Maker Movement’: Tracing the Implementation of an Educational Trend Within Public Libraries
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 Situating The ‘maker Movement’: Tracing The Implementation Of An Educational Trend Within Public Libraries Debora Lui University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Communication Commons, and the Instructional Media Design Commons Recommended Citation Lui, Debora, "Situating The ‘maker Movement’: Tracing The Implementation Of An Educational Trend Within Public Libraries" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2448. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2448 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2448 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Situating The ‘maker Movement’: Tracing The Implementation Of An Educational Trend Within Public Libraries Abstract Rising in popularity in last decade, the “Maker Movement” is a technologically enhanced extension of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) movement, which focuses on the use of novel technologies such as 3-D printers and microcontrollers for the creation of personalized projects. In addition to commercial growth within this area, educational practitioners and researchers have also embraced making, often heralding as the best new way of revitalizing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education in the United States. With the explosion of maker-based programs for youth ranging from university classes to after-school programs, most research on educational making focuses on the question of learning and pedagogy. This dissertation, however, takes a broader look at these processes by attempting to understand the institutional and sociological contexts in which this educational trend is implemented. Through a 16-month ethnography of two educational maker programs within a suburban and urban library, I examine how the structures and concepts behind Maker Movement are actively and continually translated into on-the-ground practice. As I detail, this involves both the initial negotiation of particular human and non-human actors, as well as an active maintenance of these programs through practices that I describe as ‘hustling’ for support, and producing ‘spin’ for outside audiences. While these acts are often veiled from the popular view of educational making, I argue that these ‘behind the scenes’ activities are foundational to practice of making. Not only do these help shape what (and how) maker activity means to participants and facilitators, but also actively shifts the nature of these libraries as institutions of public education and service. Only by understanding and acknowledging these processes, I argue, can we come to realize the potential of educational making as a productive force in the world. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Communication First Advisor Carolyn Marvin Keywords Digital Literacy, DIY, Hacking, Libraries, Making, Technology Subject Categories Communication | Education | Instructional Media Design This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2448 SITUATING THE ‘MAKER MOVEMENT’: TRACING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN EDUCATIONAL TREND WITHIN PUBLIC LIBRARIES Debora Lui A DISSERTATION in Communication and Education Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Supervisor of Dissertation: _____________________________________ Carolyn Marvin, Ph.D. Frances Yates Professor of Communication Graduate Group Chairperson, Communication Graduate Group Chairperson, Education ________________________________ ________________________________ Joseph Turow, Ph.D. J. Matthew Hartley, Ed.D. Professor of Communication Professor of Education Dissertation Committee: Carolyn Marvin, Ph.D. Frances Yates Professor of Communication Yasmin B. Kafai, Ed.D. Professor of Education John L. Jackson, Jr. Ph.D. Richard Perry Professor of Communication, Anthropology, and Africana Studies Guobin Yang, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Communication and Sociology SITUATING THE ‘MAKER MOVEMENT’: TRACING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN EDUCATIONAL TREND WITHIN PUBLIC LIBRARIES COPYRIGHT 2016 Debora Ann-Ling Lui This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ iii ABSTRACT SITUATING THE ‘MAKER MOVEMENT’: TRACING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN EDUCATIONAL TREND WITHIN PUBLIC LIBRARIES Debora Lui Carolyn Marvin Rising in popularity in last decade, the “Maker Movement” is a technologically enhanced extension of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) movement, which focuses on the use of novel technologies such as 3-D printers and microcontrollers for the creation of personalized projects. In addition to commercial growth within this area, educational practitioners and researchers have also embraced making, often heralding as the best new way of revitalizing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education in the United States. With the explosion of maker-based programs for youth ranging from university classes to after-school programs, most research on educational making focuses on the question of learning and pedagogy. This dissertation, however, takes a broader look at these processes by attempting to understand the institutional and sociological contexts in which this educational trend is implemented. Through a 16-month ethnography of two educational maker programs within a suburban and urban library, I examine how the structures and concepts behind Maker Movement are actively and continually translated into on-the-ground practice. As I detail, this involves both the initial negotiation of particular human and non-human actors, as well as an active maintenance of these programs through practices that I describe as ‘hustling’ for support, and producing ‘spin’ for outside audiences. While these acts are often veiled from the iv popular view of educational making, I argue that these ‘behind the scenes’ activities are foundational to practice of making. Not only do these help shape what (and how) maker activity means to participants and facilitators, but also actively shifts the nature of these libraries as institutions of public education and service. Only by understanding and acknowledging these processes, I argue, can we come to realize the potential of educational making as a productive force in the world. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... iii CHAPTER 1 Introducing the Maker Movement: Thinking through the Implementation of Educational Maker Programs ................... 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Statement of Problem and Rationale ............................................................................... 5 Research Questions and Discussion .............................................................................. 11 Study Design and Research Methodology ..................................................................... 14 The Larger Context – the Maker ‘Network’ ............................................................... 14 The Sites – CreateSpace and Maker Jawn ................................................................. 19 Participant-Observation and Interviews .................................................................... 22 Data Analysis – Tracing the Associations ................................................................. 25 Outline of the Dissertation ............................................................................................. 29 CHAPTER 2 Examining the Trend: Exploring the Concepts behind the Maker Movement and Educational Making ..... 36 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 36 The Maker Movement “Ethos” ...................................................................................... 38 Entrepreneurialism and the “New Industrial Revolution” ........................................ 39 Crafting and the Nostalgic Dynamics of Making ....................................................... 44 The Politics of Hacking and Making .......................................................................... 52 Learning in the Maker Movement ................................................................................. 60 Locating Educational Making .................................................................................... 60 Researching Learning within Educational Making ................................................... 62 Educational Making as an ‘Informal’ Enterprise ...................................................... 66 The Educational Purpose of Makerspaces ................................................................. 71 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 78 CHAPTER 3 Establishing the Trend: The Mechanics of Implementing an Educational Maker Program ............................ 79 Vignette – An Afternoon at Kensington Branch Library .............................................. 79 Introduction ...................................................................................................................