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About this paper symposium
| Panel information |
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| Panel 8. Education, Schooling |
| Paper #1 | |
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| Critical Consciousness Development in STEM Spaces | |
| Author information | Role |
| Dr. Channing Jamielle Mathews, Ph.D., University of Virginia - Charlottesville, United States | Presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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Introduction: Disparities in participation and representation in STEM fields, particularly among women, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous populations, are well-documented (Rodriguez et al., 2019). STEM's dominant narrative often reflects a Eurocentric, male-centered perspective, which can alienate underrepresented students (McGee & Bentley, 2017). Additionally, STEM’s emphasis on values such as money, prestige, and power often contrasts with these students’ desires to use their skills for meaningful social change (McGee & Bentley, 2017). Critical consciousness—the awareness of and ability to challenge social inequities—may be a key tool for addressing systemic inequities in STEM. It can help students recognize how power structures influence their experiences and potential career paths (Register et al., 2020). However, little is known about how STEM contexts facilitate or hinder the development of critical consciousness, especially among Black and Latinx students. This study aims to examine how college-level STEM environments influence the development of critical consciousness in these populations. Research Questions: What STEM spaces do Black and Latinx students identify as relevant to their critical consciousness development? How do STEM spaces facilitate or impede critical consciousness development in Black and Latinx STEM majors? Sample: The study included 19 Black (n=6; 83% female) and Latinx (n=13; 54% female) undergraduate students from two predominantly White institutions in the Midwest (Institution 1) and Southeast (Institution 2). Methods: The research team created analytic memos for each transcript to identify preliminary codes and emerging themes. The analysis involved two coding cycles. First, researchers used provisional coding to create a priori codes based on the critical consciousness framework and initial memos (Saldaña, 2021). These codes were organized into preliminary themes, which guided the second cycle of coding. In this second cycle, researchers used pattern coding to identify how critical consciousness processes operate within STEM spaces (Saldaña, 2021). Results: Preliminary findings indicate that critical consciousness development varies across STEM majors and institutional contexts. At Institution 1, students reported that opportunities to connect STEM content with social inequities depended on individual faculty and were not part of the core curriculum. Minoritized STEM faculty were more likely to emphasize these connections through applied learning. In contrast, engineering students at Institution 2 identified multiple curricular and institutional spaces that fostered awareness of social inequities, particularly an engineering ethics course offered during three of the four program years. Additionally, students at Institution 2 benefited from an institution-supported advocacy space for underrepresented groups in STEM, providing extracurricular support for critical consciousness development. Across both institutions, students observed stark inequities in representation, with a significant decline in the number of women and students of color graduating from their majors. Implications: The findings suggest that classrooms and institutional spaces that explicitly demonstrate how STEM can address social inequities are critical to fostering persistence among Black and Latinx STEM students. Institutional support for such initiatives may play a key role in supporting underrepresented students’ retention and success in STEM |
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| Paper #2 | |||
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| Racialized School Experiences, STEM Class Belonging and Academic Coping: A Longitudinal Study of Adolescents | |||
| Author information | Role | ||
| Fiona Prestemon, North Carolina State University, United States | Presenting author | ||
| Jacqueline Cerda-Smith, North Carolina State University, United States | Non-presenting author | ||
| Kelly Lynn Mulvey, North Carolina State University, United States | Non-presenting author | ||
| Abstract | |||
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Introduction Academic coping skills (Skinner & Saxton, 2020) may be especially important in academic environments where one may be marginalized or excluded, such as in STEM classrooms(Martin & Fisher‐Ari, 2021).. Moreover, experiences in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classes and in school broadly may drive students’ academic coping skills. Specifically, students who experience more positive school racialized experiences, and those who feel they belong, may develop stronger adaptive coping skills. The aim of the current study is to examine how racialized experiences in school (perceptions of school racial climate and STEM classroom racial composition) and perceptions of STEM class belonging relate to students’ academic coping skills. Hypotheses Our hypotheses were: 1. The more positive a student perceives their racialized school experiences to be and the more they feel they belong in STEM classes, the higher adaptive and lower maladaptive academic coping abilities they will display. 3. Belonging will mediate the relationship between racialized experiences and academic coping among adolescents such that students who report more positive school racial climate will also report greater belonging in their STEM classes, which will then predict higher adaptive and lower maladaptive academic coping skills. Study Population Participants were recruited from five low-to-middle income public schools in the Southeastern United States. Participants (N = 377, Mage= 15.03, SD = 0.759 at Time 1) were students in 9th (51.7%) and 10th grade (36.3%). 