#555: The Biology of Belonging: Mapping Racialized Assemblages in High School Science through Actor-Network Theory

This study uses actor-network and assemblage theory to trace how race becomes entangled with science curriculum, materials, and classroom interactions. Drawing on ethnographic data from an AP biology classroom, we examine moments where race emerges through both sanitized curricular content (e.g., Asian earwax, Punnett squares) and disruptive student outbursts (e.g., “Sit down, brown person!”). These vignettes are mapped as heterogeneous networks of human, nonhuman, and discursive actors. Here, race is conceptualized as a shifting assemblage enacted through every day charged interactions. This posthumanist framing rethinks how race is produced and negotiated in STEM classrooms and points toward more just, relational pedagogies.