CRAFT Network

Coordinating Research for Critical Making Cultures and Practices brings together scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of equity and interdisciplinary making in STEM education. Our driving purpose is to collectively broaden STEM participation in the United States through pursuing common research questions, sharing resources, and incubating emergent inquiry and knowledge across multiple working sites of practice. Making learning spaces can be particularly fruitful spaces for STEM learning toward equity because they foster what we call critical creative inquiry: interest-driven, collective, and community-oriented learning in making for social and community change. Equitable processes are rooted in a commitment to understand and build on the skills, practices, values, and brilliance of communities marginalized in STEM; providing opportunities for high quality life-long learning across multiple spaces; and actively working to position learners as knowledgeable and creative individuals already situated in intellectually and culturally rich communities. The network aims to build capacity for research and knowledge, building in consequential and far-reaching mechanisms to leverage combined efforts of a core group of scholars, practitioners, and an extended network of formal and informal education partners in urban and rural sites serving people from groups underrepresented in STEM.

Grant # 2005898