Research Interests
Molly Shea
Prior to joining the College of Education at University of Washington, Dr. Shea worked at San Francisco State University and the Exploratorium where she studies contested spaces of social transformation where questions about how knowledge and practices are built, preserved, constrained, and/or reorganized across settings. As an educational ethnographer and learning scientist focused on studying how knowledge infrastructures are produced and reorganized, Dr. Shea draws on multiple theoretical perspectives to study the nature and conditions of learning and development. Shea also contributes to methodological innovations that support the co-production of knowledge and practices with community educators. This kind of knowledge production is built from issues that matter to the everyday lives of community members as they seek to support innovative and thriving communities of learning.
Project Website: https://hightechlowcost.org
Dr. Shea brings together ethnographic study of informal learning environments with theories of learning that focus on the social, cultural, and historical interactions. Dr. Shea focuses on design interventions built from the historical and cultural dimensions of communities to interrupt social and environmental challenges. She studies the design and organization of collective group efforts that seek social change. This involves understanding how people attempt to shift valued knowledge within infrastructures and how learning takes place through these efforts.
Shea, M. V. (2025). Developing Methodologies for Co-Production of Knowledge: Data Production and Analysis in Community-Based Research Partnerships. Qualitative Inquiry, 31(1), 3-18.
Shea, M. V., Jurow, A. S., Schiffer, J., Escudé, M., & Torres, A. (2023). Infrastructural injustices in community‐driven afterschool STEAM. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 60(8), 1853-1878.
Shea, M. V. (2022). Organizing for material possibility in a community-led science program. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 29(2), 123-142.
Shea, M. V., & Jurow, A. S. (2020). Student-led organizing for sustainability in business. Cognition and Instruction, 38(4), 538-560.
Shea, M. V., & Sandoval, J. (2020). Using historical and political understanding to design for equity in science education. Science Education, 104(1), 27-49.