Promoting Family Science Conversations in the LaCuKnoS Project

Abstract

The Language, Culture, and Knowledge-building through Science (LaCuKnoS) project tests and refines a model of science teaching and learning that brings together current research on the role of language in science communication, the role of cultural and community connections in science engagement, and the ways people apply science knowledge to their daily decision making. One key component of the model brings families together as co-learners and co-teachers through family learning experiences. We describe our work to promote more robust family conversations about science in our lives within an existing research practice partnership, using a two-tiered qualitative conversational analysis to compare the family conversations that result from three family engagement models: (a) family science festivals; (b) family science workshops; and (c) family science home learning. More specifically, this paper addresses the question: How do families describe and evaluate science in their lives and communities during family conversations that occur during each of these three engagement models? Discourse analysis using the appraisal dimension of systemic functional linguistics highlights the affective components of families evaluating science in their lives, as well as how each model provided unique affordances for different communicative goals. These findings are used to propose a set of design principles to guide the continued exploration of community-sustaining and family-centric models of family engagement as a key strategy for broadening science participation.

1. Introduction: Promoting Robust Family Science Conversations

5th grade Son: Here’s the next question for you. What jobs or careers that involve science are needed in our community? Why are these jobs needed?

Mom: We need more health care for sure. That’s why I’m training for a medical assistant job. Cuz if you look everywhere, if you look online, all the different clinics are looking for medical assistants and nurses. And that’s what I’m trying to be. I’m in school right now to be a medical assistant and I’m hoping eventually I’ll work in our community. I’m hoping that within a year I’ll be doing that. Did you know that?

Son: Sort of… I guess not, really.

The above exchange between a 5th-grade student and his mom during a conversation at a recent family science workshop in a rural community in the northwestern United States highlights several reasons for creating new spaces and opportunities for families to engage together in meaningful science talk and activity. First, adults and children have both knowledge and questions about science in their lives that often go unrecognized because they lack space to talk about these topics (Cian et al., 2022). Second, many current community-based needs and opportunities have science connections that are relevant to the daily choices that families and students make (Finkel, 2017). Third, science topics and skills will play an increasingly central role in the future of today’s youth as they pursue their academic and occupational pathways in the coming decades (Black et al., 2021). Fourth, the transdisciplinary science fields of today and tomorrow are strengthened and enriched by the diversity of thought, experience, and background that comes from broadening participation within those fields (Johnson et al., 2021). Thus, as scientific knowledge and practices become increasingly important in modern life, families that make time and space to talk about these topics will likely be better situated to thrive in our rapidly changing world. Further, when families feel empowered to talk about their perspectives on learning, they can leverage this parental knowledge to advocate for more family-centric approaches to schooling (Pushor, 2015).

Schools have long viewed family engagement as essential for promoting students’ academic success, a realization strongly reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic (Ettenauer et al., 2023; Wilinski et al., 2022). However, in the U.S. context (as well as many others), a standard set of practices and events has become normalized for schools to engage families in conversations around academic topics and school success (Cook et al., 2020). These activities typically occur at the school and in the evening, including parent-teacher conferences, back-to-school nights, and, sometimes, science-centered events such as science fairs. These events can be characterized as school-centric (Lawson, 2003) as they highlight one-way dissemination of information from school to family, focused on what families need to know for their students to be successful in school (Barton et al., 2004). Thus, while meaningful family science conversations may happen in homes and other community spaces, schools’ family engagement models rarely provide access to this knowledge (Kirmaci, 2019).

Interactive and family-centric engagement efforts for supporting family science conversations generally include a mix of opportunities that take place at school, such as family science nights (Yanowitz & Hahs-Vaughn, 2016), opportunities that occur at home (Dominguez et al., 2023), such as home learning activities sent from school (e.g., Dou et al., 2019), and occasionally events in other settings, such as family field trips (e.g., Kirmaci et al., 2021). The goals of these family-centric science engagement events may include enhancing science interest and identity by engaging families in learning together, supporting students’ motivation to pursue science academic pathways, and/or providing parents with opportunities to share their relevant knowledge and experiences with their children and/or their children’s teachers (Allexsaht-Snider, 2018) and understanding their children’s science interests and abilities (Yanowitz & Hahs-Vaughn, 2016).

For a paper dedicated to a more systemic review of this literature, see Milner-Bolotin and Marotto (2018). That meta-analysis provides a comprehensive overview of how family involvement influences children’s STEM education. Their findings indicate that effective parental engagement in STEM can strengthen the connection between home and school, fostering a collaborative environment that supports children’s learning. We note that this topic of promoting family-centric science seems to be of growing interest in the research literature, for example, the several other science focused papers in this special issue (Hands et al., 2025; Short-Meyerson et al., 2025) and in a recent spotlight on U.S. National Science Foundation projects with a family-centric focus (Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education (CADRE), 2024).

Building on this work, we compare three different models for promoting robust family-centric conversations: (a) free flowing family activities that we refer to as family science festivals; (b) structured workshops for families that we refer to as family science workshops; and (c) take home activities for families that we refer to as family science home learning. More specifically, this paper addresses the research question: How do families describe and evaluate science in their lives and communities during family conversations as part of (1) family science festival events? (2) family science workshop events? and (3) family science home learning activities? We use our analysis of these family conversations to propose a set of design principles for promoting more family-centric models of science engagement.

1.1. Literature on Family Science Conversations

Rethinking the role of family science engagement is a timely topic, as the COVID-19 pandemic was a disruptor of established structures that recently forced schools and educators to think differently about family engagement for several years. Among the many impacts of the pandemic, it opened new agentic possibilities for educators in unexpected ways (Buxton et al., 2023; Okilwa & Barnett, 2021). As schools transitioned from in-person to remote learning, existing structures were abandoned by necessity, creating space for new ways of thinking and acting. Teachers came to see families as essential instructional partners during this time, although many schools have now reset to previous family engagement approaches (Harmey & Moss, 2023). Before pandemic-induced lessons about the roles of families in education are forgotten, now is the time to expand our efforts to improve family engagement in and beyond science (Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education (CADRE), 2024).

A growing body of research points to the importance of robust family conversations as central to young people’s educational success in and beyond science subjects (Epstein et al., 2018; Civil et al., 2020; Dou et al., 2019). This research argues that family conversations are critical for broadening participation in science (Saw, 2020) and that new collaborations among families, students, and teachers to promote such conversations should be central to these efforts (Dou & Cian, 2021). Further research is needed, however, on specific models and design principles that teachers and schools can adopt to cultivate a broadened vision of science learning linked to the assets and resources of all families and communities, particularly those from backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in science careers (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2018).

The current research on family conversations clearly points to the value of such interactions for enhancing students’ identities as well as for clarifying specific learning interests (Dou & Cian, 2021). The 2021 study by Dou and Cian provides the clearest evidence to date of the importance of families making time to have conversations together about science in their lives. The study explored the science talk experiences of youth that contributed to their identification with science. The researchers describe science talk as everyday conversations about science-related topics that take place between children and their family members or friends. Dou and Cian found that talking about science with close family members was the most salient informal learning experience that contributed to these students’ positive science identity development over time. With growing evidence for the value of fostering family conversations, an important next step is to explore different models that promote such conversations, as we do in this study. Further, while we see great promise for family conversations to support students’ positive science identities, we see additional powerful possibilities for such conversations, including shaping families’ everyday decision making and shifting teachers’ thinking about the value of investing time in listening to parents and respecting parental knowledge as a key piece of promoting family engagement in their schools (Pushor, 2015).

