The purpose of this online paper is to textually
and visually describe how learners become active participants, trying on
a range of gendered attitudes, when studying socio-scientific issues and
using video, the Internet, and computer media as their tools. The study
was conducted at a Vancouver Island school called Bayside
Middle School. Researchers and teachers introduced
the topic of a local endangered rain forest called Clayoquot Sound as a
subject-to-think-with. Over
a two year period, two different classrooms explored the issues, visited
the site, and built a range of paper and artifacts making extensive use
of a variety of media forms. Video and specifically-designed digital video
analysis tools were used by the principal researcher of children's thinking
as her primary research tools. The results of this digital ethnography of
an emerging media culture show that (1) the use of various video-based media
support an interdisciplinary approach to learning within the middle school
curriculum when integrating science, social studies, and the visual arts;
and (2) gender identity in these mediated environments becomes a flexible
construct. Both girls and boys use this media-rich project based learning
environment for genderflexing-crossing boundaries that were previously marked
by our culture as being gender specific. This study shows how girls and
boys, when genderflexing, reach beyond the gender stereotypes tha once selected
or excluded them from making certain forms of inquiry. The reseracher suggests
that these adventures in genderflexing by young peopld whilecontructing
social and scientific knowldeges can lead to a fundamental change in how
disciplinary fields will be constructed in the future.
Gender and Digital Media in the Context of a Middle School Science Project