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Pedagogies of Joy;) A Leap to Joy-Centered Critical Design

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Title: Pedagogies of Joy;) A Leap to Joy-Centered Critical Design
Language: English
Authors: Déana Scipio (ORCID 0000-0002-0499-0529), Day Greenberg (ORCID 0000-0003-0615-6236), D. Teo Keifert (ORCID 0000-0002-3818-0858), Sarah J. Lee (ORCID 0000-0001-9026-2802)
Source: Science Education. 2026 110(1):313-332.
Availability: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 20
Publication Date: 2026
Sponsoring Agency: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Contract Number: 0354453
9014483
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Psychological Patterns, STEM Education, Humanistic Education, Human Dignity
DOI: 10.1002/sce.21983
ISSN: 0036-8326
1098-237X
Abstract: Prior research demonstrates the integral nature of affective work in STEM/STEAM, including multiple works in this issue. In our contribution to this special issue on Centering Affect and Emotion Toward Justice and Dignity in Science Education, we seek to better understand the role of joy, an emotion that moves beyond the temporary shallows of happiness into the depths of complexity that connects fear and joy, constraint and transformation, and human connection. Attending to joy means attending to dignity, wholeness of people, and diversity of experiences. Leaning into joy affirms dignity, which in turn makes possible deeper disciplinary sensemaking. We conceptualize Pedagogies of Joy (POY, rhymes with joy) as design and instructional (in-the-moment) decisions an educator uses as they follow pathways leading to joy. We draw on cross-case analysis of three empirical examples to illustrate four POY: "attending to affective-entanglements," "switching roles," "cultivating third space," and "(co)dreaming to enact." We illustrate how these POY-shaped design and instructional-decisions in empirical exemplars to make visible the importance of leaning into moments of joy as seeds of possibility dignity-affirming learning that can deepen sensemaking about STEM phenomena by foregrounding a full affective range of sensemaking repertoires. We offer POY as tools for educators, researchers, and designers (beyond binary categories of teacher, student, adult, child, youth). We find joy in knowing that these empirical examples are but drops in a wide sea of stories from countless educators who are already committed to seeking joy in solidarity with learners.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2026
Accession Number: EJ1491941
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0190305609;sed01jan.26;2025Dec19.06:03;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0190305609-1">Pedagogies of Joy;) A Leap to Joy‐Centered Critical Design </title> <p>Prior research demonstrates the integral nature of affective work in STEM/STEAM, including multiple works in this issue. In our contribution to this special issue on Centering Affect and Emotion Toward Justice and Dignity in Science Education, we seek to better understand the role of joy, an emotion that moves beyond the temporary shallows of happiness into the depths of complexity that connects fear and joy, constraint and transformation, and human connection. Attending to joy means attending to dignity, wholeness of people, and diversity of experiences. Leaning into joy affirms dignity, which in turn makes possible deeper disciplinary sensemaking. We conceptualize Pedagogies of Joy (POY, rhymes with joy) as design and instructional (in‐the‐moment) decisions an educator uses as they follow pathways leading to joy. We draw on cross‐case analysis of three empirical examples to illustrate four POY: attending to affective‐entanglements, switching roles, cultivating third space, and (co)dreaming to enact. We illustrate how these POY‐shaped design and instructional‐decisions in empirical exemplars to make visible the importance of leaning into moments of joy as seeds of possibility dignity‐affirming learning that can deepen sensemaking about STEM phenomena by foregrounding a full affective range of sensemaking repertoires. We offer POY as tools for educators, researchers, and designers (beyond binary categories of teacher, student, adult, child, youth). We find joy in knowing that these empirical examples are but drops in a wide sea of stories from countless educators who are already committed to seeking joy in solidarity with learners.</p> <p>Keywords: affect; disciplinary learning; educational dignity; joy; pedagogy; STEM/STEAM</p> <p>We (the authors) are motivated by a desire to create more equitable and responsive learning and to reimagine relationships between those taking on traditional roles of educator and learner. We see pedagogies as instruments for transformational change and as opportunities for critical discovery (Freire 1970/[<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref1">19</reflink>]). We draw upon multiple perspectives to develop <emph>Pedagogies of Joy</emph> (POY, rhymes with joy) in recognition that learning is a complex, situated set of phenomena. POY is an approach to learning design and implementation that creates opportunities for transformative learning (Scipio et al. [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref2">73</reflink>]; Keifert et al. [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref3">40</reflink>]). Here we define transformative as approaches to learning that move beyond constraints of Western, European‐heritage‐exclusive approaches to disciplines like STEM. We invest in POY as a dignity‐affirming practice (Espinoza et al. [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref4">17</reflink>]) and as a human right in learning. We lean on the work of Black liberatory scholars in defining Black joy as:</p> <p>...restorative, generative, and generous. It offers the opportunity to go beyond the shallow waters of happiness—a temporary feeling that relies on circumstances outside of ourselves—into the depths of complexity of an emotion and way of being that comes from within and connects us to ourselves as well as the communities of which we are a part.</p> <p>Cruz [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref5">11</reflink>], p.2</p> <p>This definition of joy foregrounds relationality in ways that we honor in our work. We take up this understanding to recognize the affective relations, spaces that draw on multiple repertoires of practice, opportunities for youth/child/student leadership, and liberatory futurities.</p> <p>In this paper, we introduce three empirical examples capturing moments of joy in diverse settings. These examples demonstrate how POY supported developing learning contexts, responding to joy, and designing to sustain joy.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-2">What Is Joy?</hd> <p>Joy is a complex expression of a core human experience. You can feel it in your bones. Many authors have explored happiness but we see joy as something different, deeper, and more about entanglements with one another (Cruz [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref6">11</reflink>]; hooks [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref7">31</reflink>]; Lorde [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref8">47</reflink>], 2007). We define our joy in opposition to a toxic positivity that <emph>requires</emph> people to smile in the midst of their struggle. Our joy, rather, rejects the idea that a people can be reduced to a single emotion or narrative; our joy is about complex and nuanced entanglements through the things that connect us, and about music, breath, movement, and laughter. Our joy exists in relationship to each other, communities, power, privilege, and oppression. Our joy exists in relationship with our fear and pain. Our joy is resistance. At times, it is an active resistance, pushing back against the stories that others would tell about us by authoring our own counter‐narratives (Lu and Steele [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref9">49</reflink>]; Worsley and Roby [<reflink idref="bib91" id="ref10">91</reflink>]). Sometimes our joy is a passive resistance, not existing for any other reason, but because we are human, and entitled to it (e.g., Monier [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref11">56</reflink>]). Our joy moves us toward justice (Shuster and Westbrook [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref12">79</reflink>]).</p> <p>Leaning upon the work of Ross Gay ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref13">21</reflink>], 2023) and Audre Lorde ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref14">47</reflink>]), we understand joy as fundamentally about connections, entanglements, relationships, and solidarity. We pull "entanglements" specifically from those conceptualizing joy (e.g., Gay, Lorde, Muhammad) to emphasize the importance of relational interactions in joyful learning settings. We define solidarity from Vea and Curnow ([<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref15">85</reflink>]) "a recognition of inequitable power relations and an attempt to prefigure different kinds of relationships" (p. 267), a deeply relational and contextual understanding of solidarity. Lorde also reminds us that joy can be "physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual" and creates bridges, or solidarity through understanding and engaging across boundaries (p. 122). Gay speaks about joy as the start of something transformative, as "an ember for or precursor to wild and unpredictable and transgressive and unbounded solidarity. And that that solidarity might incite further joy" (p 8). Gay defines joy within a framework of common sorrow; our joy exists not in opposition to pain or trauma but as part of our complexity, holding hands with painful histories.</p> <p>When we laugh so uproariously, heads turn; when we sing so boisterously, we fill the room to the rafters with a joyful harmony; when we dance with wild abandon, we are taking up spaces never intended for us; that is the power of our joy. Joy recognizes the fullness and dignity of our humanity. This is what we want for ourselves and our students when we talk about POY.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-3">POY: A Conceptual Framework</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0190305609-4">Moving to Genius and Joy</hd> <p>Ghouldy Muhammed (2023) offers a call to action in her book <emph>Unearthing Joy</emph>, writing "we must draw forth pedagogies of equity and excellence, moving students toward the sun (where they belong)—moving students and educators to genius and joy." Taking up this charge, we seek to move students, educators, and researchers away from fear and toward joy. Fear means many things: fear of constrained understandings of disciplinary knowledge and practice, fear of constrained norms in learning settings, fear of stereotypes, fear of chaos. These are pedagogical fears that can limit educators' potential as well as learners' potential. This is seen when such fears manifest themselves, for example, in a focus on behavioral management to control learners' actions toward fitting within preconceived roles that many learners have never and will never fit because the roles were not designed with them in mind (e.g., Migliarini and Annamma [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref16">55</reflink>]). We do not accept educational models that manage fear by seeking rigidity and control.</p> <p>Instead, we manage fears as a place to move toward joy (Figure 1). We seek a joy that springs in the face of constraining systems, an unbridled joy that does not fit in a curricular box but moves disciplinary and programmatic boundaries by forcing a rethinking of their limits, a joy that is movement and laughter and learning intertwined, a joy that affirms dignity and sustains relational collaborative learning. We seek a joy that affirms the full range of affective, onto‐epistemic sensemaking which includes fear and frustration, and still chooses genius and joy. Through affirming the dignity of full repertoires of practice, those repertoires are then available for disciplinary sensemaking. Thus, leaning into joy affirms dignity, which in turn makes possible deeper disciplinary sensemaking.