“The strawberry in the pot that became something” – entanglements of bodies, materials, and affect in science activities supported by a community organization

ABSTRACT

Background

A move beyond static and representational accounts of science learning and becoming through relations is needed.

Purpose

In this paper extra-learning activities in science offered by a community organization to an elementary class over one academic school year are assessed in light of their contributions to science learning and becoming. The latter is explored through a theoretical grounding and focus on the entanglements of bodies, materials, and affect. In doing so, the paper speaks to the affective turn in science education. The study is grounded in a non-representational and subjective reading of the work affect is doing yet also attends to the role of materials and bodies within that process, speaking to materialism, embodiment, and dignity.

Sample

One elementary school class, participating in a one-year long activity assumed by a community organization (CO).

Design & Method

Data was collected through a video ethnography of the science activities assumed by the CO. Through interaction analysis, telling moments of joint-engagement in science were analysed by centering body-material-affect entanglements. By juxtaposing these moments with background information from interviews of the teacher and the instructor, a bricolage of data sources led to narratives presented as three stories.

Results

Making evident entanglements through three stories, the paper offers insights into ways non-representational embodied and material forms of learning and becoming can be studied and documented and the insights they might offer into understanding learning and becoming in science. The stories speak to the kind of work entanglements make evident in terms of lived affect in science but also moments of relations between participants and dignity affirming or undermining work in science learning and becoming.

Conclusion

More studies are needed to engage with body-material entanglements in and through affect and report on the manner affect supports dignifying forms of engagement with science.

KEYWORDS:

• Entanglements
• materials
• affect
• science learning
• science identity

Acknowledgments

I thank the research team for their help with data collection and analysis and the financial support from (to be added). We also thank the participating youth, teacher and instructor and community organization for their collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.