1.2. Conceptual Framework: Integrating Language, Culture, and Knowledge Building

The Language, Culture, and Knowledge-building through Science (LaCuKnoS) project is guided by a conceptual framework that brings together ideas from dialogic education, a functional view of language, asset-oriented perspectives on culture and community, and a sociological perspective on knowledge building. As described in more detail elsewhere (Buxton et al., 2024), here we draw specific connections to how each aspect of our framework supports our vision of family-centric science co-learning.

1.2.1. Dialogic Education

Family engagement is often viewed as supplemental to the main goals of schooling (Mapp & Kuttner, 2013). However, as Freire (1998) argued, “the school cannot abstract itself from the socio-cultural and economic conditions of its students, their families, and their communities” (p. 62). Freire (1998) advocated for dialogic education, involving the co-construction and collective problematizing of knowledge among teachers, students, families, and communities, with a focus on who benefits from that knowledge and who does not. Such critical insights can change the way teachers, students, and families see themselves and each other in relation to science learning (Barton et al., 2004). For example, the family science activities we describe in this paper ask students and parents to pool their knowledge and experiences as they work and talk together to solve problems using scientific practices. The experiences that parents reference are often unknown to their children, pointing to the value of such dialogic engagement.

1.2.2. Language Development for Science Sense Making

Our view of language development is functional (rather than structural) in nature and is informed theoretically by Systemic Functional Linguistics ([SFL]; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2013). We talk about language as a system that offers varied choices for making and communicating meaning across disciplinary and social contexts. Thus, teachers in our project learn to support students in making strategic language choices informed by their topic, purpose, and audience rather than seeking to always replace students’ “everyday language” with a preferred “academic language” (Matthiessen, 2015). We apply the same approach to our family engagement work, as families do science tasks together while talking and writing about what they are doing and learning, using whatever languages, registers, and modalities support their collective sense-making. Further, this functional view of language shaped the analysis (described later) of our family conversations by focusing on components of language that inform and reflect families’ interests and identities, such as affect, judgment, and appreciation.

1.2.3. Mapping Cultural and Community Connections to Science

Our project applies and extends understandings from culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris & Alim, 2017) to support families in bridging their cultural and linguistic competencies with those of science subjects represented in school and society. A culturally sustaining perspective on science asks educators to work strategically to maintain and develop students’ and communities’ cultural and linguistic resources related to science engagement (CADRE, 2022). Our family engagement work asks families to talk together about the roles that science plays in their lives and communities today and how they envision science in their futures. Through our co-design work with teachers, we have come to refer to this approach as community sustaining pedagogy, recognizing the unique place-based aspects and the shared needs and resources of specific communities (Buxton, 2025).

1.2.4. Knowledge Building for Informed Decision Making

Maton’s (2013) Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) presents a sociological framework for exploring how knowledge is conceptualized, taught, and applied within different academic disciplines. For instance, the dimension of LCT, known as Autonomy, clarifies the relationships between the topic that is the focus of new learning and the purpose for learning a new idea (Maton & Howard, 2020). This LCT perspective on knowledge building was central to our family engagement work. We developed tasks for families, such as those described in the findings, that were designed to encourage conversations around how specific science knowledge and interests can be applied to future academic and occupational goals.

By bringing together these theoretical perspectives on language, culture, and knowledge related to science learning, we created the LaCuKnoS pedagogical model for broadening participation in science (see

Table 1. LaCuKnoS Pedagogical Model.

	Strand 1: Language Development for Science Sense Making	Strand 2: Mapping Cultural and Community Connections to Science	Strand 3: Knowledge Building for Informed Decision Making
Band 1 Starting Practices	L1: Choosing language based on topic, purpose and audience Tools: Language boosters; Investigation summary guides; Multilingual concept cards	C1: Purposeful grouping and roles to connect science and community Tools: Investigation role cards; Role play scenarios; Oral history interviews	K1: Experiencing how science knowledge is built and accepted Tools: Anchoring events with community relevance; STEM Careers explorations; Nature of science tasks
Band 2 Deepening Practices	L2: Using Multimodalities and Translanguaging to make and share meaning Tools: Multimodal science “talk moves”; Multimodal concept maps; Theater games	C2: Engaging families together in science co-learning Tools: Family conversation cards; Family science home learning tasks	K2: Visualizing and representing data to support scientific claims Tools: Walking field trip guide; Data visualization tools

). This conceptual model subsequently guided our design work and research on how to promote more robust family science conversations.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. The LaCuKnoS—SMILE Partnership

The LaCuKnoS project is a five-year, federally funded research effort run by a multinational and multilingual team of university faculty from education, forestry, and statistics, graduate students from education and the sciences, and other partners with a shared commitment to improving science education. As a central component of this work, we bring teachers, students, and families together as agentic co-learners and co-teachers through family science activities done in partnership with the SMILE program, a university outreach effort that facilitates a statewide network of schools, teachers, students, and families to increase science engagement for students in grades 4–12. SMILE recruits K-12 teachers to facilitate weekly after-school science clubs and family events. The LaCuKnoS team works with the SMILE teachers to plan, develop, and share content, incorporating our pedagogical model into activities for these after-school clubs and family engagement events. This partnership served as the context for us to compare the family conversations that resulted from three different engagement models, briefly described in the next section and further elaborated in the findings. As members of the SMILE program, each club was expected to conduct at least one family engagement event per year. While the nature of these events was not prescribed, the first of the models described below had become the default approach for most clubs.

During the three school years (2021–2024) that we collected family engagement data for this study, we worked with 68 SMILE teachers who facilitated 44 SMILE clubs serving approximately 800 students. Regarding multilingualism, approximately 21% of the teachers and 51% of the students identified as multilingual. These clubs were spread broadly across the rural parts of Oregon and did not include urban areas. In terms of supporting culturally sustaining pedagogies, we developed the broader research project to explicitly connect STEM topics to the primary economic drivers in rural parts of our state. These primary economic drivers have traditionally been resource-based, such as logging, agriculture, and fishing. These industries declined in the last few decades of the 20th Century due to shifting global trade patterns and changing consumer habits, resulting in higher unemployment and poverty rates in many rural communities in the U.S. and numerous other countries (Lemire, 2018).

More recently, however, innovations and new technologies have revitalized fields such as forestry and agriculture (USDoL, 2019). Rebuilding rural economies and reducing poverty will require the next generation of rural innovators and entrepreneurs to be inspired, creative, and well-educated. Such shifts in workforce needs were central to the initial framing of the broader research project.

2.2. Three Models of Family Science Engagement

The three specific models of family science engagement we utilized were based on a combination of our own past research experiences, our review of current literature (above), and the experiences and desires of our partners and participants.

2.2.1. SMILE Family Science Festivals

Prior to this study, SMILE clubs were already planning and facilitating annual science nights for families from their school communities. The goals of these family events included having fun learning about science together, recruiting new students to participate in SMILE clubs, exploring everyday science phenomena, bringing families to school to have positive interactions, and deepening relationships between families and teachers. We continued to use this structure as one family engagement model, referring to these events as family science festivals because of the free-flowing, noisy, and sometimes chaotic, festive feeling that families experience. In this approach, a wide range of activities and topics are facilitated by SMILE teachers and club participants, as well as local community partners such as health and nutrition programs, SMILE staff, and the LaCuKnoS team. In some cases, recruitment for these events was limited to the students and families participating in SMILE clubs, but more often, these events were advertised and open to the broader school and neighborhood community.

