Most self-identified makers, to be blunt, are highly educated white men. “It’s something that we’re very concerned about and grappling with,” said Edward Clapp, a maker education researcher at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. “It’s important that maker-centered learning not be directed toward any one particular type of individual, which includes gender, social class, race, or different subject areas.”
This lack of diversity within the maker movement has had a trickle-down effect on the objects they choose to make — and consequently, what is prized within the community. “Yes, ‘maker’ can mean robots and programming Arduinos, but it can also mean quilting and pickle-making and crochet,” Clapp said. “We don’t want to be so narrow and we don’t want to exclude any type of making because it is more about a curiosity-based approach to learning.”