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"It's always been a challenge, right?" An analysis of the affordances and limitations of STEM educators' attempts to improve gender equity in Global South and North makerspaces

Archer, Louise; Freedman, Esme; Nag Chowdhuri, Meghna; Dewitt, Jennifer; Liu, Qian; Garcia Gonzalez, Francisco; (2025) "It's always been a challenge, right?" An analysis of the affordances and limitations of STEM educators' attempts to improve gender equity in Global South and North makerspaces. Frontiers in Education , 10 , Article 1507424. 10.3389/feduc.2025.1507424. Green open access

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Abstract

Introduction: The longstanding, chronic under-representation of girls/ women and non-binary youth in engineering and computing remains a global concern. Informal STEM learning contexts, such as makerspaces, have the potential and flexibility to engage all young people with STEM in creative, engaging and equitable ways. Yet to date, this potential remains largely un-realized, with many makerspaces remaining ‘chilly’, male-dominated spaces (materially, spatially, relationally and socially). This paper seeks to contribute to understanding of the challenges and possibilities for more gender equitable practice in makerspaces. / Methods: The paper analyses multimodal data collected by academic and youth co-researchers over two years from two Global North and two Global South makerspaces, as part of a collaborative research-practice partnership project. / Results: The paper considers educators’ attempts to evolve and improve gender equitable practice in their settings, shared challenges and barriers to gender equity, steps taken by practitioners to support greater gender equity within their settings (through access/outreach, governance/staffing and pedagogy) and the challenges and blocks they encountered to progress. / Discussion: Implications are discussed for advancing equitable practice to support the participation of girls/ young women and non-binary youth within STEM and makerspaces.

Type: Article
Title: "It's always been a challenge, right?" An analysis of the affordances and limitations of STEM educators' attempts to improve gender equity in Global South and North makerspaces
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1507424
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1507424
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2025 Archer, Freedman, Nag Chowdhuri, DeWitt, Liu and Garcia Gonzalez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Keywords: gender, equity, makerspace, practice, youth, practitioners
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Education, Practice and Society
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Development Planning Unit
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10207245
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