Edna Tan

  • Assistant Professor
  • Teacher Education and Higher Education, UNCG
  • e_tan@uncg.edu
  • (336) 256-0422
  • 103-B Curry Building

**Education: Columbia University in the City of New York, Ph.D. in Science Education, December 2006--Teachers College, Columbia University, Masters in Science Education, Ed.M., May 2003-- Nanyang Technological University, National institute of Education, Postgraduate Diploma in Education, August 1998--National University of Singapore, School of Biological Sciences, Bachelor of Science Honors (second division upper) July 1997

There are 27 included publications by Edna Tan :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Becoming in STEM: Developing a Culture of Criticality in the Space Between Person and Institution 2020 417 In this article we present a study of a youth, Fall, tracing her STEM engagement from grade 5 through high school, across STEM spaces both formal and informal, utilizing critical, longitudinal ethnography. Drawing from social practice and critical ju...
Beyond Equity as Inclusion: A Framework of “Rightful Presence” for Guiding Justice-Oriented Studies in Teaching and Learning 2020 1645 Current discourses of equity in teaching and learning are framed around calls for inclusion, grounded in the extension of a set of static rights for high-quality learning opportunities for all students. This essay presents a rightful presence framewo...
Collaboratively engineering for justice in sixth grade STEM 2021 165 In this article, it is argued that processes of co-production can support teachers and students inorganizing resources for justice through science learning. Drawing upon a critical justiceconceptual framework, critical ethnographic data from one urba...
Creating hybrid spaces for engaging school science among urban middle school girls 2008 2878 The middle grades are a crucial time for girls in making decisions about how or if they want to follow science trajectories. In this article, the authors report on how urban middle school girls enact meaningful strategies of engagement in science cla...
Critically engaging engineering in place by localizing counternarratives in engineering design 2019 1211 In this manuscript, we use the construct of critical epistemologies of place to frame our exploration of how to support engineering design among youth who have historically been marginalized from the domain, and its implications for educational setti...
Designing for Rightful Presence in STEM: The Role of Making Present Practices 2019 1486 Opportunities to learn in consequential ways are shaped by the historicized injustices students encounter in relation to participation in STEM and schooling. In this article, it is argued that the construct of rightful presence, and the coconstructed...
Desiring a career in STEM-related fields: How middle school girls articulate and negotiate identities-in-practice in science 2013 327 The underrepresentation of non-White students and girls in STEM fields is an ongoing problem that is well documented. In K-12 science education, girls, and especially non-White girls, often do not identify with science regardless of test scores. In t...
Engineering for sustainable communities: Epistemic tools in support of equitable and consequential middle school engineering 2019 1326 This study is focused on engineering for sustainable communities (EfSC) in three middle school classrooms. Three in-depth case studies are presented that explore how two related EfSC epistemic toolsets—(a) community engineering and ethnography tools ...
Framing equity through a closer examination of critical science agency 2019 372 Science for all has been touted as the primary path to equity in science education in the USA. We argue that without attention to the power imbalances that both create and sustain dominant views of science education; such an approach is not equity-or...
From peripheral to central, the story of Melanie’s metamorphosis in an urban middle school science class 2008 3003 Identity formation is a critical dimension of how and why students engage in science to varying degrees. In this paper, we use the lens of identity formation, and in particular identities in practice, to make sense of how and why Melanie, over the co...
Funds of Knowledge and Discourses and Hybrid Space 2009 8107 The findings reported on in this manuscript emerged from a design experiment conducted at a low-income urban middle school intended to support the teacher in incorporating pedagogical practices supportive of students‘ everyday knowledge and practices...
How do middle school girls of color develop STEM identities? Middle school girls’ participation in science activities and identification with STEM careers 2019 681 This study explores ways to support girls of color in forming their senses of selves in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) during the middle school years. Guided by social practice theory, we analyzed a large data set of survey respons...
Internalization of Aeromonas hydrophila by fish epithelial cells can be inhibited with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor 1998 3357 Aeromonas hydrophila is a Gram-negative bacterium that is pathogenic in fish, causing motile aeromonad septicaemia. It can enter (invade) fish cells, and survive as an intracellular parasite. The host-pathogen interaction and signal transduction path...
