This study investigates the stories of youth makers who participated in the Making for Change (M4C) program at a community-based makerspace. The purpose of this study is to understand what an equity-oriented makerspace might look like and why it matters to youth learning, identity, and agency by foregrounding the voices and experiences of youth makers. I conducted three interrelated studies to achieve this goal. The first study explores how and why young people frame engineering problems in a community-based makerspace within the discourse of public good—where learning STEM involves a commitment to community sustainability, and the incorporation of green energy technologies into design is situated as a part of larger systemic response to climate change. Using expansive learning theory and a longitudinal ethnographic case study, I examine how and why two youths designed and prototyped a solar-powered cell phone case charger, and how the ways in which the two youths merged their cultural funds of knowledge with engineering design shaped their engineering design work. The second study examines what practices youth engage in at a community-based makerspace, and how and why they engage in such practices. This study also explores what youth engagement in these practices tells us about the design of inclusive makerspaces for youth from non-dominant communities. Using the mobilities of learning theory, this critical ethnographic study explores the stories of two groups of youths engaged in making items that are related to safety and environmental issues in their communities. The third study investigates how youth frame the importance of a youth-centered and community-based makerspace through engaging in Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), and what their engagement in YPAR tells us about their desired identities and practices in making/engineering. Guided by the YPAR framework, this study examines the process and results of a YPAR project involving 16 youths who researched the design features of local makerspaces, then designed a new youth-centered and community-based makerspace at a local afterschool club. The implications for the practice and research of makerspaces are discussed.
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