Exploring Agency | Passivity and Emotional Energy in an Elementary STEM Classroom

Abstract Learner agency is often attributed with taking-action, as the antithesis of passivity and perceived in-action. Our study challenges common perceptions and explores connectivity between agency, passivity, and emotionality in learning, which are not fully understood in science education research. The interplay between agency, passivity, and emotionality are explored through learner experiences in an elementary school STEM classroom. We view agency as a relational phenomenon involving sensitivity between learners as agents and their environment. Sensitivity involves passivity towards the environment as an essential part of agentic learning. Emotionality is related as it drives sensitivity and attentiveness toward objects of learning, contributing to evidence of agentic intentionality. This study is informed by an event-orientated methodology with an ethnomethodological orientation using visual data to investigate episodes of small group social interactions in the classroom. Interpretative dimensions of this study, around emotionality, draw from a conceptual framework involving emotional energy as an experience of collective focus, and an understanding of agency | passivity as co-existing in a dialectical relationship. Findings of this study illustrate the interplay between agency | passivity and emotional energy as a way of understanding the nature of learning experiences through micro-social practices. This paper contributes to the emotions in science education literature and the knowledge generated will contribute to teaching practices aimed at shaping productive science learning experiences. As an exploratory study this paper suggests possibilities for further research.