Despite calls to support more justice-oriented science learning, classroom interactions still often reflect the sociohistorical systems of power and oppression within which they are situated. Youth enacting critical science - using science and other forms of expertise to address issues of injustice - is an approach that has led to at least temporary restructuring of power hierarchies within and beyond their classrooms. However, there is a dearth of research highlighting the social dimensions of critical science agency. Also, the mechanisms supporting class communities' enactments of critical science agency are undertheorized.Therefore, I explored the experiences of Mrs. B, her students and myself as we participatory planned and taught a family STEM night about engineering design, energy and electricity. Building on experiences engaging in an electric art engineering design challenge unit, the class community co-planned and co-enacted the event. The class disrupted power hierarchies traditionally operating within science classrooms and prepared an engaging learning opportunity connected to their families' lives. Throughout this process, Mrs. B's class community was enacting critical science agency.Given the need for the field to better understand how to support critical science agency, I specifically explored with Mrs. B and her sixth-grade students: 1) What does critical science agency look like in Mrs. B's sixth-grade science classroom? And 2)How, if at all, does participatory planning and teaching support critical science agency?Multiple data sources (interviews, field notes, student work, small and whole group interactions videos, conversation groups) were generated using critical ethnographic methods. Data was analyzed using a social practice theory lens with a power and consequential learning focus.This dissertation builds on critical science agency research in two main ways. First, critical science agency is a collective act, involving a) using distributed and diverse forms of expertise, b) generatively building on and welcoming shared expertise over time through actions and discourse taken up by multiple community members and c) using that diverse and distributed expertise towards co-defined meaningful ends. This claim is highlighted through analytic vignettes of the participatory planning and teaching events that took place over the series of preparing and enacting STEM night. Second, the enactment of participatory planning and teaching practices supported collective critical science agency by: disrupting and amplifying class norms towards more just ends, supporting expanded authority, and allowing for addressing and co-defining outcomes of learning. This claim was highlighted by describing participatory planning and teaching practices that were enacted across the STEM night preparation. I also analyzed the relationships between those practices, amplifying/disrupting class norms and supporting expanded students' authority through an extended vignette of two students' experiences making a how-to, GIF-style electric art video. I conclude by presenting an analysis of the relationship between critical science agency and participatory planning and teaching.These findings provide insight into powerful pedagogical and methodological approaches teachers, students and researchers can use to support more justice-oriented science learning within and beyond their classrooms. Implications include ways to analyze power within classrooms and a nuanced understanding of how to support enacting critical science agency.
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