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0001.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0001.jpg" title="1 Fear and joy: moving students, educators, and researchers to joy." /> </p> <p></p> <p>We also see this as a claim to ways of doing critical learning research, resisting the fear of joy‐centered research. Critical research requires iterative reflection and analysis, but the underlying assumptions of how such processes unfold typically focus on fear through attending to <emph>what isn't working</emph> or pathological analyses (Tuck [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref17">82</reflink>]). We posit that a focus on joy through <emph>what is working</emph> i.e. desire‐based research (Tuck [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref18">82</reflink>]) is equally necessary. This kind of research is no less critical. In our work, we take a leap from the familiar fear‐based focus on what doesn't work into the joy‐based focus on what is working.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-6">What Are POY?</hd> <p>POY provides a guide or orientation to learning. In the context of pedagogies—which are both design and instructional (in‐the‐moment) decisions—an educator using a Pedagogy of Joy would choose to lean into decisions whose outcomes cultivate joy. We say cultivate joy to emphasize that we as educators can design in ways that hold space for learners to engage in joyful ways and to recognize joy in the moment and follow where that might lead our learning communities. Yet joy is interactional, emergent, and thus not somthing that can be dictated by educators alone. The work of cultivating joy takes multiple pedagogies which is why we refer to Pedagogies of Joy, or POY as a plural. This plurality is important to POY due to the multivoicedness of learning, the natural development of idiocultures (Fine [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref19">18</reflink>]; Goodwin [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref20">23</reflink>]; Keifert [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref21">39</reflink>]), and the collaborative trust that grows as learning communities engage in onto‐epistemic sensemaking. POY are a multiplicity (Warren et al. [<reflink idref="bib88" id="ref22">88</reflink>]).</p> <p>When faced with design and instructional decisions, a POY orientation pushes educators to make space for youth voice and to seek out ways to create dignity‐affirming spaces (Espinoza et al. [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref23">17</reflink>]; Keifert [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref24">39</reflink>]; Ryoo [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref25">72</reflink>]). POY asks educators to allow youth and children to wield power, create by "bringing to life," be oneself, and share access to joy (Greenberg et al. [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref26">26</reflink>]). POY guides educators as they respond to situations that arise in their teaching and learning practice. Imagine an educator standing in a classroom where students are falling out of their chairs with laughter, a POY‐informed approach calls the educator to lean into the moment, enjoy the laughter, affirm the affective entanglements, seek to understand what is happening, and choose to do what they can to create more moments like this. Akin to the call by Rosebery et al. ([<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref27">71</reflink>]) for teachers to develop Interpretive Power, we seek to have educators develop POY to transform the ways in which they work with students that affirm dignity, foreground full sensemaking repertoires, and prioritize transformative teaching practices.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-7">Four POY</hd> <p>We present, as tools to support joyful learning possibilities, the following POY. These POY are just four of the possible POY that may be identified across transformative learning spaces. We drew these POY from themes across our own data exemplars to help conceptualize a broader orientation to POYful learning (Figure 2).</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0002.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0002.jpg" title="2 Four Pedagogies of Joy." /> </p> <p></p> <hd id="AN0190305609-9">Attending to Affective‐Entanglements</hd> <p>This pedagogy is about holding space for affective‐entanglements with/in consequential work. Shared joy relies on affective entanglements. Thus POY ask educators/designers to pay attention to opportunities for <emph>affective‐entanglements</emph> by seeking to know the learners within their contexts, deepening knowledge of what brings them joy, and sharing in joyful moments through breath, gaze, tone, laughter, and other modalities that support human connection and sensemaking (Ryoo [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref28">72</reflink>]; Hagenah [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref29">30</reflink>]; Keifert et al. [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref30">40</reflink>]; Uttamchandani [<reflink idref="bib83" id="ref31">83</reflink>]). This understanding draws attention to the affective dimension of entanglements to articulate how relationality can be cultivated through POY and emphasize the foundational nature of affective work in learning (see Vea and Jaber [<reflink idref="bib86" id="ref32">86</reflink>]). <emph>Attending to affective‐entanglements</emph> captures the ways that the affective experiences of participants can shape possibilities for solidarity in learning and doing consequential work.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-10">Switching Roles</hd> <p>This pedagogy is about equitable positioning of children/youth/students counter to normative power‐structures. Switching roles asks that those traditionally positioned with less power within oppressive systems (e.g., children/youth/students) are offered opportunities for leadership. This moves beyond simple agency in choice (e.g., do you want to do activity A or B first?) to agency in structures, designs, and knowledge (e.g., Greenberg et al. [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref33">26</reflink>]; Scipio [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref34">76</reflink>]). Educators are asked to support the onto‐epistemic agency of children/youth/students (e.g., Keifert et al. [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref35">36</reflink>]; Keifert [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref36">38</reflink>]) recognizing young learners as competent leaders of learning and cultural practice and innovation (Keifert et al. [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref37">40</reflink>]; Keifert [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref38">37</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref39">39</reflink>]). Designing for and facilitating switching roles centers opportunities for collective, transformational learning as youth/children/students are (re)positioned to lead and facilitators/educators are (re)positioned to learn and follow.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-11">Cultivating Third Space</hd> <p>This pedagogy is about crafting opportunities for collaboratively and equitably creating a third space. Third spaces (see Gutiérrez [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref40">28</reflink>]; Paris [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref41">63</reflink>]; Paris and Alim [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref42">64</reflink>]) are spaces of hybridity that are collaboratively created by teachers/students, adults/youth/children, facilitators/educators/learners in ways that recognize as valuable and draw on multiple cultural repertoires and disciplinary knowledge and practice. <emph>Cultivating third space</emph> asks educators and designers to de‐settle canonical, European‐heritage‐driven understandings of disciplinary practices (Bang et al. [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref43">2</reflink>]). <emph>Cultivating third space</emph> also asks educators and designers to cocreate cultural norms for interacting, being, and learning together in ways that respect the learning/educational dignity (Espinoza et al. [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref44">17</reflink>]) of all participants in the space. And central to this study is joy (Muhammad [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref45">58</reflink>]; Kopparla et al. [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref46">42</reflink>]). Desettling disciplinary knowledge and practice through drawing on diverse repertoires of practice supports all members of a community to bring their whole selves, cultivating the full range of sensemaking repertoires from emotions to cultural language games and traditional knowledge.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-12">(Co)Dream to Enact</hd> <p>This pegagogy is about dreaming and enacting change. When children/youth/students are intellectual leaders, they show us new possibilities for collective and expansive learning (Lee [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref47">44</reflink>]; Luehmann et al. [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref48">50</reflink>]). They create new visions of transformation possibilities, both in the present through speculative approaches (Garcia and Mirra [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref49">20</reflink>]) and through dreaming futures (Benjamin [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref50">6</reflink>]; Brown, 2017, 2019; Thomas [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref51">80</reflink>]). Following children/youth/students as intellectual leaders allows us to collaboratively dream of and chart futurities and pathways through learning environments that are more just, equitable, and joyful. Taken together, these four POY inform a transformative orientation to learning spaces in ways that affirm both learners' and educators' dignity. POY are examples of the "intra‐ and inter‐personal learning experiences" that support cultivating mind, humanity, and potential (Espinoza et al. [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref52">17</reflink>], 2).</p> <p>We draw upon these four POY to identify design and in‐the‐moment decisions that shaped joyful learning in three empirical exemplars. In each example, we highlight the role of the four POY. We will then use these examples to further articulate the relationships between POY and dignity‐affirming learning spaces in our discussion.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-13">Methods</hd> <p>This paper draws on exemplar cases from three studies to elucidate our conceptualization of the four POY. As we engaged in conversations about informal pedagogies during a conference session in 2016 (Scipio et al. [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref53">74</reflink>]), the centrality of joy was raised. Following that work, we engaged with a collective of scholars attending to joy in their work (i.e., Hagenah [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref54">30</reflink>]; C. Lee et al. [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref55">43</reflink>]; Scipio et al. [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref56">73</reflink>]; Keifert et al. [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref57">40</reflink>]; Ryoo [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref58">72</reflink>]). As scholars based in trusting relationships with our partners (children/youth/educators), we choose to accept their joy as relevant. This is what some have called a "humanistic attitude" (Josselson [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref59">35</reflink>], 5) or a hermeneutic of restoration/faith (Ricoeur [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref60">69</reflink>]); a stance toward our partners that what they experience, what they share is a form of truth that must be taken seriously by those of us that then interpret, package, and share their experience with others through scholarly presentations and publications. Through this, we playfully developed the language of "pedagogies of joy" but only later began the work to clearly conceptualize POY during a structured poster session (Keifert et al. [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref61">40</reflink>]). Through the present special issue, we took the time to further conceptualize POY through iterative co‐analysis of three exemplar projects. We summarize data collection methods (Table 1) in an embrace of multivocality and multidisciplinarity.