Bots for Tots: Building Inclusive Makerspaces by Leveraging "Ways of Knowing"

Despite an explicit commitment to epistemic diversity, making and makerspaces have struggled to serve a diverse population of creators and have become heavily dominated by men. Drawing on the construct of "ways of knowing" from the feminist tradition the Bots for Tots project explores the affordances of activity framings and structures that tap into alternate mental dispositions to broaden participation and interest in maker activities. In this paper I present data from a workshop with 9-10 year olds explicitly framed to be about making toys for children in the community. I show that when making is framed as being a set of practices, skills, and technologies to give back to and support members of one's community, young girls were highly motivated to engage in the maker activity, persisted through construction challenges, and showed interest in further exploring making and technology to help others.

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