During the science festival events, families engage in the different activities however they wish and for as long or short as they want. Families then have the option to go to an interview area for a structured activity where adults and children take turns asking each other questions about their participation and, more broadly, about the role of science in their lives. Researchers are not involved in these conversations, but we ask to audio record the families if they are willing to share, offering a $20 gift card as an incentive. A researcher explains the conversation, places an audio recorder on the table, and then leaves the family to talk, guided by the question cards. For this study, we use data collected from family conversations at two family science festival events held in 2023.

2.2.2. LaCuKnoS Family Workshop Model

While recognizing the multiple benefits of the SMILE family festival format, the LaCuKnoS research team also had experience using a different model in a previous project (Kirmaci et al., 2019). We refer to this model as family science workshops because the approach feels like the teacher workshops we run. This model provides more structure for families to engage in science learning as a family group, and to facilitate collective conversation and action around community knowledge, local challenges, and opportunities that connect to science. Recruitment for this model was most often limited to the SMILE club families in the school, as we had more limited capacity to support this model, which was more resource-intensive to deliver.

In the workshop model, families sign up in advance to participate together in activities that highlight science problem-solving, careers, and the roles of science in our communities. The activities are facilitated by the LaCuKnoS team, and as with the festival format, the workshops conclude with a family conversation activity. In this case, all families that attend the workshop participate in the family conversations. When families are willing, we audio record these conversations in the same manner as the festivals. For this study, we use data collected from family conversations during two family workshops held in 2023 and 2024.

2.2.3. LaCuKnoS Family Home Learning Model

Our third model for facilitating family science conversations was through activities developed by the LaCuKnoS team and taught in the SMILE after-school club settings. Some of these model lessons include home learning components where students are asked to gather data, such as through oral history interviews. Because this model is tied to SMILE club activities, participation is limited to the students in the clubs and the family members they choose to engage with at home. For this study, we use a subset of family work samples collected during a 2023 model lesson entitled “My Family STEM Story.” This activity begins with a series of card-sort activities conducted with students during club sessions to guide their exploration of dimensions of job satisfaction, changing job opportunities, and high-demand job skills needed today. Students then take the second part of the activity home. This part asks the students to conduct oral history interviews with family members about science in their lives. After the family conversations, students use their family oral history data to complete a graphic organizer that can be subsequently shared in the SMILE club, along with their notes from their family conversations. Because this model does not ask families to engage in any hands-on science activities together, one missing topic is a chance for families to talk about working together like scientists during an investigation. Unlike the other two models, researchers did not get to see transcripts of the family conversations. Otherwise, the same topics were covered in the family conversations.

2.3. Data Collection

The family conversations collected during all three models ask students and adult family members to take turns asking each other questions. The researchers did not facilitate the interviews, as we found in previous studies, that the resulting family conversations were richer and more meaningful when the conversations were among family members without an outsider present (Allexsaht-Snider et al., 2017). The interviews for each model use four short questions to highlight themes our past research pointed to as helpful in promoting robust family science conversations: (1) When you were growing up, were you curious about science? If so, what were you curious about? (2) Do you know anyone who does work that involves science? If so, can you tell me about that person? (3) We did science activities together today. Did we work like scientists during these activities? Why or why not? and (4) What jobs or careers that involve science do we need in our community? Why?

As elaborated in

Table 2. Summary of family STEM events and interviews.

Type of STEM Event	Event Description and Date	School/Community Description	# of Conversations
family festival	November 2022 a small family night only for the families of SMILE club students, with a few middle school student families but mostly elementary	Pinegrove: a small town in the foothills of forested mountains; many families involved in forestry jobs	10
family festival	November 2022 a well-established middle school club hosted this family night, providing all activities; we brought pre-service teachers to run most of the activities	Hopsville: a growing suburban community in what was formerly more agricultural; numerous multilingual families	10
family workshop	November 2023 This school’s first SMILE family night included families from 3 elementary schools. The central activity was bubble science.	Moon Ranch: the hub town in a rural and remote agricultural region	6
family workshop	February 2024 A well-established high school club supported a new elementary club to host a joint SMILE family night with a workshop session. The central activity was bubble science.	High Valley: a large town on the main highway with an agricultural history and large healthcare industry in the present	8
home learning activity	March 2023 A long standing rural high school club with many families who work in agriculture. The central activity was My Family STEM Story.	Prairie View: small town in a rural and remote agricultural region	9
home learning activity	March 2023 A new suburban elementary school club. The central activity was My Family STEM Story.	Hopsville: see description above	12

, data for this study come from six family events we conducted between fall 2022 and winter 2024, with two examples each from the three models. We note that our approach is not to consider these communities as case studies but to compare the family conversation models more broadly. The teachers chose which models they wished to implement in line with our broader project design approach of studying multiplicities of enactment rather than desiring or expecting fidelity of implementation to one centralized approach (Buxton et al., 2015).

While data were collected from additional events in other clubs and communities, for this study, we purposefully selected six events to represent the geographic, cultural, and age variations of project participants (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). Data includes 20 conversations from two family science festival events, 14 conversations from two family science workshop events, and 21 family stories from the home learning activity in two clubs. While some family conversations at several events did occur in Spanish, all interviews at the chosen events by families that gave consent to be recorded chose to conduct their interviews in English (see Section 4.3). Conversations were transcribed using automated transcription software (TEMI) and then checked and cleaned by research team members.

2.4. Data Analysis

The resulting family conversation data were analyzed in a two-step process. The first step involved deductive theoretical coding (Thornberg & Charmaz, 2014) based on themes derived from our past LaCuKnoS research and the literature on family science conversations described earlier. All authors were involved in the initial analysis process of coding transcripts using Dedoose software version 10.0.35 to develop our analytic codebook (MacQueen et al., 1998), defining and clarifying exemplars of each code. Four primary codes were derived from the main conversation themes (e.g., personal interests related to science), and second-level thematic codes were clusters within the focal topics (e.g., gardening as a specific personal interest related to science; see

Table 3. Initial deductive thematic codes.

Code Name	Definition of Code	Exemplar of Code
Primary thematic code 1: Personal interests related to science	Descriptions of personal interests seen by participants as related to science, including interests from earlier in life as well as in the present day	I was curious about how different colors mixed made different things, because I wanted to be a hairstylist. So, mixing colors together to create different hair colors.
Primary thematic code 2: Interactions with people who use science	Descriptions of interactions with people who use science knowledge or practices in their work or daily life	Um, my mom, my grandparents worked in the fields, right? Fieldwork has to do with science because you’re growing food, right? Crops have to do with food. Science is everywhere, right?
Primary thematic code 3: Working together like scientists	Describes ways of working like scientists during the activities done at the family event	I learned that we didn’t always get the same results, even if we did it similarly. There were still differences each time that we needed to write down and compare.
Primary thematic code 4: Science needs and resources in our community	Describes needs and community opportunities that are seen as related to science.	Every day, there’s something new, especially with things like cars. Cars are more computers than not now and, so you can’t just be a mechanic and fix a car. You gotta know how to do the computers too.

for definitions and examples of primary thematic codes; see Appendix A for a further elaboration of the five most prevalent secondary thematic codes within each primary code). All authors then coded transcripts, with one author finally reviewing and reconciling differences in codes. After coders had trained and practiced coding, the percentage of disagreement across coders was less than 10% before reconciliation. Frequency counts were used to determine which themes were most common in each model of family conversation (see Appendix A). We note that the total number of coded examples for each primary code was different, and thus, frequency counts are simply used to highlight how the different types of family events influenced the topics that received more attention in the resulting family conversations.