</p> <p>1 Table Projects, methods, data presented in this manuscript, and places to read further.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr valign="bottom"><th>Project</th><th>Approach & methods</th><th>Presented data</th><th>Places to read more</th></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>Chemical Oceanography Outside the Laboratory (COOL)</td><td>Design‐Based Research Study iterating on broadening participation programming for middle school students working collaboratively with scientists, graduate, and undergraduate mentors to use chemical oceanography tools and methods to explore contemporary environmental issues</td><td>Signature science artifacts and fieldnotes from multiple years of COOL programming by youth and adult participants.</td><td>Scipio (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr76">2015</xref>),Scipio (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr75">2014</xref>), Scipio et al. (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr73">2017</xref>)</td></tr><tr><td>Representations for Teachers as Learners (RepTals)</td><td>Design‐Based Research Study iterating designs for in‐service teacher professional learning comparing approaches across rural and densely populated school systems</td><td>Video data of summer PD immersive learning (teachers‐as‐learners) activityIn‐service teachers from Southeastern City</td><td>Pierson et al. (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr67">2024</xref>), Daniel et al. (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr13">2023</xref>),S. J. Lee et al. (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr45">2022</xref>)</td></tr><tr><td>GET City</td><td>Critical Ethnography within Participatory Design‐Based programming for justice‐centered afterschool STEM learning in a low‐income community setting, metropolitan Midwest</td><td>Video data of 1 day of programming and a Fall 2019 open house‐type showcase event in a community organization (predominantly Black space, approx. 15 youth ages 11−15)</td><td>Calabrese Barton et al. (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr9">2021</xref>), Greenberg et al. (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr27">2020</xref>),Greenberg (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr24">2019</xref>),Shin et al. (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="bibr78">2018</xref>)</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>This table summarizes the approaches and methods of the data exemplars represented in this manuscript. We also include places to read more about the projects and ongoing work. Rather than focus on describing the methods of study in Table 1 in depth, we choose to center our combined cross‐project analysis at the core of our methods section.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-14">Positionality</hd> <p>We chose to hold space and draw on unique sociocultural positionings and experiences as a result of our various intersectionalities. Writing as identity work was a conversational theme in our meetings, one that threaded across our data sites as opportunities for allowing ourselves to more fully "show up" in our work. For instance, we bring our identities as trauma survivors, disabled mindbodyspirits, scholars of color, and queer humans, as well as our own experiences of joy as healing to deepen our collective examinations of joy's transformative power in learning spaces. Our cultural groundings, while diverse, are central to each of our understandings of ourselves and our data. We discussed many times how these groundings shaped our thinking throughout varied stages of our work, freeing ourselves to recognize national‐heritage, immigrant‐heritage, socioeconomic experience, and practices from cultural communities in which we live/work/partner. In some places, this shows up directly (i.e., Sarah's work on the RepTaLs project) where in other cases these discussions shaped our collaborative methodological and analytical approach to POY.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-15">Methods for Articulating POY</hd> <p>After several prior cycles of discussion through conference sessions (e.g., Scipio et al. [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref62">73</reflink>]; Keifert et al. [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref63">40</reflink>]; Pauw et al. [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref64">65</reflink>]; Vogelstein [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref65">87</reflink>]), our team (Scipio, Keifert, Greenberg) came together to discuss submitting to this special issue. We decided to work on POY and each of us went back to their own data to consider POY as a sensitizing concept (Blumer [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref66">7</reflink>]) to begin elucidating our developing idea. For instance, it was at this time that Keifert reached out to Lee to invite her to share data from their collective RepTaLs work because of the remarkable movement, laughter, and sense of whole‐selves in learning that they experienced in first designing and implementing that moment. As an exemplar, we do not seek to demonstrate a comprehensive representation of POY in our work, but rather elucidate through a case study (Yin [<reflink idref="bib92" id="ref67">92</reflink>]) an orientation to POY‐informed learning design that can guide others to develop and recognize POY in their own work.</p> <p>We engaged in cross‐case analytical discussions to draw out the design and instructional decisions that shaped what we came to call POY‐informed learning. We watched each other's data using interaction analysis (e.g., Jordan and Henderson [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref68">34</reflink>]) including watching videos and playing the "stop game" (calling out moments of interest for examination). For instance, while watching Greenberg's videos of GET City, we noticed connections between one participant's conversation with Greenberg and his later leadership during the makerspace Open House. We collaboratively analyzed multiple modalities (e.g., talk, prosody, gesture, gaze, movement, laughter) to understand what was happening for participants in the moment, how joy was co‐constructed by participants, and how these moments of joy informed our broader work. For instance, we made connections between Scipio's COOL data and Keifert and Lee's RepTaLs data in regard to forms of rhythmic movement (Scipio in singing and playing on cups, Keifert and Lee in coordinating movement to represent boiling water). These conversations were launching points for connecting to our own lived experience and theories of joy, learning, and society. Through iterative analysis and cross project conversation, we identified four themes: attending to <emph>affective‐entanglements</emph>, <emph>switching roles</emph>, <emph>cultivating third spaces</emph>, and <emph>(co)dreaming to enact</emph> transformative futurities. We recognized these themes as illustrations of specific POY. The four POY we highlighted in the conceptual framework were present across each of our cases. An analysis of different moments in our data or in new data will likely give rise to additional POY.</p> <p>Through a process of iterative refinement (Engle et al. [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref69">16</reflink>]), we developed definitions of POY and an argument about the relationship between fear and joy across our work. This later focus on fear and joy helped us to articulate the importance of taking a leap away from fear, from dominant and constraining ideologies and deficit‐narratives of learners and educators toward a dignity‐affirming, joy‐filled, desire‐based understanding of teaching, learning, and research. While we took this leap consistently in our work, we only came to name this leap as joy‐related and articulate the POY we implicitly drew upon through this iterative analysis. Thus, our process looked like (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref70">1</reflink>) writing sample text about each exemplar (Scipio about COOL, Keifert and Lee about RepTaLs, Greenberg about GET City), (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref71">2</reflink>) reading and rereading each other's writing, (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref72">3</reflink>) discussing parallels and differences, (<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref73">4</reflink>) creating and refining drawings and figures to represent pathways, and (<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref74">5</reflink>) returning to helpful connections to literature that called out to us and guided our iterative empirical analyses to identify and conceptualize POY which we then used (<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref75">6</reflink>) step back to continually refine our broader claim that POY support dignity‐affirming learning which in turn open possibilities for deeper disciplinary sensemaking with full repertoires of practice. Having developed our understanding of POY and our central claim (<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref76">7</reflink>), we rewrote our empirical findings to emphasize where we implicitly drew upon POY, though we didn't name them as such at the time. We repeated this process through each round of feedback from the special issue editors (thank you Lama and Tanner) and presentations at NARST and AERA conferences over the course of 2 years of co‐writing.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-16">Findings</hd> <p>We present our findings in three parts in each of our exemplars. (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref77">1</reflink>) We articulate the contexts of where joy was created through what we came to call POY‐informed designs. (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref78">2</reflink>) We analytically highlight moments of joy including how moments started, how educators noticed what was happening, and name reflectively after the fact how POY shaped educators' responses to cultivate those joyful moments. (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref79">3</reflink>) We conclude the analysis of each moment by sharing some of the outcomes of cultivating joyful moments.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-17">The Students‐as‐Teacher Example With the COOL Cups Song :P</hd> <p>I (Déana) will describe POY as youth and adult participants in an out‐of‐school time (OST) chemical oceanography program co‐created a signature science artifact (Barton et al. [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref80">3</reflink>]). Signature science artifacts show what POY can make possible at the intersection of pedagogical design moves, disciplinary learning, youth voice, and adult participation within informal learning environments. My analysis illustrates how positioning learners as knowers and experts supported joyful merging of multiple repertoires of practice (Gutiérrez and Rogoff [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref81">70</reflink>]) from outside and inside the OST space. The text in Figure 3 highlights where the reader can look to identify the POY in COOL cups.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0003.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0003.jpg" title="3 POY in COOL." /> </p> <p></p> <hd id="AN0190305609-19">Context for Joy: Educators Designed to Engage Learners in Transformative/Productive Disciplin...