Jr�ne Rahm

Canada

Educational Psychologist and Professor Universit� de Montr�al, Canada

Jr�ne Rahm is an Educational Psychologist and full Professor at the Universit� de Montr�al, Canada. She brings a cultural perspective to children and youths� learning and identity development in science, at the intersection of formal and informal education. Through multisited and longitudinal studies and a space-time lens, she explores minoritized immigrant youths� complex navigations of community organizations, gardens, and other educational venues. That interest led her to document counter-spaces and educational pathways driven by equity and social justice with youth. Her work with Inuit youth and families in Nunavik and Nunavut, with a focus on Inuit led community and environmental stewardship projects, led to the joint-documentation of their contributions to lifelong learning. This project led to an interest in navigations among epistemologies and a new vision of what the building of respectful relations in research implies. She is also invested in finding ways to leverage practices in community organizations for teacher training through University-community partnerships. She has published widely, serves on the editorial board of Cultural Studies of Science Education and Mind, Culture and Activity. Her work is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Fonds de Recherche du Qu�bec - Soci�t� et Culture.

Abstract

A Mobility Lens to the Study of Learning and Identity Pathways in STEM of Youth, Teachers, and Community Partners: Tools for the Joint-Design of Equity Driven Innovative Science Learning and Teacher Education

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Through two research imaginaries I make the case for studying learning and identity in movement, resulting in an understanding and deep appreciation of the complex pathways and learning lives of youth, teachers, and community partners engaged in joint projects. I show in what ways learning and becoming in and through relations in STEM is a lifelong process made up of a web of trails marked by historical, social, political, economic and cultural constraints and processes of power. I draw on evidence from two research studies: one is situated in a formal high school context and the other one in an informal, community context in the Northern part of Canada.

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In the first study, a coding project, mediated by a local NGO, I attend to the joint-work of making and how that process is marked by students� personal histories, but also local conscientious practice. I also show in what ways a mobility lens leads to an understanding of the project�s contribution to lifelong learning of the involved students, teacher, and community partners. In the second study, a community-led program in Inuit Nunangat, I attend to mobilities among epistemologies and axiologies. I attend to the manner the locally driven program led to the revitalization of land-based observational practices deeply grounded in and emergent from Inuit ways of knowing, doing, and being. Learning and becoming in this case is marked by complex navigations among epistemologies and axiologies, with learning and becoming implying a nonlinear and lifelong process, not attached in any manner to a final destination but instead, ongoing forms of transformations and agency for the common good. In light of the two examples, I discuss how a mobility lens provides us with new tools to reimagine the joint-design of innovative science learning and teacher education deeply committed to equity and social justice.

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