In this study, we explored the possibility that when parents endorse particular academic gender stereotypes (e.g., boys are better at math, girls are better at English) they are more likely to engage in uninvited intrusions with homework, intrusions which then undermine children's confidence in these domains. Participants included 38 fifth to eighth grade students (mean age = 12.16 years, 60% girls, 87% White) and their mothers and fathers. The findings indicated that even though boys received more parental intrusive support with homework, girls were more sensitive to these intrusions, specifically when they involved math. Parents' intrusive support mediated the relationship between parents' math-related gender stereotypes and girls' math ability perceptions, which suggests that these behaviors communicate to girls their parents' math stereotype beliefs.

In this paper we investigate the opportunities and challenges that emerge from an intersectional approach to achieving equity through institutional change, focusing particularly on the persistent lag faced by underrepresented minority (URM) women in U.S. academic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Our specific goals in this paper are twofold: (1) to contribute to current theoretical models and research on enabling URM women in academic STEM fields, and (2) to advance broader current discussions concerning how intersectional approaches might be applied to shape institutional transformation. In order to do this, we first explore the historical and contextspecific issues that illustrate how the relative lack of progress made by URM women faculty in STEM is at least partially driven by institutional structures that cannot fully address the experiences of persons with multiple subordinated identities. We then employ current literature on intersectionality and organizational change to theorize four ways that intersectional approaches might specifically help shape more successful institutional interventions. By offering some possibilities presented by an intersectional approach to institutional transformation, we suggest helpful starting points for mobilizing intersectionality in the service of structurally supporting the advancement and success of URM women in STEM.

The authors examined rates of both teacher responsiveness and student participation in the classroom question-asking context. Participants were 165 students and their teachers in 6 science classrooms. Teachers in 3 of the 6 classrooms called on male students to answer questions more often than would have been expected on the basis of the number of boys in the classroom. In none of the classrooms, however, did teachers call on boys more often than would be expected on the basis of the heightened volunteering rates of their male students. No systematic sex or achievement-level differences were found in the types of questions that students responded to. These findings suggest the need to focus on the role that both teachers and their students play in creating and maintaining sex differences in the teacher-student interaction context.Beginning early in children's schooling, boys have been found to have more positive interactions with their teachers than do girls, including more opportunities to answer questions (

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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 National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded study focused on 18 universities that received large NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation (IT) grants (Cohorts 3 [2005] and 4 [2008]). There were two steps to our investigation: (a) an analysis of documents generated by IT programs as a way of identifying and categorizing "mechanisms" for supporting URM women and (b) conversations with IT leaders as a means of documenting the on-the-ground experiences of those working to institutionalize change. Our data yielded valuable results, including the identification of 5 Intersectional Facilitators, key institutional characteristics that enable change for URM women. Our results also show that while efforts intended to support URM women are typically additive (nonintersectional) in approach, when intersectional approaches are taken, most seek to intervene in the experience of individual URM faculty. We hypothesize that increased attentiveness to a "multipronged" approach-including efforts based on recruitment of URM groups and climate initiatives-will increase effectiveness. Comprehensive strategizing across the group, individual, and climate levels-particularly if the 5 Intersectional Facilitators are used to guide strategies-may not only increase intersectional efforts but also synergistically combine, maximizing the combined positive effects of all efforts to support the success of URM women in STEM fields.