</hd> <p>The Chemical Oceanography Outside the Laboratory (COOL) Project was a design‐based research, OST program for middle school youth (Bell [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref82">4</reflink>]). The program aimed to broaden participation in the geosciences by creating opportunities for youth and adult participants to collaboratively address local chemical oceanography issues (Scipio [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref83">76</reflink>]). The program took place in multiple middle schools from 2010 to 2015 in a large metropolitan city in the Pacific Northwest. COOL was a multilayered learning environment that included middle and high school youth, undergraduate students, graduate students, chemical oceanographers, and learning scientists in a variety of design, research, teaching, and learning roles. COOL was designed to engage learners in transformative/productive disciplinary engagement (Brown [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref84">8</reflink>]; Engle and Conant [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref85">15</reflink>]).</p> <p>During 6‐years of COOL programming, youth and adult participants co‐authored many artifacts which demonstrated transformative/productive disciplinary engagement. These included disciplinary artifacts (posters, presentations), ArtScience artifacts (zines, songs, videos), and curricular amendments (activities, lessons). These signature science artifacts highlighted elements of who the authors were, how they wanted to present themselves within their community, and were imbued with the participants' strong connections to the disciplinary work they were doing and the ongoing work of the COOL program. Like the signature science artifacts created in Calabrese Barton et al.'s study (2008), many youth and adults in COOL created signature science artifacts to position themselves as persons within structures of social practice (Bell et al. [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref86">5</reflink>]; Dreier [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref87">14</reflink>]) of chemical oceanography in the COOL program. These signature science artifacts represented the outcomes of designed spaces centered on participants' shifting definitions of STEM participation (Bang et al. [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref88">2</reflink>]) and engagement in COOL.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-20">The Moment: Learners Engaged in A Series of Moments: Ayana's Cups Rhythm & Red Solo Cups</hd> <p>In 2013, I worked in the COOL OST program with a community of undergraduate mentors and middle school youth that included a young Black woman named Ayana. During the program, Ayana introduced the cups rhythm which had been popularized as the accompaniment to a song performed by Anna Kendrick in the movie <emph>Pitch Perfect</emph> (Moore [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref89">57</reflink>]). Ayana played the cups rhythm before the start of the program on the tables in the cafeteria during the second week of COOL. She started off using a leftover cup from the school's afternoon snack. In this moment, there was shared laughter as other students watched Ayana's playing of the cups rhythm, this was an instance of <emph>attending to affective‐entanglements</emph>. This activity was happening outside of the designed learning environment of COOL both temporally—it was happening before the official start of programming—and geographically—it was happening in the cafeteria, not the classroom that we typically used.</p> <p>I made the pedagogical decision of <emph>co‐dreaming to enact</emph> with Ayana's cups knowledge and skill. I resourced her passion with time by inviting Ayana to play cups in the classroom and chose to resource cups by asking her what she needed to help us all learn, thus <emph>cultivating third space</emph>. In the subsequent days, I continued <emph>co‐dreaming to enact</emph> and <emph>cultivating third space</emph> when I purchased red solo cups which Ayana assured me were essential. She used the cups to start teaching her peers and quickly began <emph>switching roles</emph> to instruct the adults as well. Two of the mentors in the program became quite adept at doing the rhythm whereas I specialized in the lyrics and singing along with the original song. This series of in‐the‐moment and design decisions shaped our future work together.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-21">The Downstream: Educators Changed Design in Planning to Further Cultivate Joyful Learning wit...</hd> <p>As we were wrapping up the program, we invited youth to think about how they wanted to leave a legacy for next year's COOL students. Making a pedagogical decision that featured both <emph>co‐dreaming to enact</emph> and <emph>cultivating third space</emph>, I suggested we might write a song, building upon the music that Ayana had brought to the COOL program. The youth participants and undergraduate facilitators began <emph>co‐dreaming to enact</emph> as they focused on the cup song and chose to rewrite it as a way to share their knowledge of the COOL program with future participants. Ayana's <emph>co‐dreaming to enact</emph> and <emph>switching roles</emph> in this situation meant that she took a lead in re‐writing the song offering up her memories to become one of the central narratives–the second verse in the reauthored text. The picture (see Figure 4) below is a still from a video where I was behind the camera and Anderson (an undergraduate COOL mentor) was manipulating the rolling white board to make sure that Ayana could see the lyrics that we had all rewritten. This video was taken in the hallway while practicing the song before the official filming (Figures 4 and 5).</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0004.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0004.jpg" title="4 An image from the video showing Anderson and Ayana as she's performing the song in the hallway." /> </p> <p></p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0005.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0005.jpg" title="5 Ayana's project COOL song (sung to the melody of The Cups song from Pitch Perfect)." /> </p> <p></p> <p>Ayana was straddling a faded yellow bench along with another student (out of frame). After a nod from me behind the camera, she began to use the red solo cup to play the complicated rhythmic pattern on the flat surface of the wooden bench to accompany herself singing the COOL song (Figure 5).</p> <p>In the video, you can hear me singing along with Ayana while she played the cups rhythm on the yellow bench. Singing and rhythmic cups were an instantiation <emph>attending to affective‐entanglements</emph> as all participants shared breath and coordinated movement to support solidarity. Moreover, the hybrid of cups and COOL demonstrates merging repertoires of practice (i.e., pop music, lyric writing, science, collaborative inquiry) through youth leadership by <emph>switching roles</emph> and <emph>cultivating third space</emph> as they were <emph>co‐dreaming to enact</emph> by creating artifacts for the next COOL generation.</p> <p>While we shared breath at this moment, we were <emph>attending to affective‐entanglements</emph> by singing about Ayana's sense of her ownership of her science identity and the role that she played with respect to COOL. The images in the second verse were directly related to Ayana's experience of the water filtration activity that we asked the youth to complete on their first day in the program. We handed them a bottle of "dirty water" and gave them the task of building a filter using a variety of materials to get the water clean. It had been spiked with ammonia, an invisible pollutant similar to the endocrine‐disrupting compounds that they would learn more about during their time in the COOL program. When we handed Ayana the bottle and she looked at the dirty water and said, "that looks like you all have some cereal up in there" (fieldnotes, March 3, 2012). The fact that this terminology made it into her song underscores that the song was indeed a record of her own participation in COOL. She went on to let her listeners know that "you're gonna learn about Puget Sound, you're gonna learn about pollution, Ooh, you'll be an expert when we're gone." These lyrics are a claim to an identity as a knower of science, and <emph>co‐dreaming to enact</emph> a vision for the potential of future COOL generations. By <emph>co‐dreaming to enact</emph>, Ayana positioned herself as part of the community of people who participated in project COOL and as a person who could decide what makes a new expert.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-24">Reflections on Ayana's Song</hd> <p>What we now call POY‐informed decisions opened up opportunities for joy: joy in singing together through shared breath, rhythm, coordinated movement, joy in authoring about COOL experience together, and joy in sharing our experience with future learners. A POY orientation supported the following of joy desire‐pathways (Figure 6) and changed the design of the afterschool program to give the cups activity time, attention, vulnerability, and material resources. These decisions created future moments when the room was filled with laughter. As youth and adults tried to learn the cups' rhythm, mistakes were made, successes were celebrated, and the group created a core memory that would later be accessed when I suggested a song could be one way to communicate about our shared experiences in COOL.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0006.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0006.jpg" title="6 Desire‐based design pathway in COOL." /> </p> <p></p> <hd id="AN0190305609-26">The Teachers as Learners and Dreamers Example ;D</hd> <p>We (Sarah and Teo) elucidate POY through an example of teachers and facilitators embodying acorn particles in boiling water while making Korean acorn jelly. This example demonstrates how designing for three POY—<emph>attending to affective‐entanglements, switching roles, cultivating third space</emph>—created possibilities for joyful embodiment and our last Pedagogy of Joy—<emph>(co)dreaming to enact</emph>. Although we don't provide data on <emph>(co)dreaming to enact</emph>, teachers did in fact report that this experience supported their innovation/teaching practice. Our analysis attends to how positioning learners (doctoral or K‐12) to draw on their cultural linguistic repertoires desettles science knowledge and practice (Bang et al. [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref90">2</reflink>]). Moreover, how this desettling supports joyful affirmation of whole selves, re‐mediating relationships with disciplines and institutions through <emph>cultivating a third space</emph>. The text in Figure 7 highlights where the reader can look to identify POY in this example.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0007.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0007.jpg" title="7 POY in 도토리묵" /> </p> <p></p> <hd id="AN0190305609-28">Context for Joy: RepTaLs</hd> <p>Our focal activity was a part of an immersive learning experience (Loucks‐Horsley et al. [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref91">48</reflink>]) about biological systems focused on acorns and oak trees in the Representations for Teachers as Learners (RepTaLs) study in partnerships with elementary teachers. The RepTaLs team designed for three POY (in addition to following the joy when it happened) as we imagined what it might be like to foreground one learner's cultural and linguistic repertoires in phenomenon‐first elementary science (Windschitl et al. [<reflink idref="bib89" id="ref92">89</reflink>]; Bang et al. [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref93">1</reflink>]) in the hopes of seeding <emph>(co)dreaming to enact</emph> future K‐4 classroom designs. Sarah (doctoral student researcher) co‐designed Korean Language Play with Bethany (doctoral student researcher) and Teo (postdoc/assistant professor) to demonstrate how teachers can center authentic cultural practices, in this case making a traditional dish unique to Korea, Acorn Jelly or 도토리묵 "dotori‐mook."