דנה ודר-וייס

Research on science identity development in informal learning environments predominantly demonstrates how these environments afford the construction of science identities. In this chapter, we present a socio-cultural situative approach to identity, review literature that applied such a perspective to explore identity construction in different informal learning environments, and illustrate how we apply it using linguistic ethnographic microanalytic methods to examine in detail co-construction of identity in moment-to-moment interaction. We present three case studies, demonstrating how applying such an approach allowed us to offer a more critical perspective on identity development in different informal settings: (1) the (re)construction of students’ science identities throughout visits to a science museum, (2) emerging science identities in family everyday life, and (3) science teachers’ negotiation of identities related to out-of-classroom teaching. Based on these examples (and others), we suggest future research in informal learning environments could benefit from using linguistic ethnographic microanalysis to study identity trajectories through a situative socio-cultural lens. Such an approach can expose beneath-the-surface structures and processes that might otherwise go unnoticed, advancing a less idyllic view of learning processes in general and identity development in particular.