After completing this first round of thematic analysis, it was clear that these family conversations were full of affective, evaluative, and appreciative language regarding the role of science in their lives. The emotional content in these conversations seemed fundamental to our goals of deepening families’ engagement with science, yet was poorly captured by our thematic analysis.

A member of our project advisory board suggested that we consider more focused discourse analysis using the attitude component of the appraisal framework (Martin, 2004) within Systemic Functional Linguistics, as this framing of language was already aligned with how our project conceptualized language use in science. Attitude analysis identifies the linguistic resources and strategies that speakers use to express different aspects of their attitude about a topic, specifically, their use of affect (sharing emotions and feelings), judgment (evaluations of people’s behavior and character), and appreciation (evaluations of things, phenomena, or processes) within a given discursive context (Martin & White, 2005). Researchers have found appraisal analysis particularly useful for understanding how speaking subjects position themselves in relation to other voices and positions in the discourse (Oteíza, 2017). This idea resonated with our thinking about the value of families having science conversations together. Distinctions in discourse analysis are always nuanced, for example, the distinction between affect and appreciation in attitude analysis. A study by Ngo and Unsworth (2015) was beneficial to us as we worked to analyze how our family conversations reflected these distinctions, and should also be helpful to readers who wish to further explore such analysis beyond the definitions and examples we share in

Table 4. Appraisal analysis codes.

Code Name	Definition of Code	Exemplar of Code
Appraisal dimension—Affect	Describes emotional responses and feelings about the roles STEM has played or could play in families’ lives	Mom: Growing up? I wasn’t so interested about science. Daughter: Why? What made you like step away from it? Mom: Well, I liked art. Nowadays, they’re saying it’s part of STEM, but growing up, I didn’t really like math and technology.
Appraisal dimension—Judgement	Describes evaluations of people’s behaviors and actions in terms of what counts as or what value families see in STEM	Your dad’s work with spray foam… it’s like two different kinds of chemicals that have to go together. At a certain temperature and stuff. That’s like scientific, right?
Appraisal dimension—Appreciation	Describes evaluations of things or processes relating to what families do and do not appreciate about STEM in their lives.	I think I would want to be a builder so I can help people by building fireplaces or chairs and tables. Because the science is you have to use the perfect angle to put the nails in for a chair or a table to be strong.

and

Table 5. Excerpt of appraisal analysis.

Excerpt from Transcript Hopsville Family 4B—Father and 5th Grade Son	Appreciation Components of Appraisal Analysis
Son (02:34): Did we work like scientists during these activities? Why or why not?
Father (02:39): I think that we did because you look at something and you try and ask, you know what can happen if you do this or this? And then after we did it, we figured it, we learned about it. Now you, did we work like scientists during this activity? Why or why not?	(judgment) father sees value in the scientific questioning involved in the activities, recognizing the importance of making hypotheses, testing them, and learning from the outcomes.
Son (03:03): Uh, practically, yes, because a lot of science lab partners help each other out doing stuff, and we help each other out doing all these activities, and we’re acting like scientists. So, what jobs or careers that involve science are needed in our community? Why?	(appreciation) son values the collaborative nature of scientific work, appreciating the teamwork and mutual assistance in conducting experiments.
Father (03:26): Um, I think everything in healthcare is needed, like a doctor or, um, a physician’s assistant. We need that, and it involves science. It’s hard because you have to learn about a human body how the human body reacts to certain conditions or medications. OK, what jobs or careers that involve science are interesting to you and why?	(appreciation) father highlights the importance of healthcare careers, recognizing the scientific knowledge required to understand the human body and the effects of medications emphasizing their need in the community.
Son (03:57): Like a surgeon, because you have to get into detail and like how to do surgery on people and like what tool to use, what part to go to. I’m curious, and I’d like to do that.	(affect) son expresses positive feeling toward becoming a surgeon, appreciating the detailed nature of the work, as well as the knowledge and skills required to perform surgeries.

.

While the complete appraisal framework within SFL includes the semantic systems of engagement (language used to justify claims) and graduation (language used to strengthen or soften claims) in addition to attitude (language used to express emotion and value), it is a well-accepted practice within discourse analysis to attend to subsystems of a broader framework that are best aligned with the inquiry in question (Martin, 2004). In this case, we focused our second level of analysis on the attitude dimension of appraisal to highlight the range of evaluative language that family members used when discussing the topic of science in their lives and communities. We hypothesized that facilitated family science conversations, focusing on personal experiences with science, would provide a resource for families to explore and evaluate their feelings about science in their lives and communities.

All transcripts were subsequently re-coded by one of the authors in terms of affect, judgment, and appreciation (the resources of the attitude dimension of appraisal analysis), following Martin and White (2005) and in consultation with the advisory board member (see Table 4 for the appraisal codes we used and Table 5 for an excerpt of the attitude analysis). This analysis was then reviewed with the research team in terms of how the two phases of analysis could work together to portray more holistic narratives of the family conversations (Fraser, 2004).

Learning to express personal feelings and opinions in purposeful ways in each communicative context is a key issue in language education because relationship-building using affective expressions is central to both academic tasks and everyday life (Ngo & Unsworth, 2015). Combining this affective analysis of what participants do and do not appreciate about science in their lives with the thematic analysis of where and how they see science in their families and communities provided a more robust picture of how such conversations might support families’ thinking about science for both academic and everyday purposes.

3. Results: Family Science Conversations

We present each of the three family engagement models in turn, beginning with a descriptive vignette, followed by results from the thematic coding, and concluding with results of the attitude analysis focused on families’ affect, judgment, and appreciation toward science in their lives.

3.1. Model 1: Family Science Festival

Vignette: SMILE Family Science Festival Night, February 2023

It’s 5:30 pm, and families are arriving at the cafeteria of the local elementary school. The SMILE coordinator and the school assistant principal are greeting the families with information about the activities and giving them an “activity passport” where they can record their participation in the series of LaCuKnoS science activities. There are four activities from our project this evening: Cartesian Diver, to examine pressure and density in a bottle to model how a submarine goes up and down; Wonder Turner, to study the persistence of vision and optical illusions; Dirty Hands, to experiment with controlling variables and see how differences in hand washing practices can influence the presence of germs; and, How old is the tree?, to examine tree rings to determine a tree’s age and other events in the life of the tree. Each of these activities is facilitated by a LaCuKnoS team member while the SMILE teachers are running three other science activities, and a partner organization is facilitating another. Around 30 families, including current SMILE elementary students, their parents, and some younger and older siblings, circulate among the different science stations. Families appear engaged, and the cafeteria is loud, with people talking and laughing. In some cases, families are participating in the science activities together, and in other cases, groups of students are engaged with the activity facilitators while their parents stand back and chat together. A laminated page with a discussion question is on each table, focused on connecting the specific learning activity to science in the community. Families get a stamp for their passport when they complete an activity. Dinner is waiting in another part of the cafeteria but before eating, some families go to the interview table to participate in the optional family conversation. Parents and youth are seated together in this area, taking turns asking and answering questions about their experiences at the family night.