</p> <p>In the focal moment, we centered imaginative embodiment (Ochs et al. [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref94">61</reflink>]; Nasir et al. [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref95">60</reflink>])—an imaginative process of inhabiting a phenomenon through physical exploration of events, processes, or entities' experiences used by children and professional scientists for epistemic sensemaking (e.g., Keller [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref96">41</reflink>]; Nasir et al. [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref97">60</reflink>]; Ochs et al. [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref98">61</reflink>]). In addition to the epistemic benefits of imaginative embodiment commonly cited in the literature, we also planned for the potential for upending traditional hierarchies as we embodied other roles (humans and more‐than‐human kinds i.e., acorns) through <emph>switching roles</emph>. We expected joyful learning through <emph>affective‐entanglements</emph> during imaginative embodiment based on prior experience with children and adults (e.g., Keifert et al. [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref99">37</reflink>]; C. Lee et al. [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref100">46</reflink>]), including earlier in the RepTaLs study (Pierson et al. [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref101">68</reflink>]; Pierson et al. [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref102">67</reflink>]).</p> <p>We designed for <emph>switching roles</emph> to allow teachers‐as‐students to engage with a peer leading a science lesson based on collaboration between that peer (Sarah) and their teacher (Bethany). This restructuring of traditional power dynamics (i.e., only teachers as instructors, students from marginalized communities positioned as having less to offer) allowed for an imaginative exploration to demonstrate what could be possible when marginalized students are positioned in leadership roles. By centering Korean as the language of instruction, 도토리묵 opened up possibilities for sensemaking in modes other than academic English. Teachers‐as‐students were expected to use facial expressions, gestures, pointing, drawing, pictures, printed words, videos, and, of course, embodiment to understand the process of how acorns are broken down into powder then boiled with water to make a jelly‐like substance. Embodying joy meant we expected Sarah‐as‐student would be in a position of power as the sole speaker of the language of instruction and the expert practitioner of making 도토리묵. We also expected to <emph>cultivate third space</emph> learning as Sarah‐as‐student led a whole‐class activity desettling traditional science disciplinary understandings through blending science with Korean language, practice, and knowledge.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-29">The Moment: Embodying Acorns</hd> <p>As Bethany‐as‐teacher and Sarah‐as‐student were leading, the teachers‐as‐students were being acorns, acorn powder, water, and eventually transforming together into 도토리묵 (Figure 8). Sarah was also stepping into imaginative embodiment on occasion by playing the mortar and pestle along with teacher Sarah Johnson (we use initials to distinguish between Sarah J. Lee—S.L.—the author of the paper and Korean‐speaking student in this activity, and Sarah Johnson—S.J.—a teacher in the RepTaLs project and a classmate of the Korean‐speaking student in the 도토리묵 lesson).</p> <p>In Figure 8A, as S.L. embodied the mortar and pestle, she also pounded the acorns yelling "chan chan!" (Transcript A, line 4). As S.L. pounded the acorns, Alexis shrieked as she was broken down from acorn to powder, blending together being a person (who shrieks when in pain) and an acorn (being physically broken up; Transcript A, Line 4). This led all the teachers to laugh and Frida to name "Oh they're breaking down" to describe what was happening to them as acorns. This grammatical liminal blending of being both person and acorn is common in imaginative embodied sensemaking (Keifert et al. [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref103">37</reflink>]; Ochs et al. [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref104">61</reflink>]).</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0008.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0008.jpg" title="8 S.L. joins teachers in embodying acorns breaking down. From left to right: (A) Acting out mortar and pestle to break down acorns, (B) stirring the acorn powder with water, (C) Alexis jumping to act out bubbling, and (D) moving fast to represent heat being added." /> </p> <p></p> <hd1 id="AN0190305609-31">Transcript A</hd1> <p>GRAPH</p> <p>This moment illustrates the co‐construction of joy during imaginative embodiment as Sarah's "chan chan" and Alexis' shriek combine to bring laughter and shared breath to the group as a whole, highlighting <emph>affective‐entanglements</emph>. It also illustrates the complexity of <emph>switching roles</emph> in 도토리묵. While we can't know for certain, it is possible that Alexis chose to shriek, or felt she could shriek in part because she was embodying a student‐as‐acorn, leading her to use methods of expression that she might expect from her own students. Alexis's move was a joyful decision to lean into modes of expression not typically affirmed for adults or teachers but familiar to children. In that, it demonstrates the ways that a broader range of affective‐epistemic sensemaking (Jaber and Hammer [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref105">32</reflink>]) was supported by this design, the teachers, and the RepTaLs facilitators. In her swapped role of being student‐as‐facilitator, Sarah leaned into joy in‐the‐moment by holding space for these diverse forms of expression. Similarly, Bethany, in her swapped role of teacher, honored these joyful moments, <emph>attending to affective‐entanglements</emph> in sharing in the group's laughter.</p> <p>The seeding of potential joy through a design centering imaginative embodiment resulted in co‐constructed joyful epistemic sensemaking through liminal blends; noisy pestles, shrieking acorns, bubbling water particles, and laughing humans. We name this as co‐constructed because although we as designers seeded joyful possibilities through our designs for <emph>switching roles</emph>, <emph>attending to affective‐entanglements</emph>, and <emph>cultivating</emph> a dignity‐affirming <emph>third space</emph> within the imaginative embodiment, the result was interactionally emergent. Within the design, all members of the community leaned into their respective roles with enthusiasm, finding innovative and vulnerable ways to express their liminal experience (see C. Lee et al. [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref106">46</reflink>]) that supported the cultivation of shared joy.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-32">The Downstream: Being Bold, Outspoken, and Raising Your Voice</hd> <p>During the debrief, Sarah reflected on her experience <emph>switching roles</emph> to be the student‐as‐facilitator, drawing on her own cultural repertoire while also expanding into new possibilities as an Asian American. For instance, she mentioned that during 도토리묵, there were moments when Bethany and/or teachers‐as‐students were struggling to understand Sarah's guidance. In these moments, Sarah persisted by using multiple modalities. Within the imaginative embodiment in which Sarah‐as‐student facilitated the activity, Sarah got to play with different tones of voice and volume to help communicate her ideas (see Transcript B).</p> <hd1 id="AN0190305609-33">Transcript B</hd1> <p>GRAPH</p> <p>For instance, after the heat had been added, the teachers were still mixing around at the same speed despite the science of heating particles leading to faster‐moving particles. To attend to this scientific (and practical) experience of heating the mixture, Sarah decided to join the acorn powder and water particles in a congo‐line style circle (see Figure 4D), making an in‐the‐moment decision to <emph>switch roles</emph>. As she tried to speed up the circle to reflect the heating up of the acorn and other ingredients, she yelled at everyone in Korean, "We have to go faster!" (Transcript B Line 1). Counter to stereotypes about Asian‐Americans being the model minority, well‐behaved, soft‐spoken, and not "rocking the boat" (Thompson et al. [<reflink idref="bib81" id="ref107">81</reflink>]), Sarah celebrated during the debrief that she got to be bold, outspoken, and raise her voice at teachers, professors, and peers. We characterize Sarah's debrief reflection on her joy in shouting as a recognition of emergent (rather than planned) <emph>attending to affective‐entanglements</emph> even as those shouters support deepening teachers understanding of disciplinary ideas (boiling particles move faster than room‐temperature particles). This debrief, along with several more teachers of professional development and workshops, seeded <emph>(co)dreaming</emph> and subsequent enactmentin teacher parnters' K‐12 classrooms (e.g., Pierson et al. [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref108">68</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-34">Reflections on 도토리묵</hd> <p>In this activity, imaginative embodiment supported shared movement and laughter through <emph>affective‐entanglements</emph>, embracing Korean cultural and linguistic repertoires in a <emph>third space</emph>, affirming Sarah as Korean speaker and student‐as‐leader through a <emph>role switch</emph>, and cultivating joy for the whole community as they made way to <emph>codream</emph> about more transformative futures for their multilingual learners (Figure 9). Teachers affirmed the ways that differences had become a source of joy, knowledge, and science practice rather than a problem to overcome. The people in the room not only understood each other better, but also understood the science phenomenon on a deeper level. Marginalized bodies were affirmed with dignity through <emph>cultivating a third space</emph>, as Sarah's multilingual and cultural identity as a Korean‐American "student" was positioned as bringing expertise in a discipline that usually upholds Western Modern Science standards (Sengupta‐Irving et al. [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref109">77</reflink>]) and her full range of emotion was validated as she joyfully shouted instructions at teachers who followed her lead and began to move faster as they "boiled" together.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0009.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0009.jpg" title="9 Desire‐based design pathway in 도토리묵" /> </p> <p></p> <hd id="AN0190305609-36">The Youth Leadership Example: Eruptions of Expression in a Makerspace (^_^)</hd> <p>Here, I (Day) explore POY in a community of middle school‐aged makers in a youth‐co‐designed afterschool makerspace, GET City. In this case, joy happened within eruptions of expression as youth shared their creativity, expertise, pride, identity, and belonging, and as other youth, educators, and parents/family witnessed those eruptions. My analysis illustrates how <emph>attending to affective‐entanglements</emph> through welcoming a variety of participation, <emph>switching roles</emph> as youth taught peers and parents, and <emph>cultivating a third space</emph> in the makerspace program allowed for <emph>(co)dreaming to enact</emph> that encouraged these eruptions of expression, new relational learning possibilities, and joyfully public disciplinary engagement. The text in Figure 10 highlights where the reader can look to identify POY in this case.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0010.