12% of participants did not indicate their grade or indicated another grade. The sample was made up of 41.1% White/European-American students, 22.5% Black/African-American students, 13.5% Latinx, 2.4% Asian, 4.8% Bi-racial/Multi-racial, 4.6% Other, and 11.1% students who prefer not to say. The gender makeup of the sample was 39% male, 44.8% female, 2.4% nonbinary, 0.5% unsure, and 13.3% who prefer not to say. Methods Participants completed questionnaires on their school racial climate: Time 1 (Byrd, 2019), STEM class racial composition: Time 1 (Kurlaender & Yun, 2007), STEM classroom belonging: Time 2 (Mulvey et al., 2022), and academic coping: Time 3 (Skinner et al., 2013). Results Analyses demonstrated a positive relationship between school racial climate and STEM class belonging, and between STEM class belonging and adaptive (but not maladaptive) academic coping, see Figure 1. Additionally, students who reported more same-race peers in their STEM classes reported better academic coping, while those who reported more same-race teachers reported higher maladaptive coping. Age and race were not significant predictors. Discussion This work provides novel information regarding the impact that racialized experiences in school have on students’ belonging and academic coping, which can both shape future success. Findings will be situated within the PVEST framework (Spencer, 2021), with attention to new insights into how adaptive and maladaptive coping skills develop in the context of racialized experiences, including STEM experiences, in school. |
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| Paper #3 | |
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| Factors That Shape STEM Career Interest for Ghanaian Adolescents | |
| Author information | Role |
| Martha Batul, North Carolina State University, United States | Presenting author |
| Ester Kim, North Carolina State University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Sarah Bever, IREX, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Amaris Mohammed, IREX, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Amanda Nepomunceno, IREX, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Harrison Owusu, IREX, Ghana | Non-presenting author |
| Adam Hartstone-Rose, North Carolina State University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Kelly Lynn Mulvey, North Carolina State University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
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The Ghanaian government is working to increase STEM interest and skills among senior high school students (Agyei, 2024) to prepare students to fulfill the growing need for STEM experts in the country. Our research seeks to explore factors that shape Ghanaian adolescents STEM careers interests using Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)(Lent et al., 2000), which holds that interest is influenced by self-efficacy and outcome expectancies which are shaped by personal and contextual factors. We examined whether our focal factors (self-efficacy, outcomes expectancies, STEM role models, family, peer, and STEM teacher influences, and demographic factors) predicted interest in the six types of STEM careers. Ghanaian adolescents (N = 209, Mage = 17.03, SD = 1.39, 49.3% females) were given surveys to evaluate their interest in six different STEM careers (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, medical field and STEM education). A path model using Mplus was used to examine the relationship between each STEM career and gender, STEM grades, having role models in science, mathematics, technology, engineering, social influences (family, STEM teacher, friend), self-efficacy, and outcome expectancies. We regressed these factors gender, STEM grades, having role models in science, mathematics, technology, engineering, social influences (family, STEM teacher, friend), on each STEM career, self-efficacy, STEM grades and outcome expectancies. Additionally, self-efficacy was regressed on outcome expectancies with the other variables mentioned above. All the six STEM careers were regressed on outcome expectancies and self-efficacy. The results showed that the model was an adequate fit: χ2 (61) = 119.66, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.93; TLI = 0.81; RMSEA = 0.07 (confidence interval = 0.053, 0.092); SRMR = 0.05. The findings indicate that different factors influenced interest in distinct STEM careers for Ghanaian adolescents. Factors such as role models, social influences, STEM grades and gender had direct effect on the different STEM careers (See Table 1). Self-efficacy (b = 0.163; p = 0.017), family influence (b = 0.215; p = 0.019), STEM teacher influence (b = 0.169; p = 0.017), having a role model in engineering career (b = 0.282; p < 0.000) all had significant direct effects on outcome expectancies. Having a role model in engineering (b = -0.186; p = 0.027), and family influence (b = -0.326; p = 0.001) had direct effects on STEM grades. Self- efficacy did not have any significant direct effect on the STEM careers and any of the focal variables. The findings suggest that social factors, such as role models, and influences (teacher family, and friends) and outcome expectancies for some careers (technology and engineering) are centrally important for Ghanaian adolescents’ STEM career interest. These findings are quite different than findings with Western adolescents using SCCT, which highlights outcome expectancies and self-efficacy as key drivers of STEM career interest (Lent et al., 2018). Thus, the findings highlight the value of exploring different STEM career paths separately and assessing pathways to STEM career interest for non-Western populations. |
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Finding Spaces in STEM: Leveraging Social Factors, Critical Consciousness and Racialized School Experiences
Submission Type
Paper Symposium
Description
| Session Title | Finding Spaces in STEM: Leveraging Social Factors, Critical Consciousness and Racialized School Experiences |