Stories from a Summer Camp for Girls in Design, Media & Technology
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EMPOWERING GIRLS AS CHANGE MAKERS IN MAKER CULTURE: STORIES FROM A SUMMER CAMP FOR GIRLS IN DESIGN, MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY by PAULA MACDOWELL B.Ed, The University of Regina, 1995 MET, The University of British Columbia, 2007 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Curriculum Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2015 © Paula MacDowell, 2015 ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates how girls develop new affinities towards and capabilities in media and technology. Thirty co-researchers, girls aged 10 to 13, were recruited into 101 Technology Fun, a series of summer camps with learning labs in animation, game design, movie production, robotics programming, and web development. The design studio setting, created by the How We Learn (Media & Technology Across the Lifespan) collective, offered girls their own makerspace to explore new roles as media and technology producers. Highlighting the importance for youth voices to be recognized and given influence in the academic research concerning their lives and learning circumstances, the findings focus on the catalytic or generative artifacts and “little stories” (e.g., Lyotard’s petits récits) revealing the co-researchers’ experiences and expressions of girlhood-in- interaction-with-technology (the key unit of analysis). Artifacts are addressed as they relate to stories made or analyzed by the girls, including their concerns, needs, talents, inspiration, literacy, and volition. The artifacts, such as music videos, robotic amusement park, and the momME alternate reality game, are catalytic for storymaking and, symmetrically, the stories are catalytic to artifact production and sharing. Four distinct yet interrelated elements characterize the co-researchers’ fieldwork and designworks: (1) agency (girls having influence and power); (2) ingenuity (girls being clever and inventive); (3) self-interpretation (girls making sense and significance); and (4) self-efficacy (girls believing in or judging their technological capabilities). Findings underscore the matter concerning how, why, and where do girls learn to become innovators, leaders, and producers of media and technology (thereby overturning traditional gender and generational stereotypes)? Indeed, how a group of female youth story ii changes in their sense of technological self-efficacy, self-interpretation, ingenuity, and agency is one of the most important contributions of this study. Another contribution involves the formation of the Tween Empowerment & Advocacy Methodology (TEAM), a design-based and participatory research approach that emphasizes relational ethics through artifact production, storymaking, mind scripting, invention, and imagination. Questions, both guiding and emergent, are articulated in artifact and text to motivate further scholarly inquiry, action, and advocacy, thus generating more opportunities for girls to participate in, design, make, and transform technology culture. iii PREFACE This dissertation is original, unpublished, and independent research by the lead author, Paula MacDowell (formerly Paula Rusnak). As the lead investigator, I designed, conducted, and reported this study with the assistance of Dr. Stephen Petrina, Dr. Franc Feng, Dr. Sandra Scott, and the graduate team of researchers assembled in the How We Learn (Media & Technology Across the Lifespan) lab. Ethics approval for this research was provided by the University of British Columbia Behavioural Research Ethics Board: certificate #H06-80670. All of the artifacts and stories were produced in close collaboration with the 101 Technology Fun co-researchers (thirty girls ages 10 to 13). I remain solely responsible for the content of this dissertation, including any errors or omissions. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ...................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... v List of Tables ......................................................................................................................... viii List of Artifacts ........................................................................................................................ ix List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................ xiii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... xiv Dedication ............................................................................................................................. xvii Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Research purpose ......................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Research problem ......................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Research questions ........................................................................................................6 1.4 Research background and rationale ............................................................................. 7 1.5 Definitions of key terms ............................................................................................. 10 1.6 Definitions of themes in data analysis ....................................................................... 14 1.7 Research design ......................................................................................................... 16 1.8 Research overview ..................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 2: 101 Technology Fun Co-Researchers ................................................................ 25 2.1 Connecting contemporary girl designers to the lengthy herstory of technology ....... 31 2.2 Girls@play with games, technology, and social media ............................................. 40 2.3 Why do we need more girls as the designers and innovators of technology? ........... 50 Chapter 3: Girls-In-Interaction-With-Technology-And-Stories ....................................... 59 3.1 Story Epistemology: Understanding how girls construct knowledge about them- selves and the technology in their lives and worlds .................................................. 61 3.2 Research(ers) in Wonderland: Wonder in Researchland ........................................... 65 v 3.3 Researched participants: Participatory co-researchers ............................................... 68 3.4 Research as story: Story as research .......................................................................... 71 3.5 Troubling clarity: Story, storymaking, and narrative ................................................. 81 3.6 Imagining otherwise ................................................................................................... 88 Chapter 4: Designerly Ways of Researching With (not on) Girls ..................................... 91 4.1 The setting: A maker lab for maker girls ................................................................... 92 4.2 Girls collecting and creating data (artifacts and stories) .......................................... 104 4.3 Girls building upon feminist technology and youth empowerment approaches ...... 113 4.4 Girls assembling the 101 Technology Fun research montage ................................. 121 Chapter 5: Analyzing Stories Concerning Girls, Technology & Design ......................... 128 5.1 Agency: Girls, Influence, Power .............................................................................. 130 5.1.1 What are media girls supposed to do? Seeing ourselves and others ............. 131 5.1.2 From agentive artifacts to destructive expectations of perfection ................ 137 5.1.3 From girls’ QCT to girls’ QCG ..................................................................... 141 5.2 Ingenuity: Girls, Cleverness, Inventiveness ............................................................. 146 5.2.1 Who knew this kind of gameplay could exist? Girls innovating games ......... 147 5.2.2 From technology innovators to technology entrepreneurs ............................ 153 5.3 Self-Interpretation: Girls, Sense, Significance ......................................................... 157 5.3.1 Who says girls aren’t beautiful? And why can't they be smart? ................... 158 5.3.2 From appropriating to remaking girl/media/technology stereotypes ........... 162 5.3.3 From who girls are to what they want to become ......................................... 164 5.4 Self-Efficacy: Girls, Capability, Leadership ............................................................ 168 5.4.1 From thinkering to empowering girls through media and technology .......... 169 5.4.2 What are the changing the roles of girls in media and technology? ............. 175 5.4.3 Why do girls need to know that their ideas and perspectives matter and are significant in media and technology cultures? ........................................ 180 vi Chapter 6: Conclusions,