Serendipitous science engagement: A family self‐ethnography

Abstract

While opportunities for spontaneous, undesigned, serendipitous science engagement (SSE) are abundant and evidence regarding its affordances is accumulating, little is known about its nature. In this paper, I present a model defining and identifying SSE, which consists of a personal and a contextual continuum. To explore the nature of family SSE, I analyzed a 66‐minute case, obtained through self‐ethnography, of three children and a mother engaging with bugs they discovered in their backyard. Employing the “language games” approach, the analysis elucidates how the absence of designated goals enabled legitimate multiple language‐games over relatively long periods of time, with one game supporting the other. It also reveals delayed uptake, in which children appear to ignore scientific practice or content, while they are actually picking up ideas that they later use to engage with science. Examining processes of guided participation reveals that it entailed authentic modeling and gradual participation in the sense‐making game, without abandoning other games. I discuss implications for science learning and for learning theory more broadly, including parents’ role in SSE, issues of time for and in SSE, and guided participation in academic activities lacking designated goals. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54: 350–378, 2017

Science identity trajectories throughout school visits to a science museum

“…Vedder‐Weiss () has suggested a model for classifying engagement in informal settings that accounts for both choice and structure. We use this model to classify the different settings in the museum.…”

“Won't you give up your snack for the sake of science?” Emerging science identities in family everyday interaction

“…Thus, people identify and are identified as members or nonmembers of a community (or as a “kind of person,” Gee, , p. 99) through their interaction with others. To study science identity in family life, I therefore take the family to be a community of practice, in which children are novices participating in scientific practices alongside their parents (or siblings), who may act as experts (Vedder‐Weiss, ). Through such shared participation, the children learn the family's science practice and shape their science identities.…”

“…The analysis revealed that over the course of the year, the family engaged with science in a wide array of settings, from educationally designed settings, such as visits to science centers and zoos, to undesigned settings (Vedder‐Weiss, ), such as dinnertime and strolling in the streets (Table ). Scientific content (Table ) also varied significantly, including all STEM domains (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Technology, Engineering, and occasionally also Math) and focusing on both abstract objects (e.g., a discussion of the concept of gravity) and concrete objects (e.g., a dry patch spotted in the grass during a walk to the store).…”

“…They engaged in various scientific and engineering practices (Table ), such as developing, using, and communicating models (e.g., when designing paper guns), analyzing and interpreting data (e.g., when examining bean germination in differing conditions), and evidence‐based argumentation (e.g., when arguing about why certain kangaroo species reproduced “here” but not elsewhere). It is noteworthy that many interactions consisted mainly of searching, finding, and pointing at objects (e.g., animals), collaboratively noticing and directing each other's gaze (Azevedo & Mann, ), without much scientific practice beyond that (Vedder‐Weiss, ). These were accompanied by many what questions (e.g., what is it?)…”

“… For a more extensive discussion of methodological issues related to self‐ethnography, see Vedder‐Weiss ().…”