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0010.jpg" title="10 POY in GET city" /> </p> <p></p> <hd id="AN0190305609-38">Context for Joy: GET City</hd> <p>This case centers on an event youth lobbied for, designed/organized, and hosted as an inviting‐in opportunity to welcome the adults in their lives to witness the GET City community they had made strong together, and to witness the ways they expressed themselves within that community. The series of occurrences that led to this event could be described as an eruption: one of youth creativity and expertise, but also an eruption of effort to express shared pride in peer community/comradery, individual identity exploration‐and‐representation, and spatial co‐construction. Furthermore, the event itself became a site for witnessing eruptions: of laughter to be sure, but also eruptions of in‐the‐moment declarations by youth makers about the feelings they held, to an audience of local community members who may not have been aware of the community youth were actively constructing together in their makerspace. This <emph>role switch</emph> was a joyful desettling of traditional public presentation structures, a wholly youth‐determined imagining of what their intellectual leadership could accomplish for a public event. I describe the ways and program contexts in which youth took on roles as public educators and peer supporters, countering normative power structures and holding space for each other to shine. I also consider how adults in the space (PI Angela Calabrese Barton—Angie—and I) <emph>cultivated a third space</emph> by scaffolding these youth efforts, toward supporting a pedagogy of joy in afterschool making.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-39">The Moment: Tyon Reaffirming Commitment Within an Eruption of Youth Expression</hd> <p>As was typical during GET City sessions, adult educators were walking around the room assisting youth who were working on their current maker projects. These projects, intermedia nameplate boards, were originally meant to take 2 weeks of programming, an opportunity for youth to engage in identity artifact creation and presence‐making in the makerspace by constructing and displaying wooden boards decorated with their names across the room. The project erupted and spilled over as adults worked to support the youth's excited requests to expand the original maker activity in multiple new directions and dimensions. This mid‐course change in design represented a moment of <emph>co‐dreaming to enact</emph> made possible by youth <emph>shifting roles</emph> and adults <emph>cultivating third space</emph> through design and material offerings.</p> <p>As youth communicated their ideas to shift program plans, adults committed to cultivate more joyful designs for disciplinary sensemaking through enacting change to support youth desires in a <emph>role switch</emph> that was also a form of <emph>(co)dreaming to enact</emph>. For example, the adults ordered motors for kinetic sculpture creation, LED lights for different circuit designs, and brought out laptops to help youth program circuit board modules with MP3s of their favorite songs or voice recording narratives about themselves that visitors to the room could play to learn more about them as people.</p> <p>Three months in, GET City members were wrapping up these projects and moving on to preparing the room to welcome their guests for an Open House night. This was a new <emph>third space</emph> of <emph>switching roles</emph>, resulting from <emph>(co)dreaming</emph> with youth makers. Youth had made plans to guide visitors through activities at designated stations throughout the room, including a sewing station, a soldering station, a coding station, a carpentry station, and a snack table they had carefully curated and sent the adults out to stock. A couple of youth had volunteered to write speeches to kick off the evening of activities for their guests.</p> <p>As final preparations were underway with a few hours to go, in walked Tyon, an on‐again/off‐again member of the makerspace, who more often than not would stay for snack and circle time conversations at the start of sessions before leaving to play basketball in the community center's gym down the hall. On this particular day, however, Tyon stayed, showing intense interest in the goings‐on of the room and voicing his desire to participate in the Open House presentations. He jumped around between the youth‐created carpentry station and the youth‐created soldering station, asking peers to help him with advice and skills to complete his own intermedia nameplate board (which he had initially started and left behind weeks earlier).</p> <p>In alignment with our group‐created norms of welcoming others as new friends (a scaffold for <emph>affective entanglements</emph>), peers generously assisted him in "catching up." An hour later, Tyon held up two completed boards—one displaying his name using nails, wires, pipe cleaners, and paint with a voice recorded circuit module in the back; and a bonus board displaying the club's name with hearts and LED lights (with alligator clips and electrical tape he used to correct a soldering mishap in the back). "I feel good about these boards," he reported with a smile as he held them up for a camera (note that placing a camera where Tyon could choose to speak to it or pick it up and carry it around was an effort at <emph>switching roles</emph> and supporting youth in determining their forms and extent of documentation). Raising up his nameplate board, he said "this one represents me," and then added, "I did this before I officially quit but I come back to visit sometimes, but today, I'm officially rejoining." Taken aback by this impromptu declaration, I asked, "So what made you decide that now's the time, that you're ready to commit to being here and being a member full‐time again?" Tyon answered:</p> <p>Because GET City was a big impact in my life for me to learn how to build and to learn how to do stuff. And it's really a good place where you can come and be whoever you are. You can be whoever you want to be and not be criticized...Because GET City's awesome, and I see the smiles on everybody's faces.</p> <p>As I shouted in response, "Tyon's back everybody, woo!" Tyon's face beamed wider as he ran back to his busy peers. Both in his statement about his sense of being a member of GET City (as a place of comfort where "you can come and be whoever you are") and as reflected in the "smiles on everybody's faces" and in my celebratory "woo," expressions of joy and connection were paramount; that is <emph>affective‐entanglements</emph> were paramount.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-40">The Downstream: An Eruption of Declarations and Affirmations</hd> <p>We recognized a downstream impact of Tyon's official rejoining later that same day. At the start of the Open House event that evening, after I got the crowd's attention announcing, "I'm going to hand it off to the GET City representatives...", Angie and I physically stepped back and went silent. Peers Lulu, Louise, and Tyon took over, sharing the floor. Tyon had volunteered, at the last minute, to jump in and copresent and his peers had cheered and welcomed him to join.</p> <p>Tyon did indeed contribute, as multiple youth welcomed family and friends, oriented them to the snacks, and erupted with laughter when the speaker in the room blasted an announcement. When it came his turn, Tyon shared his sense of the GET City space (Transcript C).</p> <hd1 id="AN0190305609-41">Transcript C</hd1> <p>GRAPH</p> <p>As multiple other youth continued this introduction, the youth speakers managed peer disruptions themselves in celebratory and humorous ways (embracing and reflecting their <emph>affective‐entanglements</emph> and of <emph>cultivating hybrid</emph> interactional norms), shaping the welcoming and joyful discourse that set the stage for Open House activities. Adult facilitators continued to sit back and show support for the youth's leadership.</p> <p>At the end of what became an eruption of speeches, in case it wasn't yet clear, I added the disclaimer announcement that, "Kids are going to be in charge of adults tonight." In response to this, Tyon, who had been standing in a professional‐type stance with arms folded at his chest, suddenly produced an embodiment of the joy in the room by unfolding his arms and producing a mini "Harlem shake" shoulder dance move of approval/excitement with a big grin (Figures 11).</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0011.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0011.jpg" title="11 Tyon (center, red shoes) adds an amendment after seven other public speeches at the event. From right to left: Finn, right, dances in excitement to affirm/support Tyon's amendment; peer KP feigns embarrassment at Finn's embodied expression of unbridled/unapologetic excitement; Lulu and Louise look on with concentrated attention, valuing Tyon's contribution; educator Day, left, looks on with pride at Tyon's effort to step into a vocal role as the newest member and public representative of GET City." /> </p> <p></p> <hd id="AN0190305609-43">Reflections on Tyon's Positioning (Welcoming and Affirming) by Peers</hd> <p>As someone who had exited and re‐entered frequently, adults and youth in the maker program could have treated Tyon as having more peripheral/less central membership. To be sure, this argument had been brought up to adults over the years about other youth who GET City members argued did not engage with the youth‐co‐determined cultural norms, social contracts, or "spirit" of GET City (e.g., if a youth came in with "beef"/drama or directed negativity at peers). But when Tyon announced his "official" decision to become a "full‐time member" of the program, his desire to be further entangled in their community <emph>third space</emph> was recognized, and he was welcomed with open arms by peers as a friendly addition. He approached the group with kindness and open‐mindedness to learn from others, seeking to participate in and benefit from the youth‐and‐adult‐cultivated culture of comradery, mutual respect, and fun‐in‐the‐learning. In short, he was a relative newcomer, but one deemed to be genuine and trustworthy. With this trust, Tyon's peers appeared happy to share the spotlight of recognition with him after supporting/mentoring his efforts to catch up to them in project completion. They literally positioned him in the center of their community at the public showcase event, a role switch from peripheral to central (see Figure 11).</p> <p>Behind these positionings and developments of affective entanglements, was a co‐constructed culture of collegiality and committed skepticism toward any forms of hierarchy; <emph>switching roles</emph> and <emph>(co)dreaming</emph> were assumed cultural norms. This was a <emph>third space</emph> of shared decision making, shared investment, and shared risk. Several layers of what we now recognize as POY‐informed pedagogical decision making contributed to this culture (Figure 12).</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0012.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0012.jpg" title="12 Desire‐based design pathway in GET city." /> </p> <p></p> <p>First, the actual makerspace was physically and programmatically designed in partnership with youth (Shin et al. [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref110">78</reflink>]), co‐managed by teens. The maker program was a <emph>third space</emph> conceived, designed, and directed in partnership with individual program stakeholders, and sustained through multiple cohorts of codreamers. All of this contributed to a sense of youth ownership through an honoring of <emph>role switching</emph> spaces where the youth led (Greenberg [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref111">24</reflink>]).</p> <p>Second, how we took up making sought to shift settled narratives of participation (Greenberg et al. [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref112">25</reflink>]). Youth who attended the makerspace and the adults who facilitated it, committed to a shared desire to question inherent assumptions about who and what matters in making and in STEM more broadly. This involved, for example, youth determining their own maker projects, with support from adults to co‐determine feasible parameters and to co‐determine and build needed skills/content. This demonstrates POY of <emph>switching roles</emph>, <emph>cultivating third space</emph>, and <emph>(co)dreaming to enact</emph> youth visions of culture and work. This also involved adults sharing planning materials with youth to receive their feedback, critique, and suggestions for improvement.