Storytelling As A Tool for Equity

Our Field-Building Collaborative goal is to change the STEM field, that is, change what we consider STEM, how we prepare students and provide access to programming, and to leverage building, digital fabrication, and making as part of the change process. To make this shift, we knew the concealed stories from Black and Brown communities were needed to break down the systemic exclusion of their lived experiences leading to the entrenched narratives of uninterest, inexperienced, undeserving, and not productive, mentioned above. 

 

The digital fabrication, and making stories of Black and Brown students were essential to the desired systemic change in the STEM field we desired. So, we decided to collect what is called “Equity Stories” from the field. 

 

Our working definition of an equity story is: 

Equity stories capture the lived experiences of individuals that have been concealed due to the inherent racialized power and privilege of our practices, policies, and systems. Collecting and sharing equity stories allows us to gain new understandings that can and should be used to dismantle oppressive constructs and ideologies, bringing about equity and social change in our communities. FBC uses equity storytelling to ensure the workspaces and engagements of its member organizations are inclusive. Moreover, through equity storytelling, FBC aims to build momentum for ensuring that Black and Brown students have access to high-quality experiences to STEM through digital fabrication, and making opportunities.

Before we do work elsewhere could we be certain that our own workspaces were spaces for equity?

This definition was crafted in light of the work we did with AORTA and in our Equity as a Tool for Storytelling workshops. It highlights how the equity stories we collected are essential to crafting a counter-narrative resulting in–dismantling oppressive constructs, ideologies, and bringing equity and social change to communities.

Collecting Equity Stories–Getting Started