated and embodied identities-in-practice. Drawing on interview and ethnographic data in both school and after school science contexts, we examine how STEM-career minded middle school girls articulate and negotiate a path for themselves through their narratives and actions. We present four types of relationships between girls' narrated and embodied identities-in-practice, each with a representative case study: (1) partial overlaps, (2) significant overlaps, (3) contrasting, and (4) transformative. The implications of these relationships with regard to both hurdles and support structures that are needed to equip and empower girls in pursuit of their STEM trajectories are discussed. #

Instructional tasks are key features of classroom practice, but little is known about how different components of tasks-such as selecting or designing tasks for a lesson, launching, and implementing them with students-shape the conditions for students' intellectual engagement in science classrooms. Employing a qualitative multiple case study approach, we analyzed 57 science lessons taught by 19 first-year teachers. We examined the potential for students' intellectual work built into the tasks across the phases of instruction, and how the demand of the unfolding task deepened (or failed to deepen) students' engagement in science. The findings suggest the importance of beginning a lesson with high quality instructional tasks-complex tasks that bear appropriate levels of epistemic uncertainty for a particular group of students in a particular moment. Beginning a lesson with high quality tasks; however, was insufficient by itself to ensure rigorous learning opportunities. With the use of complex tasks, higher quality opportunities to learn were observed in lessons in which: (i) the tasks were framed as a process of understanding contextualized phenomena; (ii) the specific disciplinary concepts in the task were related to big science ideas that transcended the activities themselves; and (iii) students' implementation of these tasks were structured using tools that supported changes in thinking. #

This study examines the ways in which teachers provide students with written scaffolds in assessment tasks and the impact of these on students' abilities to demonstrate a core disciplinary proficiency-constructing evidence-based explanations. Data include 76 assessment tasks designed by 33 science teachers and 707 samples of student work. We found five types of scaffolding embedded in assessments that allowed students to make their reasoning explicit: (a) using contextualized phenomena, (b) rubrics, (c) checklists, (d) sentence frames, and (e) encouraging students to draw explanatory models in combination with written explanation. Analyses showed that all five forms of scaffolding were significantly associated with the quality of student explanation even when controlling for teacher variance and student background. Providing contextualized phenomena had the greatest impact on the quality of student explanations, both by itself and in combination with other scaffolding. The results indicate that strategic combinations of scaffolds can prompt students across all achievement levels to more readily use what they know to produce evidence-based explanations, but that the scaffolding must be of high quality.

This study explores ways to support girls of color in forming their senses of selves in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) during the middle school years. Guided by social practice theory, we analyzed a large data set of survey responses (n = 1,821) collected at five middle schools in lowincome communities across four states in the United States. Analyses focus on the extent to which key constructs that inform girls' development of senses of self and relations among those indicators of STEM identities varied by their race/ethnicity. Though the means of indicators sometimes varied across racial/ethnic groups, multigroup structural equation modeling analyses indicate no significant racial/ ethnic differences in the relations of STEM identities, suggesting that similar supports would be equally effective for all girls during the middle school years. Girls' selfperception in relation to science was the strongest predictor of their identification with STEM-related careers, and this self-perception was positively and distinctively associated with their experiences with science at home, outside of school, and in school science classes. This study argues for strategically expanding girls' experiences with science across multiple settings during middle school in a way that increases their positive self-perception in and with STEM. Science Education. 2019;103:418-439. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/sce 418 |

Background/Context There are few examples from classrooms or the literature that provide a clear vision of teaching that simultaneously promotes rigorous disciplinary activity and is responsive to all students. Maintaining rigorous and equitable classroom discourse is a worthy goal, yet there is no clear consensus of how this actually works in a classroom. Focus of Study What does highly rigorous and responsive talk sound like and how is this dialogue embedded in the social practices and activities of classrooms? Our aim was to examine student and teacher interactions in classroom episodes (warm-ups, small-group conversations, whole-group conversation, etc.) and contribute to a growing body of research that specifies equity in classroom practice. Research Design This mixed-method study examines differences in discourse within and across classroom episodes (warm-ups, small-group conversations, whole-group conversation, etc.) that elevated, or failed to elevate, students’ explanatory rigor in equitable ways. Data include 222 secondary science lessons (1,174 episodes) from 37 novice teachers. Lessons were videotaped and analyzed for the depth of students’ explanatory talk and the quality of responsive dialogue. Findings The findings support three statistical claims. First, high levels of rigor cannot be attained in classrooms where teachers are unresponsive to students’ ideas or puzzlements. Second, the architecture of a lesson matters. Teachers and students engaging in highly rigorous and responsive lessons turned potentially trivial episodes (such as warm-ups) of science activity into robust learning experiences, connected to other episodes in the same lesson. Third, episodes featuring one or more forms of responsive talk elevated rigor. There were three forms of responsive talk observed in classrooms: building on students’ science ideas, attending to students’ participation in the learning community, and folding in students’ lived experiences. Small but strategic moves within these forms were consequential for supporting rigor. Conclusions/Recommendations This paper challenges the notion that rigor and responsiveness are attributes of curricula or individual teachers. Rigorous curriculum is necessary but not sufficient for ambitious and equitable science learning experiences; the interactions within the classroom are essential for sustaining the highest quality of scientific practice and sense-making. The data supported the development of a framework that articulates incremental differences in supporting students’ explanatory rigor and three dimensions of responsiveness. We describe implications for using this framework in the design of teacher programs and professional development models.