Hi Kelsey, 

Thank you for your kind comment! The community ethnography drives both the making process and what gets made. Adult-facilitators in the program are mindful to cede agency to the youth as much as possible. One way we do that is inviting adults from the youths' communities, who are insiders more than the adult-facilitators, to join in discussions or to give feedback to the youths' making process and design-features. As to how we are measuring the impact of CE, we're tracking (more than measuring) how specific pieces of feedback given by particular community members inform particular action-moves of the youth-makers, and what community-related data youth invoke when they  explain the how, what, why and for-whom of their projects. 

Hi Rebecca: Thank you for your comments! By consequential we suggest that making opportunities leverage upon advancing STEM learning and participation towards transformative outcomes aimed at addressing systemic inequalities, such as supporting youth agency to make in ways that matter to them and their communities while also disrupting power dynamics in STEM and in making. Other transformative outcomes include expanding youth’s social networks for making, in ways that promote greater inclusivity through engaging with a wider range of stakeholders (e.g., peers, families, community, STEM experts), and viewing making as happening across scales of activity – such as how making involves local projects that project new discourses onto the field. Hope this helps! Angie

Hi Andee, 

Thank you for your comments and for viewing our video. The community ethnography process is fluid and progresses differently with different group of youth. Typically we talk as a whole group about what issue is salient and what kinds of questions to ask the community about it. So for example when we were exploring how to build different kinds of toys in the making space, we also discussed the access to toys in the community. The youth came up with a few questions (usually between 3 to 5) for the first survey activity and then we look at the data together as a big group. Sometimes youth share their videos of their interviews and we unpack that together, sometimes youth report out and everyone chimes in. They then use that data to decide on what to make (different kinds of toys) and they dialogue again with community members about that decision and get feedback, in an iterative process. As to how much data is "enough", from our experience it has been a combination of the youth-makers and community members coming to some consensus about the design or youth-makers themselves arriving at a vision of what they can do, informed by community feedback. Of course, time plays a part too, but in these settings we have the luxury of more flexibility. 

Hope that helps!

Edna & Angie

Hi Shelly, 

Thank you for visiting our video and for your comments. We're heading over to check out your video!

Edna & Angie

Hi Erica,

Thank you for your comments and viewing the video! Answers to your questions:

1. This particular project is with community organizations - at NC we partner with one of the Boys and Girls club and a refugee community center; at MI we partner with a Boys and Girls club and a community science museum that has a youth-designed makerspace with open access to youth in the neighborhood (science museum entry fees waived). So we are in 4 community spaces with this project. Youth choose to participate voluntarily. In at least 2 of the sites we have been there for years so the program is regarded as a long-term club-program now. Many siblings of youth join as a result. Community staff members recommend youth to us. The program has showcases throughout the year at the club spaces so other youth can see what is going on and some decide to join the program. 

2. Community ethnography largely drives what making projects youth will take on. We do come to the table with a few themes to jump-start discussions with the youth before they figure out if there is "traction" so to speak. Sometimes the youth bring up projects they want to do. They will change directions, or winnow to something specific. For example, a group of youth asked if they could learn to build apps. We discussed why, what and for whom to build the apps, which youth figured out through community ethnography. Through interviewing different peers at the club (about 200 attend daily), very different needs and wishes were solicited, and the youth then talked as a large group and with their partners about what kind of app they would build,  for whom and why. One youth made an anti-bullying app (featured in the video) and his focus was anonymity of the informer, because of the 2 long interviews he conducted about subsequent bullying that occurs when one is caught being a "snitch." Another group of girls made a dance app with different dance routines for ballet, hip hop and stretching specifically for the group of kids at their club who are involved in cheerleading and dance. 

As far as "measuring", I think we do trace the impact in terms of directionality, nuts and bolts of the project - why youth made particular decisions, used particular resources, etc, that are informed by or continue to be facilitated by community ethnography. At another grain size, we are interested in seeing how youths' making practices change/evolve as they become adapt at community ethnography, and the impact of that on the evolving making culture in these spaces.

Thanks again for your questions!

Edna & Angie

Thanks Maureen!