</p> <p>Furthermore, this was an instance of collaborative discourse celebrated and explicitly supported in a predominantly Black community of youth makers. Youth embraced interruption as part of a joyful, syncopated flow in a rejection of White Supremacist culture's upholding of hierarchical power in discourse through implied mandatory silence during speech (see affective arrangements/milieus in Maiese [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref113">51</reflink>]; characteristics of White Supremacy in Okun and Jones [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref114">62</reflink>]). This was not an individualistic form of recognition‐gaining. This was a faithful honoring of a youth‐co‐directed collective that Tyon had joined, a loud and laughter‐filled celebration of joy and accomplishment. Here, adults had worked to make time for individual pride and representation, through the highlighting of the nameplate gallery and the support of youth intellectual leadership toward a <emph>(co)dreaming</emph> of further opportunities for youth to lead.</p> <p>Adult facilitators also made space for fully shared forms of joy by listening to youth desires for presentation structures and following through to support those desires through <emph>switching roles</emph> and fully stepping back at the event. Laughter and boisterousness in GET City, in parallel ways to RepTaLs, punctuated a deliberate cultivation of joy through design. Differing from RepTaLs, where <emph>(co)dreaming</emph> was the final Pedagogy of Joy introduced, <emph>(co)dreaming</emph> guided the design of GET City from the beginning of the program. This was a more expansive youth maker culture because of its coconstruction with youth, a <emph>third space</emph> developed with the desire "to have youth themselves determine and inscribe what can be made, what constitutes the process of making, and whose ideas count" (Calabrese Barton et al. [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref115">10</reflink>], 23).</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-45">Discussion</hd> <p>Designing for learning necessitates welcoming whole people and their entire lived experience within our learning spaces. Joy should not be dismissed as frivolous or a threat to learning (see Ryoo [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref116">72</reflink>]). Rather, in this study we make the case that POY are not an on‐ramp to learning, they are not parallel to learning, and they are not subservient to learning. POY are a central pathway, they are entwined with disciplinary learning, they drive joyful, dignity‐affirming disciplinary learning.</p> <p>POY, like other learning pedagogies, must be understood as central to dignity‐affirming learning environments. Research demonstrating the importance of affect in disciplinary and transformative spaces (e.g., Jaber and Hammer [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref117">32</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref118">33</reflink>]; Curnow and Vea [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref119">12</reflink>]; Vea [<reflink idref="bib84" id="ref120">84</reflink>]; Vogelstein [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref121">87</reflink>]; Jaber and Vea [<reflink idref="bib86" id="ref122">86</reflink>]) is a critical step in the process of theoretically and practically re‐integrating our understandings of sensemaking and experience in science education. This study requires understanding the cultural nature of learning (Nasir et al. [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref123">60</reflink>]; Nasir et al. [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref124">59</reflink>]; Rogoff [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref125">70</reflink>]) and the cultural nature of disciplinary practice (Bang et al. [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref126">2</reflink>]; Medin and Bang [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref127">54</reflink>]; Marin [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref128">53</reflink>]; Marin and Bang [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref129">52</reflink>]) as part of a push for researchers and educators to recognize the importance of affirming the dignity of full humans in learning.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-46">Pathways Toward Joy</hd> <p>We recognize that there is no one pathway to designing and responding in the moment with POY in mind. At the same time, our examples did follow a particular desire pathway (Figure 13).</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0013.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0013.jpg" title="13 POY‐informed desire‐based design pathways." /> </p> <p></p> <p>Purple boxes in Figure 13 are part of desired design pathways that cultivate joy toward transformative dignity‐affirming disciplinary engagement. Purple boxes with solid lines were part of pathways in the exemplars above. Purple boxes with breaks in the lines are part of possible desired pathways that were not present in the above data. Gray dotted boxes indicate pathways that close down POY and joy, or pathways that do not engage with POY. We note that designs are an important place to consider POY, but that in our examples, decisions in‐the‐moment played an equally important part of attending to, following, and cultivating joy as educators changed in‐the‐moment designs (e.g., Sarah joining the teachers and yelling directions at them to get them to represent their particles heating up to making 도토리묵) and stepped aside to make possible alterations to design during iterative planning (e.g., gathering materials for the COOL Cups Song and extended nameplate activity in GET City).</p> <p>We found that <emph>attending to affective‐entanglements</emph>, <emph>switching roles</emph>, and <emph>cultivating third space</emph> are critical to support <emph>(co)dreaming</emph>. This is in large part because they support affirming the dignity of all collaborators (children/youth/students, adults/educators) in a learning community by acknowledging the full range of human emotions that are relevant in learning experiences. For instance, Jaber and Hammer ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref130">32</reflink>]) exploring K12 learners' and Nobel prize winners' experiences demonstrated that affect was central in science epistemic‐sensemaking. Similarly, joy was central in Ayana's, Sarah's, the teachers', and Tyon's learning experience. <emph>Switching roles</emph> affirmed collaborators' dignity by disrupting traditional hierarchies and allowing all members of a community to take part in shaping the groups' efforts. For instance, Ayana was able to teach her mentors the cups song, later informing the creation of the COOL Cups Song; Sarah was able to teach her teacher (Bethany) and classmates (RepTaLs teachers) about states of matter through exploring how to make 도토리묵; and Tyon was able to take a leadership role in the Open House despite his newly returned status to GET City. Finally, <emph>cultivating third space</emph> affirmed collaborators' dignity by supporting full sensemaking repertoires; from emotional displays (e.g., shouting in Korean, eruptions of laughter), to sensemaking modalities (e.g., singing, embodying), and languages (e.g., gesture, Korean, rhythm).</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-48">The Leap to Joy‐Centered Critical Design</hd> <p>Critical scholarship must examine the lived experience of our communities in ways that impact future designs toward liberation. In our leap from fear to joy, we respond to the call "to join the effort in the broader fields of the social and behavioral sciences to expand what we know about human possibilities" (Philip et al. [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref131">66</reflink>], 83). We are expanding understandings within critical scholarship by centering the affective dimension of teaching, learning, and research too little centered in our work. Moving ourselves away from fear is also moving ourselves away from defensiveness, from not listening, from doing harm and/or not acknowledging that we have done or are doing harm, and from analysis of pathologies (Tuck [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref132">82</reflink>]) in an effort to turn toward honesty, acceptance, and listening and learning from others with curiosity and patience (Gay [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref133">22</reflink>]). For us, this meant moving away from fears that "this isn't disciplinary" or "this isn't science" or the fear that "this might be productive but it's not productive disciplinary engagement" as seen when Scipio resourced Ayana for the cups song. This meant being open to trusting our youth and teacher‐partners, trusting in ourselves, and choosing actively to follow joy. It also meant resisting the constraints that came with fear of stereotypes, such as Lee allowing herself to joyfull yell in Korean, and resisting the fear that Lee and Keifert named that "teachers might not take playful work seriously" and instead trust that our partners could connect more deeply to us and the disciplinary ideas as they leapt as screaming acorns. And it meant resisting the constraints of fear of chaos, fear of eruptions of laughter, fear of interruptions, and fear of youth‐leadership in Greenberg's work, to recognize youths' abilities to lead their community. Our exemplars illustrate that moving toward joy is an effort to put down what can hold joy back. In our response to Philip et al. we choose to center joy, hope, and possibility in our critical scholarship.</p> <p>We have named these actions as a collective a leap from fear to joy (Figure 14). We pedagogically take this leap in following our partners, trusting ourselves, and recognizing that the whole repertoire of human experience, including fear, joy, play, and seriousness are deeply present in contexts of teaching and learning and must be acknowledged and confronted as intertwined if our pedagogy is to be honest. We methodologically seek to orient ourselves within a way of doing critical research that attends to what works and where joy is flourishing, even as we work to understand and disrupt oppressive systems. Our joy‐centered research works toward transformation by "creating a significant reorganization of systems of activity in which participants becoming designers of their own futures" (Gutiérrez and Jurow [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref134">29</reflink>], 566). We seek such a reorganization through a focus on joy, in both the phenomenon we study and the methods we use to study that phenomenon.</p> <p> <img src="https://imageserver.ebscohost.com/img/embimages/rdk/SED/01jan26/sce21983-fig-0014.jpg?ephost1=dGJyMNXb4kSepq84yOvqOLCmsE6epq5Srqa4SK6WxWXS" alt="sce21983-fig-0014.jpg" title="14 The leap to joy‐centered critical design" /> </p> <p></p> <p>This study demonstrates that POY are, in a way, very simple: treat people with dignity. Allow them to embrace a full range of emotion in sensemaking (<emph>affirming affective‐entanglements</emph>) including (but not limited to) joy. Disrupt hierarchies that impinge on a sense of agency and purpose (<emph>switching roles</emph>). Support desettling to ensure ways of knowing and being are welcomed and <emph>cultivated in third space</emph>. Create possibilities for <emph>(co)dreaming</emph> and enacting together. POY create possibilities for joy because they recognize the personhood and humanity of all members of learning communities, particularly those in marginalized positions (e.g., children, youth, multilingual learners).