Identity Construction in Informal Learning Environments: Applying Socio-cultural Situative Theory Through Linguistic Ethnographic Microanalysis

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.