This response highlights complexities in embodied learning in STEM settings, suggesting new methodological avenues for understanding power and agency.
In this response to Silvis, Clarke‐Midura, Lee and Shumway as part of the special issue Centering Affect and Emotion Toward Justice and Dignity in Science Education, I discuss some of the key openings and complexities involved in interpreting the affective, powered, embodied, historical, and cultural layers present within the learning processes of young children in a computer science setting. I consider 1) methodology as a process of learning to see and revise our conceptions of embodied learning; 2) the importance of attuning to both power and agency in STEM learning settings; and 3) analytic openings that can draw together the historicized and relational details of learning. I highlight key strengths and contributions of the paper while wrestling with important field‐level challenges raised by the analysis of embodied learning among Theresa and her small group. These include the affordances and constraints of comfort as a construct, and the powered dimensions of intercorporeal dynamics among children. I reflect on the ways rendering the complexity of students’ ingenuity in navigating marginalization and finding comfort alongside attention to power is important both for developing multi‐dimensional views of embodied learning among children in STEM environments and for helping surface possibilities for intervention and change.
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Shirin Vossoughi (2025) studied this question.
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