</p> <p>Attending to joy means attending to dignity, wholeness of people, and diversity of experiences. Joy allows us to see those things in our learning spaces and to recognize the entanglements between each of us in our experiences, understanding, and ideas. For instance, in COOL, time played an important role in allowing understanding of one another to develop between youth and designers so that we could learn from and engage with the things that brought them joy, like music, vampires, and TV shows. Similarly, the 도토리묵 design required holding space for bringing together cultural and linguistic repertoires (도토리묵 practices, Korean language, English language, multimodal embodiment, science knowledge and practice) within the lesson and debrief, allowing Sarah and her classroom peers (teachers‐as‐learners) to learn with‐and‐from one another through giggles in imaginative embodiment and sharing stories. Finally, in GET City, when Tyon announced his decision to become a full‐time member of the program, the program's design components of shared youth‐adult decision making and shared commitment to collaboration and comradery had supported an underlying atmosphere of trust and benefit of the doubt that allowed Tyon an easier entry point back into the community.</p> <p>While POY do not encompass all aspects of affect and what makes it possible for whole people to show up in learning spaces, the conceptualization of POY we share is intended to shape learning environments that do hold space for the wholeness of humanity including possibilities for solidarity across shared experience and critical differences. We see this in the welcoming of Tyon, the emphasizing of cups as a means of connection and disciplinary thought, and using Korean language to understand disciplinary ideas more deeply. We are not minimizing or ignoring fear and other emotions. We are simply choosing to anchor our argument in joy.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-50">Implications/Next Steps</hd> <p>We wish to continue our own work to examine how joy might intersect with <emph>(co)dreaming to enact</emph> in powerful ways. We wonder how might these interact to disrupt settled STEM expectations (Bang et al. [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref135">2</reflink>]), working toward restorative justice (Winn [<reflink idref="bib90" id="ref136">90</reflink>]), and understanding how joy is central to an approach that affirms learners' and educators' dignity.</p> <p>We also hope to see people take up POY across multiple disciplinary contexts and learning spaces focused on community, design, and transformative work. There are still many questions to explore including, how do these pedagogies shift (if at all) across disciplinary learning settings? What possible ontological, epistemological, and axiological arrangements support POY‐informed learning? How can POY free educators to design for their own thriving within educational contexts?</p> <p>We offer POY as tools for educators, researchers, and designers to play with how POY‐informed learning communities hold space for challenging discussions about justice, equity and power, deep disciplinary sensemaking, and solidarity across our shared and differing experiences. We highlight how important it was to provide the contexts that made joy possible as much as the instructional in‐the‐moment decisions and subsequent cultivation of those seeds of joy. In so doing, we share with others ways to re‐integrate aspects of ourselves (e.g., sensemaking, cognition, community, culture, affect, laughter, experience, positionality, relationality) through taking up POY as both a conceptual and design tool. We are most eager to have others elaborate by contributing their own pedagogical approaches to a sense of POY in our communities.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-51">Author Contributions</hd> <p> <bold>Déana Scipio:</bold> investigation, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, conceptualization, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing. <bold>Day Greenberg:</bold> investigation, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, conceptualization, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing. <bold>D Teo Keifert:</bold> investigation, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, conceptualization, writing – original draft, visualization, writing – review and editing. <bold>Sarah Lee:</bold> data curation, formal analysis, writing – original draft.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-52">Acknowledgments</hd> <p>This study developed over multiple iterations, conferences, and conversations. In this paper, the Joy Collective included Déana Scipio, Day Greenberg, and D. Teo Keifert as equal first‐authors. All three first‐authors developed the framework and approach to collaborative work, and then invited Sarah Lee as collaborative author. We wrote the initial draft and first two revisions as a collaborative. Déana Scipio and D. Teo Keifert completed the final revision together with the full consent of Day Greenberg and Sarah J. Lee who were at the time in the midst of major, joyful life transitions. Figures were authored by D. Teo Keifert in collaboration with the authorship team. We wish to thank prior contributors here: Dean Grosshandler, Sara Hagenah, Ananda Marin, Jean Ryoo, Angela Calabrese Barton, Christine Lee, Noel Enyedy, Lauren Vogelstein, Rogers Hall, Corey Brady, Daniel Pauw, Lautaro Cabrera, Kenna Hernly, Hannoori Jeong, Kelly Mills, Elizabeth Bonsignore, Tamara Clegg, Jason Yip, Caroline Pitt, and Juhn Ahn. We also wish to thank our research collaborators (COOL: Philip Bell (PI), Andrew Shouse, Richard Keil, Shelley Stromholt, Amanda Figueora, Brittany Forest, Jaqui Niebauer, Tansy Clay, Elaine Klein, Fan Kong, Kristen Bergsman; RepTaLs: Joshua Danish (PI), Noel Enyedy (co‐PI), Heather J. Johnson, Andrea Henrie, Ashlyn Pierson, Bethany Daniel, Tessaly Jen, Rachel Askew, Adam Bell, Heidi Carlone; GET City: Angela Calabrese Barton (PI), Myunghwan Shin, Christina Restrepo Nazar, Sarah Keenan‐Lechel, ReAnna Roby, Sinead Brien, Won Jung Kim, Melissa (Mez) Perez, Carmen Turner) across the three projects described as well as the youth and adult partners in those projects that have made this study possible. We also lift up the contributions of a Joy Collective member, Dean Grosshandler, who planted the seed of this study by making a comment as an audience member at an AERA session on informal pedagogies which led us to explore POY more seriously. Dean coined the term POY and served as a discussant in the first POY symposium. We also wish to thank the sponsors of the focal projects. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #0354453 and # 9014483, the James S. McDonnell Foundation under Grant #220020521, and GETCITY. In this paper, the first three authors—Déana Scipio, Day Greenberg, and D. Teo Keifert—can be alternated when referencing the paper as all three engaged in equal, collaborative analysis, and writing practice. We list these authors in this order to disrupt the traditional academic hierarchy, listing first the non‐profit program director and affiliate professor, then the most junior assistant professor, and finally the more senior assistant professor. We recognize each of us as equitable first authors in the manuscript.</p> <hd id="AN0190305609-53">Conflicts of Interest</hd> <p>The authors declare no conflicts of interest.</p> <ref id="AN0190305609-54"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref70" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Déana Scipio, Day Greenberg and D. Teo Keifert are equal first‐authors.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <ref id="AN0190305609-55"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibtext> Bang, M., B. A. Brown, A. Calabrese Barton, A. Rosebery, and B. Warren. 2017. " Toward More Equitable Learning in Science." In Helping Students Make Sense of the World Using Next Generation Science and Engineering Practices, edited by C. V. Schwarz, C. Passmore, and B. J. Reiser, 33 – 58. NSTA Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref43" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Bang, M., B. Warren, A. S. Rosebery, and D. Medin. 2012. " Desettling Expectations in Science Education." 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  Data: Pedagogies of Joy;) A Leap to Joy-Centered Critical Design
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  Data: English
– Name: Author
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Déana+Scipio%22">Déana Scipio</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0499-0529">0000-0002-0499-0529</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Day+Greenberg%22">Day Greenberg</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0615-6236">0000-0003-0615-6236</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22D%2E+Teo+Keifert%22">D. Teo Keifert</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3818-0858">0000-0002-3818-0858</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Sarah+J%2E+Lee%22">Sarah J. Lee</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9026-2802">0000-0001-9026-2802</externalLink>)
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Science+Education%22"><i>Science Education</i></searchLink>. 2026 110(1):313-332.
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  Data: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
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– Name: Pages
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  Data: 20
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  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2026
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  Label: Sponsoring Agency
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  Data: National Science Foundation (NSF)
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  Data: 0354453<br />9014483
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  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Psychological+Patterns%22">Psychological Patterns</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22STEM+Education%22">STEM Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Humanistic+Education%22">Humanistic Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Human+Dignity%22">Human Dignity</searchLink>
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  Label: DOI
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  Data: 10.1002/sce.21983
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  Label: ISSN
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  Data: 0036-8326<br />1098-237X
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Prior research demonstrates the integral nature of affective work in STEM/STEAM, including multiple works in this issue. In our contribution to this special issue on Centering Affect and Emotion Toward Justice and Dignity in Science Education, we seek to better understand the role of joy, an emotion that moves beyond the temporary shallows of happiness into the depths of complexity that connects fear and joy, constraint and transformation, and human connection. Attending to joy means attending to dignity, wholeness of people, and diversity of experiences. Leaning into joy affirms dignity, which in turn makes possible deeper disciplinary sensemaking. We conceptualize Pedagogies of Joy (POY, rhymes with joy) as design and instructional (in-the-moment) decisions an educator uses as they follow pathways leading to joy. We draw on cross-case analysis of three empirical examples to illustrate four POY: "attending to affective-entanglements," "switching roles," "cultivating third space," and "(co)dreaming to enact." We illustrate how these POY-shaped design and instructional-decisions in empirical exemplars to make visible the importance of leaning into moments of joy as seeds of possibility dignity-affirming learning that can deepen sensemaking about STEM phenomena by foregrounding a full affective range of sensemaking repertoires. We offer POY as tools for educators, researchers, and designers (beyond binary categories of teacher, student, adult, child, youth). We find joy in knowing that these empirical examples are but drops in a wide sea of stories from countless educators who are already committed to seeking joy in solidarity with learners.
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  Data: 2026
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  Data: EJ1491941
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