Disciplinary significance of social caring in postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

Abstract

We analyzed student engagement in physics during a summer course for incoming first-year students, part of a cohort-based learning community designed for students from underrepresented groups in the School of Engineering of a predominantly white institution. The data—video of an episode within the course and interviews of the 11 students one year later about their experiences in the program and the course—support two findings: (i) The students cared for each other, in a social sense, and felt cared for by the instructor, and (ii) the students framed the course as focused on their own reasoning. We argue that the former supported the latter, and we offer this as a conjecture for further study: Social caring can support productive epistemological framing. If this is correct, it would suggest the benefits of aligning what takes place within courses with the socially supportive dynamics of extracurricular cohort-based learning communities.