3.1.1. Findings from Thematic Analysis of Family Festival Conversations

Overall, the family conversations following participation in family science festival events proved most likely to raise examples of one of our four primary codes: interactions with people who use science in their lives (primary code 2; 49% of 82 total examples coded across all three models). We note that this theme was not connected to any of the specific science activities that students and families engaged in during the family science festivals but was prompted directly by one of the questions guiding the family conversation (Do you know anyone who uses science in their life? If so, can you tell me about that person?).

In responding to this question, the most common subtopics differed between adults and students. For adults, other family members with jobs that we categorized as “science-adjacent” were the most common reference points for people who use science. For example,

Yes, I do. My dad was a diesel mechanic, so he did lots of science and math, like with angles for cylinders and the gears and everything else. He also was a machinist and a master jig builder, so he used a lot of tools to build precision castings. (Dad at Hopsville)

As in this reflection, many of the examples from parents made connections to technical skills used in skilled labor jobs such as forestry, baking, construction, and woodworking. For students, it was the science teachers in their schools, especially those who ran their SMILE clubs, who were most likely to be mentioned as doing work involving science.

Daughter: My science teacher, Ms. Smith.

Mom: How is doing science part of her job?

Daughter: Well, she teaches it to us, and we do science together in our SMILE club. (Hopsville)

The most common secondary themes for parents (after skilled tradespeople) included knowing healthcare workers, information technology workers, and people who work with chemicals. For students, the next most common secondary themes (after science teachers) were knowing healthcare workers, cooks, and technology workers. Building on this thematic analysis of the family conversations that followed science festival events, the subsequent appraisal analysis more deeply explored how these families felt about their interactions with people who use science in their lives and what they valued about science.

3.1.2. Findings from Attitude Analysis of Family Festival Conversations

To review, SFL attitude analysis was used to identify how these families expressed affect, judgment, and appreciation during the conversations as they shared experiences and viewpoints and sometimes tried to persuade each other of certain ideas (Martin & White, 2005). In these family conversations following the science festival events, we continue to focus on the descriptions of interactions with individuals who use science in their lives, as this was the most common primary theme in the conversations resulting from the festival model.

Analysis of Affect

When families talked about the individuals they know who use science in their lives, their affect was almost always positive, reflecting respect for the difficulty of work involving science and pride in the people they know (usually other family members) who do this work.

Dad: Your Grandma… my mom… has a bachelor’s in science. She’s been a lactation nurse at the hospital for 25 years. So, everything about her job is science and working to support the doctors. She knows all the things they’re talking about, and she can do stitches and so many of the things that doctors do. (Pinegrove)

Reflecting on the long-term nature of this work and the required science skills, this father shares a positive family connection with his son toward science. For their part, students also reflected positive affect when describing people using science.

Son: I know that Grandpa worked on harvesters for 40 years. So, he had to think about physics and gravity all the time and had to have ideas in math. I remember him telling me how he needed to figure out how the engine worked and how powerful it needed to be for different jobs. So, he uses a lot of science in his work.

Dad: Mm-hmm. <affirmative> (Hopsville)

This son reflects on talks he had with his grandfather about the practical applications of science and math in modern agriculture. Affectively, he expresses pride in his grandfather’s knowledge as well as a feeling of connection to science that could extend to his own life.

Analysis of Judgement

When families talked about people who use science in their lives, they made judgments about what counts as using science, and they often explicitly justified their examples. In the conversations following the festival events, these judgments tended to recognize and value the importance of scientific thinking and practical applications in activities and careers.

Dad: Um, well, I guess <pauses> My dad worked in the woods, so he was kind of a forester. He worked with trees and did forestry work, like examining tree rings to help determine if trees needed to be fertilized and when they were ready for harvest. (Pinegrove)

This dad evaluated his father’s work in forestry and concluded that this was an example of science, providing evidence of determining fertilization needs based on the tree rings. Families also tended to evaluate their own and each other’s curiosity, skills, and understanding related to science positively in their examples.

Mom: Um, my dad. My dad worked with chemicals on the farm all the time. He had to know how to mix them and predict how much of each he had to put in. He needed a lot of math and measuring, and he mostly taught himself what he needed to know. (Pinegrove)

These two examples show how parents positively evaluated ways in which their own parents’ work required science knowledge and skills to accomplish tasks that contributed to the family and community. As many families noted, participation in the family conversations led them to share stories they had never discussed regarding connections to science in their lives.

Analysis of Appreciation

Finally, when families in the festival events talked about individuals who use science in their lives, their appreciation focused on the value of scientific applications, including technological tools, relevant knowledge and skills, inquiry methods, and potential careers. Both parents and students appreciated practices for making science relevant, useful, and accessible.

Mom: I didn’t know anyone growing up, but now I know a lot of people who use science in the doctor’s office. They have to know all kinds of things about people’s bodies and medicine and vaccines and how to use all sorts of tools. It’s a lot to keep track of to help make sure people stay healthy. (Pinegrove)

This appraisal analysis revealed largely positive attitudes towards science within these families, highlighting the importance of practical applications and appreciation for the utility of science. We can conclude that the family conversations that followed participation in the science festival events did provide families with valuable opportunities to talk about science in their lives. However, we also noted that this format was not strong for prompting talk about what was learned during the specific event. We turn now to the model of the family science workshop.

3.2. Model 2: Family Science Workshop

Vignette: LaCuKnoS Family Science Workshop, November 2023

Families are lined up and waiting to enter the middle school cafeteria at 5:30 pm. As families arrive, they are invited to participate in one of several STEAM activities, including an origami folding activity and an activity discussing art pieces that were inspired by scientific data on climate change. Students from the school culinary class have prepared charcuterie boards, and families are invited to snack as they engage in the initial activities. After 20 minutes one of the teachers announces that the families who signed up for the family workshop session will go with the LaCuKnoS team to one of the school’s classrooms for the workshop. Other families remain in the cafeteria to continue participating in the science festival activities. Fourteen families join in the science classroom for the following hour. All families include one student from the elementary SMILE club (grades 4 and 5), and most families also include one or more younger children. Several middle school families had also signed up but did not end up coming because of conflicts with sports practice. Families are seated together around lab tables where they participate in three activities: first, a bubble challenge, where families work together to develop and test different bubble formulas to try to create the biggest and longest lasting bubbles; second, a card sort activity to discuss types of jobs that are shrinking and growing in the coming years; and third, the family conversation, where parents and kids take turns asking each other questions about science in their lives and communities as well as about what they have learned during the workshop. Families are engaged together throughout, sometimes working and talking seriously about the activities and sometimes laughing and being silly as they blow bubbles together. At the end of the workshop, several families are still experimenting and don’t want to leave when it is time to transition to dinner.

3.2.1. Findings from Thematic Analysis of Family Workshop Conversations

The family conversations following participation in family science workshop events proved most likely to raise examples of two of our four primary codes: how families worked together like scientists during the event (primary code 3; 57% of 113 total coded examples across all three models) and what community needs and resources were related to science (primary code 4; 53% of 127 total coded examples across all three models). It seems logical that the family science workshop format led to the most reflections on working together like scientists, since families spent most of the workshop doing just that. In terms of identifying community needs and resources related to science, this topic was explicitly connected to the card sort activity about growing and shrinking job fields mentioned in the vignette above.

The most common sub-code examples for how families described working like scientists involved discussing the need to manipulate and control variables to have a fair test.