“It Changed Our Lives”: Activism, Science, and Greening the Community 2010 3677 Drawing upon critically oriented studies of science literacy and environmental justice, we posit a framework for activism in science education. To make our case, we share a set of narratives on how the River City Youth Club acquired a new green roof....
A Longitudinal Study of Equity-Oriented STEM-Rich Making Among Youth From Historically Marginalized Communities 2018 1181 The maker movement has evoked interest for its role in breaking down barriers to STEM learning. However, few empirical studies document how youth are supported over time in STEM-rich making projects or their outcomes. This longitudinal critical ethno...
One World: Refugee youth incubating epistemologies toward rightful presence with/in community-driven STEM 2023 211 This study investigates how recently resettled refugee youth took up STEM-rich making experiences at an after-school community club in relation to negotiating their resettlement process. Using critical participatory ethnography grounded in sustained ...
Redefining entrepreneurialism in the maker movement: A critical youth approach 2020 405 Background: This paper explores traditional iterations of, and new challenges to, the tightly linked discourses of entrepreneurship and innovation within the maker movement. Methods: In a yearlong critical ethnographic study with 12 youth makers, we ...
Rethinking High-Leverage Practices in Justice-Oriented Ways 2021 375 Justice-oriented teaching must address how classroom-based disciplinary learning is shaped by interactions among local practice and systems of privilege and oppression. Our work advances current scholarship on high-leverage practices [HLPs] by emphas...
Supporting Teacher Visioning of Justice-Oriented Engineering in the Middle Grades 2021 91 There are well-documented justice-related issues in engineering education. How do teachers begin to develop a way of seeing forward in their teaching, both in how they understand their role and their hoped-for outcomes for students, in ways that brid...
Teaching & learning in makerspaces: equipping teachers to become justice-oriented maker-educators 2021 818 Making and makerspaces are becoming increasingly popular in K-12 schools. However, professional development on making for practicing teachers is under researched. We present case studies of two teachers’ sensemaking of making in a one semester gradua...
Towards Critical Justice: Exploring Intersectionality in Community-based STEM-rich Making with Youth from Non-dominant Communities 2018 2356 We investigated how community ethnography as a pedagogy approach to STEM-rich making supported youth makers from two low-income urban communities engaged in sustained STEM-rich making towards making a difference in their communities. Data is drawn fr...
Transforming Science Learning and Student Participation in Sixth Grade Science: A Case Study of a Low-Income, Urban, Racial Minority Classroom 2009 4746 Recent criticisms of the goal of “science for all” with regard to minority students have alluded to the onerous culture of school science characterized by white, middle-class values that eschew personal everyday science experiences and nontraditional...
Twinning iterative design with community cultural wealth: Toward a locally-grounded, expansive maker culture 2019 194 Drawing upon critical justice studies and critical ethnographies in two community-centered makerspaces, we build an argument for how designing for expanded iterations that repeatedly draw from community cultural wealth, supported youth-makers and com...
Unpacking science for all through the lens of identities-in-practice: The stories of Amelia & Ginny 2008 2509 This manuscript reports on an ethnographic study of two Latina students who attended an urban middle school in a low-income community, and how they exhibit agency by purposefully authoring identities-in-practice that value nontraditional ways of know...
“We actually made something and solved a problem”: Exploring relationships between middle school engineering culture and girls' engineering experiences 2022 100 As historically construed, both engineering culture and school science culture marginalize girls.With the focus on engineering in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), engineeringeducation researchers have called for a more targeted investiga...
We Be Burnin'! Agency, Identity, and Science Learning 2010 6929 This article investigates the development of agency in science among low-income urban youth aged 10 to 14 as they participated in a voluntary year-round program on green energy technologies conducted at a local community club in a midwestern city. Fo...
Youth Enacting Social-Spatial Justice in Middle School STEM: Advancing Justice Work in Hyperlocal and Interscalar Ways 2022 366 While issues of (in)justice in K12 STEM learning have garnered increasing attention, limited research has attended to learning as social-spatial transformation. We draw upon a justice-oriented framework of equitably consequential learning to call att...