Portland, Oregon
June 23, 2024
June 23, 2024
June 26, 2024
Breaking barriers, building futures: Narratives of equity and inclusion in STEM education
Equity and Culture & Social Justice in Education Division (EQUITY)
Diversity
9
10.18260/1-2--46410
https://peer.asee.org/46410
82
Dr. Funk has served as a research scientist with the Center for Science, Mathematics, and Computer Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) since 2021. She specializes in research about student experiences. Dr. Funk currently serves as the project coordinator and lead researcher of a S-STEM grant seeking to better understand factors that influence the persistence of students in STEM.
Dr. Pai is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Mathematics at Denison University. Her experiences as a mathematician, computer scientist, and mathematics instructor now inform her work in STEM education, where she is interested in equity, inclusion, and student STEM identity.
Johan Benedict Cristobal is a fourth-year Mathematics doctoral candidate and student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). His dissertation work is in Mathematics Education, centered around how instructors have framed their teaching and their students' learning. His central research question are how these frames shape how instructors notice classroom events and how culture shapes these frames. Cristobal is currently working with the lead researcher of a S-STEM grant seeking to better understand factors that influence the persistence of students in STEM.
This work-in-progress paper describes research efforts to better understand the academic trajectories, particularly persistence, of women in a S-STEM project as they pursue higher education in computing. While students may leave STEM for a variety of reasons, prior research has shown that marginalized groups in STEM often leave because they do not develop a STEM identity or sense of belonging in STEM. Thus, we foreground the importance of identity in understanding the academic trajectories of women. All of the women Scholars in the project identify with a historically marginalized racial or ethnic group in STEM. In recognition of the impact of these multiple, social identities to which Scholars identify, we are employing an intersectional lens to examine how various settings (e.g., at home, at the university, in the S-STEM project, in society), supported or impeded women in their pursuit of a computing degree. Using data from interviews with four women involved in the project, this paper will address the following two research questions: RQ1: How do various settings (at home, at the university, in computing courses, in S-STEM projects, in society) support or inhibit the computing identities of women who may experience multiple forms of marginalization due to their racial or ethnic identities? RQ2: How do these experiences influence their persistence?
We take a critical approach to our work - focusing on how the settings in which students live and their experiences in those settings interact with their multiple identities. This paper will prompt conversations of the role of programs, like the S-STEM project, in supporting women’s pursuit of computing.
Funk, R., & Pai, L. M., & Cristobal, J. B. (2024, June), (WIP) Persistence in an S-STEM project: Understanding the Intersectional Experiences and Identities of Women in Computing Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--46410
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