I learned that in our bubble experiment, the more solution we used and the less water, the bigger the bubble was. Also, we needed to blow slow and steady the same way for each test to help the bubble stay alive a longer time. (Mom at High Valley)

Our family workshop activities began with a planning sheet where families considered what they would do and why before beginning. In the bubble activity, the planning sheet guided families to create and record three different formulas that they would test, mixing different types and amounts of bubble solutions with distilled water. Building this planning into the workshop activities while emphasizing that scientists plan together before experimenting may have contributed to this theme in the family conversations. Similarly, the second most common sub-theme for working like scientists described the need for multiple measurements and multiple trials (also related to using the planning sheet).

We learned not to be afraid to keep trying until you get the right formula. Just try again. Any change in the formula can have a huge impact. So, it’s good to document everything we do and try it another time because lots of components come into play. (Mom at Moon Ranch)

This idea of valuing repeated trials when doing science is closely associated with science practices emphasized in school science. Parents, such as the mom above, also raised this idea of multiple trials when discussing how they worked like scientists during the activity. The next three most common sub-themes for working like scientists included making careful observations, learning from failures, and troubleshooting procedures.

The theme of community needs and resources related to science (primary code 4) was also frequently discussed in the conversations following the workshop model. Among science needs and resources, the most common subtheme involved the need for more healthcare resources in our communities.

Mom: I think we see a need for a lot of healthcare science like they’re looking for cures for cancer or formulas to improve medicines that help with common things like colds and flu. So, there’s a big need for that.

Daughter: Like Cici. She’s a nurse.

Mom: Right. Cici went to nursing school so she can learn how to help people. But yeah, I think medical is one of the biggest needs for our community. (High Valley)

As noted in the community descriptions (see Table 2), the High Valley community has shifted from an agricultural economy to a regional hub for healthcare services, making it natural that healthcare would be a common theme. This theme of healthcare jobs was also emphasized in several of our workshop activities, such as the card sort activity. Another common subtheme regarding community connections involved science knowledge in agriculture.

Dad: The science we need most in our community involves biology and botany because we have a farming community, so we have to learn how to grow the most plants and the best plants that last longest so people can eat them. That uses science.

Mom: Also, there’s the sugar factory in Prairie View, so they use science to make sugar. (Moon Ranch)

While it may be unsurprising that health care and agriculture would be two of the strongest community connections to science in rural U.S. communities, we wish to highlight the opportunity and value of facilitating family conversations about such topics. Families repeatedly reflected that they did not usually talk about these ideas as a family, but that being prompted to have these conversations was both enjoyable and educational. Other frequently mentioned community science needs included water management, science teachers, and wildfire management. Again, while none of these topics seem surprising, perhaps that is the point—families do see and value the role of science in their lives, providing an opening for meaningful and family-centric engagement activities. Subsequent discourse analysis sought to more deeply explore how these families felt about these topics and what they valued during the activities.

3.2.2. Findings from Attitude Analysis of Family Workshop Conversations

Learning to work like scientists and engineers by emphasizing practices is perhaps the cornerstone of the shift brought about by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) in the U.S. and other contemporary science education reforms worldwide. On the other hand, identifying community needs and opportunities related to science is not central to implementing the NGSS. Reflecting on the value families place on science practices and the role of science in their community may give us new ideas for presenting science subjects in more meaningful ways for today’s students.

Analysis of Affect

In the conversations resulting from our science workshops, families made multiple affective connections to working like scientists during the event.

Son: In this event, we did science together. Can you tell me something you learned about doing science?

Dad: The formulation of different soaps versus the size of bubbles that we got. What’d he say? Using variables to have a fair test <laughs>?

Brother: Yeah, that thicker bubbles or thicker solution didn’t make bigger bubbles. It made more bubbles.

Dad: So, I was wrong. That’s what I learned <laughs>.

Son: I learned that, uh, you can make it too thick or not thick enough. And you had to look at it and kept on measuring and adjusting to see if we had the perfect amount to do it, and the last test, we did very good, like scientists. (High Valley)

This family clearly expresses a positive affect toward their experience doing science together in this context, reflecting their interest and enjoyment in working together to answer a scientific question and laughing about being wrong and making mistakes. This seems particularly relevant given the negative affect that typically accompanies being publicly wrong in school settings and especially in science subjects (Stoehr, 2017).

Analysis of Judgement

Many of the parents reflected that they had never thought explicitly about needs and opportunities related to science in their community, causing them to make on-the-spot judgments about local science resources and needs.

Daughter: What jobs or careers that involve science are needed in our community?

Mom: Well, that’s a good question. I’ve never really…. well, our community is largely farmers in agriculture, so they need to figure out how they, how to grow crops, what’s the best soil, um, for certain crops to grow in.

Dad: Maybe to become more efficient in how we gather crops, and you know, new approaches. What about, uh, like using drones for inspecting things, inspecting tanks for leaks, inspecting fields to see when they’re ready to harvest, with like drone technology? (Moon Ranch)

Both parents quickly identified ways in which scientific tools and problem-solving have practical applications in their community. Occasionally, family conversations connected the two themes of learning to work like scientists and how science can be applied in communities, such as in the following connection to chocolate making.

Daughter: Did we work together like scientists in these activities? If so, how?

Mom: Yes, when we were adding and taking away and mixing the different ingredients. Just like making chocolate at work.

Dad: We made different, um, textures… that give a different effect and has a different outcome. Like how chocolate, um, reacts differently with other chocolates, and at different temperatures and the outcome is always different. (High Valley)

Through this conversation, the family was able to connect the work they do every day at a local chocolate company with how they worked together on the bubble activity at the family workshop. They judged that the skills and methods used are similar, and thus, they could see themselves more clearly connected to and working successfully like scientists.

Analysis of Appreciation

The family workshop conversations provided opportunities for adults and children to share what they appreciate as they discussed the roles of science in their community, and our appraisal analysis helped to focus on the language used to express these ideas.

Daughter: What jobs or careers that involve science are needed in our community? Why?

Mom: In our community? Um, I feel like we need to have our kids learning more about technology because we use a lot of technology now in everything we do every day. So, I would say technology jobs. Also, the people that test the waters, like the drinking water and the rivers. That’d be good to be sure the water is safe to use.

This mom expresses appreciation for the role science can play both in advancing society, such as through new technologies, and in keeping our communities safe, such as through water management. We can conclude that participation in the family workshop events provided families with new experiences that prompted new conversations, particularly about the value of working like scientists and science to improve their community. Finally, we turn to our third family engagement model using home learning tasks.

3.3. Model 3: Family Science Home Learning Tasks

Vignette—My Family STEM Story Activity, March 2023

The after-school SMILE club was getting started, and 4th and 5th grade students were still coming into the classroom, getting a snack, and chatting with their friends. Ms. Rodriguez got the group together and explained the day’s activity.

Ms. R: Show me your hands if you were able to do the interview with someone in your family for the My Family STEM Story.

Most of the 16 students raise their hands, and many call things out.

Crystal: I interviewed my mama.

Sonia: We went to visit my granddad on Sunday, and I interviewed him.

Ms. R: That’s great! Get out your interview sheets. If you don’t have one, find a friend who does and sit with them. Now, I’m going to show you how we’ll take the information from your family interview and use it to complete your My Family STEM story page. Then we’ll put all the pages together in a book that we can look at together about our different family stories.

Ms. R passes out the graphic organizers and color pencils and begins to describe the different sections.

Ms. R: The first section is for what you learned about past family connections to science. Who has an example from your family?

