Research

My research is guided by three distinct, yet related lines of analytic interest that describe my scholarly activities as an educational psychologist and more specifically as a learning sciences researcher.  First, I study the development of practice-linked identities, a concept used to describe how people identify with particular ways of knowing, acting, and valuing, are positioned to participate in social practices, and take on particular types of identification through their engagement in social practices.  The term practice-linked identity is used to distinguish this view of identity development from more individually-focused, psychological perspectives on identity that do not consider how people form understandings of themselves through engagement in culturally and historically situated and socially enacted practices.  Although identities are not solely the accumulation of micro-level interactions, a focus on how identification occurs in local exchanges along with an analysis of how this relates to given social identities (e.g., ethnicity, gender) can help educators arrange learning environments to facilitate the emergence of identities of competence for all students.

Second, I study how people learn to participate disciplinary practices, especially in the areas of mathematics and science. In my research I examine the ways in which newcomers to a practice gain access to disciplinary ways of seeing, talking, and representing. Rather than treating these ideas as stable and agreed-upon, my investigations have focused on how teachers, curricular materials, disciplinary experts, and researchers assemble (and re-assemble) these practices through their interactions within the broader socio-cultural world.

Third, in my new line of research with Kevin O'Connor and doctoral student Molly Shea, I am investigating learning as part of social movements. In our current research project, we are studying how communities are working to change their social, cultural, economic, and physical infrastructures to support new practices, forms of knowledge, and learning/identity trajectories. Our interdisciplinary project involves faculty from the business school, the College of Engineering, and community partners in Denver.

Selected Publications
Jurow, A.S., Tracy, R. , Hotchkiss, J., Kirshner, B. (2012). Designing for the future: How the Learning Sciences can inform the trajectories of preservice teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(2), 147-160.

Jurow, A.S., & Pierce, D. (2011). Exploring the relations between “soul” and “role”: Learning from the Courage to Lead. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 18(1), 26-42

Jurow, A.S. (2009). Cultivating self in the context of transformative professional development. Journal of Teacher Education, 60, 277-290.

Jurow, A.S., Hall, R., & Ma, J. (2008). Expanding the disciplinary expertise of a middle school mathematics classroom: Re-contextualizing student models in conversations with visiting specialists. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 17(3), 338-380.