Theme of the Month

This research seeks to understand the experiences of African American female undergraduates in STEM. It investigates how familial factors and science identity formation characteristics influence persistence in STEM while considering the duality of African American women’s status in society.

This study was conducted in response to the growing concern about the lack of U.S. students majoring in STEM fields and pursuing STEM careers. In order for the U.S to compete in a global economy that is increasingly technologically-based, a skilled STEM workforce is a necessity. Understanding the factors that encourage confidence in science and intent to pursue science related careers remains a national mandate.

acially minoritized students in the United States constitute 30% of the U.S. population, but students from these populations represent a smaller proportion of those who earn STEM undergraduate degrees. This disproportionality contributes to race/ethnic income, status, and power inequalities linked to STEM careers. Using a combination of vote counting and narrative approaches, the authors synthesize 50 recent articles about the factors related to college students’ STEM participation.

This article investigates the persistent challenge of how higher education institutions can support the success of underrepresented minority (URM) women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Our theoretical model centers on intersectionality, and we examine the possibilities and challenges involved in taking an intersectional approach to institutional change for this group. Our NSF-funded study focused on 18 universities that received large NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation (IT) grants.

This infographic poster of the NSF Emerge Program in partnership with the Society for Freshwater Science website and poster.

Last year, the White House held a summit announcing the launch of the STEMM Opportunity Alliance, the initiative to ensure STEMM equity by 2050. SOA is uniquely positioned to answer the Administration’s call and bring about fundamental, systemic change.

SEA Change aims to advance institutional transformation in support of diversity, equity, and inclusion, especially in colleges and universities. SEA Change is a comprehensive initiative from AAAS that implements a proven self-assessment process to effect sustainable change with regard to diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEMM at U.S. institutions of higher education.

The American Museum of Natural History is engaged in a 10-year longitudinal study examining the experiences and pathways of over 350 NYC youth from backgrounds historically excluded in STEM who have participated in mentored science research experiences as part of the NYCSRMC. The study traces youth trajectories from their participation in a high school out-of-school science research mentoring program through college and into the first years of their careers.

The purpose of this action agenda is to identify research questions and creative solutions for the longitudinal tracking of, and measurement of outcomes for, participants in girl-focused STEM programs.

In this article, we nuance and complicate the push for data literacy in STEM reform efforts targeting youth of color. We explore a curricular reform project that integrated explicit attention to issues pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation, representation, visualization, and communication of data in an introductory computer science class.

Science in the City examines how language and culture matter for effective science teaching. Author Bryan A. Brown argues that, given the realities of our multilingual and multicultural society, teachers must truly understand how issues of culture intersect with the fundamental principles of learning. This book links an exploration of contemporary research on urban science teaching to a more generative instructional approach in which students develop mastery by discussing science in culturally meaningful ways.