Sonia: I found out that my granddad was a truck mechanic, and he needed to know a lot of science and engineering to fix engines….

The club continues to work in this way for the next 30 minutes until it’s time to go. Ms. R. tells the group that they’ll finish next week, and the students noisily head out of the room.

3.3.1. Findings from Thematic Analysis of Family Home Learning

The family conversations following participation in science home learning activities proved most likely to raise examples of the remaining primary theme: personal interests related to science in your future (primary code 1; 52% of 107 total examples coded across all three models). While this theme still has a family connection, the emphasis is more on each student’s vision of science in their own future. The My Family STEM Story activity did not include any hands-on science investigation, such as those central to the festival and workshop models. Thus, there was no question about acting like a scientist during the activity. Instead, after students facilitated their family conversation, they completed a graphic organizer using that information to tell their family science story, emphasizing how they could use their family background to reflect on the roles they envision science playing in their futures. The most common personal interests related to science involved science-focused jobs and careers, especially in healthcare and technology.

I want to be a doctor, and I hope science and technology will keep advancing to save more lives. Technology and science will be important for me to keep learning all my life. (high school student at Prairie View)

This student connected a family-wide interest in technology with a personal interest in health care to imagine a future working in a high-tech medical field. As students reflected on science in their futures, the next most common themes included using science in hobbies and recreation, and using science in daily tasks like cooking and hygiene.

I want to be a professional soccer player, but if not, I’ll still play a lot of soccer for fun. And I can use science to be a better player. Stronger, faster, and with more skills. (elementary student at Hopsville)

Overall, these family science stories show that students recognize multiple ways that science will shape their future lives. The students reflected this thinking as they completed their graphic representations, leveraging ideas from their family conversations. Building on this thematic analysis, our attitude analysis sought to explore more deeply how the students expressed what they and their families felt and valued about science in their lives.

3.3.2. Findings from Attitude Analysis of Family Home Learning

In our attitude analysis of the students’ family science stories, we highlight how students expressed their feelings and evaluations about science in their lives for both academic and everyday purposes.

Analysis of Affect

Students’ affective responses to science in their futures highlighted a mix of curiosity, optimism, and concern for the future and their place in it. Multiple students expressed variations on comments such as the following one, with some ambivalence about the role of science in their future.

Science can give us better jobs and, better housing, and better farming. So, I know that I should keep studying science. But science might also take our jobs in the future (robots). (high school student at Prairie View)

As with this student, multiple family science stories included the idea of robots or AI taking people’s jobs in the future. We note that this was an explicit topic in the card sort portion of the activity done in the after-school clubs before the family home learning component, potentially explaining why this concern (an affective response) was more common in the findings from this model.

Analysis of Judgement

Students’ responses recognized and valued skills and experiences connected to science that they saw in their families and that they might use in their futures. This topic led to judgments about how family members used science, similar to those from the family science festival conversations, such as the student who shared,

Mom and Dad both worked as dealers at the casino and so they needed to do a lot of math in their heads; now, Dad works as an electrician, and Mom works for the city, and they both still use math a lot. I know that if I keep doing well in math, it will bring me opportunities. (high school student at Prairie View)

This student judged, for instance, that based on her parents’ work experiences, math skills provide access to a range of different job opportunities. Other students evaluated the importance of problem-solving skills that can be developed through science as important for their future lives, for example,

Science gives us new inventions that can improve our lives, but it also helps us to think critically and to use evidence and logic to solve problems. (high school student at Prairie View)

This student draws implicit connections between science improving our daily lives and an emphasis on using the kinds of science and engineering practices that are central to current science education reforms. Our analysis highlights how students used these family science stories to judge science as valuable for their lives and futures.

Analysis of Appreciation

Finally, students’ appreciation responses in the family science stories highlighted a positive valuation of the diverse careers, innovations, and societal impacts related to science in their lives today. For example, students recognized the importance of education and technological advancements in creating better opportunities and addressing future challenges.

My aunt and I talked about how different light bulbs can lower the cost of bills. People can benefit from science and save money, and come up with solutions for simple problems, and I want to invent new things to help with that. (elementary student at Hopsville)

This elementary student clearly appreciates the practical applications of science in everyday life, such as how new technologies might reduce both costs and environmental impacts with more efficient tools. Overall, appraisal analysis revealed a positive attitude toward science from the students and their families. It highlights the significance of science conversations and exploration of career aspirations in fostering a deeper appreciation for science. Thus, family home learning activities provided families with another valuable opportunity to talk about science in their lives without attending a science event at school, an important consideration, recognizing that not every family can participate in such events.

4. Discussion

We begin our discussion by summarizing the answers to our research questions and posing important open questions still to be answered. We conclude by proposing a set of design principles to guide the continued exploration of family science conversations as a key strategy for broadening participation in science over time.

4.1. How Families Evaluated Science in Their Lives

Our first research question asked how families described and evaluated science in their lives and communities during conversations that occurred during family festival events. Our thematic analysis showed that the festival events were most likely to prompt discussion of the people that family members know who use science in their lives. For the parents, these connections were most often with older relatives who applied knowledge and practices in practical ways. For the youth, these connections were most often to teachers who were seen as using science by teaching it to others. Recognizing personal connections to individuals, such as teachers and family members, who use science in their lives has been shown to aid students in constructing more positive science identities (Cian et al., 2022).

Subsequent attitude analysis highlighted specific ways that family members valued and appreciated their participation in the festival events, including opportunities to relate and hear family stories with science connections, to have fun engaging together in learning, and to have the freedom to select what activities to do and how much time to spend doing them, all of which support a family-centric approach to learning. Families both enjoyed and benefited from participating in the festival events, which also met our goal of facilitating conversations about topics that these families might not otherwise discuss.

Key questions that remain about the science festival model include how to better facilitate and capture the families’ co-learning that occurs at the scattered activity tables, how to encourage longer family conversations with more depth to the stories and experiences that family members share with each other, and how to encourage more middle and high school students to participate in these events.

Our second research question asked how families described and evaluated science in their lives and communities during the conversations that occurred during family workshop events. Our thematic analysis showed that the workshop events were most likely to foster family conversations about what it means to work and think like a scientist, as well as community-based science needs and opportunities. Making space and time for families to talk about how they work like scientists and engineers to apply knowledge and skills in their lives and communities can support a range of positive outcomes such as improved evidence-based decision making (Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education (CADRE), 2024), enhanced motivation to continue or deepen their education (Civil et al., 2020), and increased consideration of science occupations (Black et al., 2021).

Appraisal analysis of the conversations from the workshop events highlighted the value of science learning experiences that emphasize fun and togetherness over judgment around the correctness of responses. Families laughed and had fun, even while recognizing their errors and false starts. Many families did take seriously, however, the discussion of science needs and opportunities in their communities. Numerous responses began with parents acknowledging that they had not given much thought to this topic but that it was important to consider. The examples families discussed often came from agriculture and health care, reinforcing that these families are aware of the centrality of these themes in today’s rural communities.

Key questions that remain about the workshop model include how to effectively engage greater numbers of families in this format, how to connect the hands-on activities more closely to community-relevant topics, and how to balance the goal of families having fun learning together with the goal of families discussing serious community needs and opportunities. Perhaps most importantly, we must learn how to support teachers in facilitating this type of event successfully with the families in their community.

