Community College Transfer Students’ Pathways Through Boundary Experiences Using a Storied Science Identity Lens

Community college transfer students have varied experiences that may (dis)engage them with science over their lifespan. Through the lens of science identity and boundary experiences, we completed three interviews, each with five transfer students majoring in biology at a four-year university. Students reflected on their entire lives and imparted stories about formal and informal experiences that impacted their (dis)engagement with science and explained their pathway in science. We focus on the boundary experiences students described and how these may or may not support science identity production. We found that boundary experiences vary by context and that the actions and words of individuals who are a part of the story play a role in the consequences of the boundary experience. We noted that different boundary experiences have different impacts on the trajectory of a student and that their agency influences possible trajectories. The stories imparted articulate not only barriers, but the resources that uplifted them in their lifetime. This provides insight into the varied science experiences that community college transfer students encounter and decisions that students make that educators can leverage. The constant negotiations with new experiences allowed for a continuous science identity production that resulted in persistence, even with interruptions.