Our third research question asked how families described and evaluated science in their lives during family home learning activities. Thematic analysis showed that home learning activities supported students in reflecting on the role of science in their futures. While the interview questions were parallel to the other formats, the subsequent graphic organizer that students completed moved students from reflecting on science in their families to considering the role of science in their communities and finally focusing on the role of science in their own futures. While our project has more expansive family-centric goals for broadening community participation, we recognize that, from our teachers’ perspective, supporting students’ continued academic success and motivation is the primary rationale for considering family engagement, and the home learning format successfully addressed this goal.

Appraisal analysis highlighted both the opportunities and the concerns that students feel about the roles that science will play in their futures. Reflecting on other research on this topic, students in our study appreciated new technologies to help with work tasks and to enhance entertainment while expressing concerns about such technologies eliminating human jobs and artificial intelligence becoming too powerful (Szymkowiak et al., 2021). The home learning model also provided a format that was accessible for families who could not come to a festival or workshop event. Key questions about this model include how to prepare students to engage their family members in this activity format and how to more fully capture family conversations, as the research team is even less involved in data collection with this model.

Looking across all three engagement models, there are multiple ways that participants showed that they value science in their lives, including both personal valuing and community valuing of science. Family conversations increased personal valuing of science, such as when parents expressed pride in family members who use science or when youth expressed satisfaction in doing science activities together as a family. These conversations also highlighted the community’s valuing of science, such as when parents shared clear thoughts about needs and opportunities in their communities, and when they emphasized that they had rarely, if ever, been asked to reflect on this topic. For their part, students generally had less to say about community science needs, perhaps due to their relatively limited lived experiences, further highlighting one important value of such conversations specifically and of family-centric pedagogies more generally.

4.2. Initial Design Principles for Enhanced Family Science Conversations

Building on lessons learned from these three models for promoting family science conversations, we conclude by proposing a set of design principles (Herrington & Reeves, 2011) for facilitating more robust conversations focused on the values and roles that families see for science in their lives and communities. Fostering such conversations can be a key strategy for broadening students’ participation in science, academic, and occupational pathways over time (Cian et al., 2022), while supporting the shift from school-centric learning approaches to more family-centric ones (Pushor, 2015). In line with our commitments to design-based implementation research (Penuel & Potvin, 2021) and to empowering our project participants to act as experts in their community contexts (Buxton et al., 2015), we offer these initial design principles as malleable tools for collaboratively exploring various approaches to family engagement. Researchers, families, and teachers can and should work together to explore how modifications to these and other family engagement models can positively influence how families and students subsequently engage together around science topics.

4.2.1. Design Principle 1: Build Family Science Conversations Explicitly into Activities

If our goal is to deepen family science conversations, families need time to talk together, and educators can create opportunities to prioritize such conversations. We have heard clearly from families that most do not make time to talk or think about how they use science practices in their lives without prompting. Yet families can and do engage in meaningful science learning and conversation together, even during brief and informal family events. Thus, our first design principle is to explicitly build family science conversations into our design activities. That is, rather than conceptualizing these conversations as separate reflections that happen after activities, family conversations should be seen as an integral part of the learning activities and as part of our iterative design work. This principle implies that such conversations must be given sufficient time and structure to foster meaningful talk and that what we learn from these conversations should feed directly into the ongoing design work that teachers do. A first step for schools that wish to explore this principle could be to brainstorm the kinds of feedback from families they most wish they could gain and then look to build those topics into family conversation activities.

4.2.2. Design Principle 2: Everyone Has Something to Teach and Something to Learn

While we have focused on promoting family conversations, we believe that the goal of broadening science participation also requires us to engage in community conversations. Our work shows that family engagement events can be opportunities for broader community conversations in which families, teachers, students, and other community members engage together in co-learning and relationship building. While research on family engagement in science that brings teachers and families together as co-learners remains sparse, emerging models use such approaches (Quintos et al., 2024). Thus, our second design principle is to structure events and activities to ensure that everyone feels that they have something to teach and something to learn. For example, a productive first step can be to invite teachers to bring their own children to family events at school and to engage together more as participants than as facilitators.

4.2.3. Design Principle 3: Elevate Diverse Community Voices Regarding Science

In the last book he wrote, Down to Earth, sociologist Bruno Latour (2018) argued for the importance of distinguishing between “globalization-plus” and “globalization-minus.” By globalization-plus, Latour meant recognizing the diverse viewpoints and needs of the increasing numbers of organisms and cultures that co-exist on Earth. This contrasts with globalization-minus efforts that promote a single global vision proposed by the few and for the benefit of the few. Elsewhere, we have described community sustaining pedagogies (Buxton, 2025) as an example of how to promote this vision of globalization-plus at the community level. Thus, our third design principle is to use family science conversations to elevate diverse community voices and viewpoints about science to push back against monolithic views of techno-globalization. A first step for schools that wish to explore this principle could be to have more open conversations with families and community members about where they see science and technology adding to their communities in positive ways and where they see it potentially damaging their communities. For example, collecting and synthesizing family science stories can provide a way for communities to raise counter-narratives against a globalization-minus perspective on science in their lives while supporting a family-centric approach to schooling.

4.3. Limitations

As with all studies, there must be some tradeoffs and limitations to what we can learn and accomplish in this work. Most importantly, while qualitative research does not strive to control variables like quantitative work, it is helpful to keep as many other variables constant as possible when comparing models. To this end, it would be ideal for each community to explore each of the family engagement models. This was not possible, however, as it did not fit our co-design model of giving choice and agency to our participants. A second limitation is that we could not fully explore the influences of multilingualism on the family conversations. Multiple families we worked with were multilingual (mainly in Spanish and English, but with other languages [e.g., Russian; Indigenous languages] present in small numbers). However, we found that students most often wanted to conduct the family conversations in English, and that many families that conducted their conversations in a language other than English did not wish to be recorded or share the data for research purposes. This is easy to understand given the current political climate globally, particularly in the U.S., but clearly limits what we have learned.

5. Conclusions

In this study, we described our implementation of three different models of family science engagement, the family conversations that resulted from each model, and the family engagement goals that emerged most naturally and productively from those family conversations. We have proposed a set of design principles aligned with those findings that may guide future work in family science engagement and family-centric schooling more broadly. We plan to use these design principles to shape our next steps and hope that others interested in broadening science participation will adapt and extend these models in new ways that can further our collective conversations around science, families, and communities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, family engagement quickly became one of the most important policy considerations faced by schools and school leadership (McLeod & Dulsky, 2021). This topic occupied a great deal of educators’ time and attention. In the years immediately following the pandemic, when this study occurred, family engagement again began to slip from the minds of many school leaders. While we understand that policy pressures in education continue to evolve, we believe it would be a great loss to forget some of the important lessons about family engagement that came to the forefront during the pandemic.

Ask nearly any teacher or school administrator, and they will tell you that family engagement is important to the success of their school. Ask them about family engagement in science subjects specifically, and you will likely hear examples of how science events are some of the school’s most engaging and well-attended activities. Press a bit more, however, on the specific family engagement goals, the specific activities for meeting those goals, and the alignment between those activities and goals, and you will often encounter uncertainty. We believe that the reason for this uncertainty is, at least in part, that while family science engagement activities do occur, their systematic study and dissemination of promising practices are rare. We hope this study contributes a concrete example of how to more explicitly connect multiple stakeholder goals for family engagement with the design of family engagement events. Doing so acknowledges the importance of family-centric (and eventually community-centric) pedagogies by providing families with space and voice to better influence policies, programs, and practices affecting their children.