Science self-efficacy in the relationship between gender & science identity

HUG Initiative: Overcoming roadblocks on a research career roadmap of individuals from historically marginalized or underrepresented genders

“…In this section, we explore the possible barriers HUG students face when pursuing STEM degrees along the career research roadmaps. While studies have shown that non-binary and transgender people have similar experiences as cisgender women, they face augmented difficulties (Blackburn, 2017;Conrad et al, 2021;Miles and Naumann, 2021;Campbell-Montalvo et al, 2022a). Challenges and compounding difficulties will both be addressed in this section.…”

“…Since STEM fields are often associated with masculinity (Master et al, 2016;Cheryan et al, 2017), HUG students are often perceived as being a misfit between their gendered self-concept and the image of STEM (Kessels et al, 2014). Another factor for low STEM identity is due to the low self-efficacy beliefs of HUG students, that is, they possess lower confidence in their ability to conduct a STEM project or research (Miles and Naumann, 2021;de las Cuevas et al, 2022;Andrews et al, 2021). Women in physics class have lower science self-efficacy than their men counterparts.…”

“…A mini workshop series of panel discussions was reported to have a significant impact on underrepresented students by providing resources and opportunities that were not accessible individually (Artiles et al, 2021;Connor et al, 2021). Furthermore, holding safe zone training sessions within departments or professional organizations educates people about terminologies of gender minorities and the biases they experience, as well as the coming out process (Farrell et al, 2017;Miles and Naumann, 2021). The training sessions are meant to engage everyone to be aware of the difficulties HUG students face and form a supportive structure and culture of allies for HUGs (Miller et al, 2021).…”

Supporting Students with Minoritized Gender Identities in Research: the Design and Assessment of an Initiative in Electrical and Computer Engineering

“…Noted that a cisgender person is one who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth, i.e., not transgender. While few efforts have focused on analyzing the academic and workplace experiences of transgender scientists [18,17], prior studies have shown that LGBTQ+ people face similar challenges as cisgender women but with augmented difficulties [19,20,10,11]. Additionally, queer and transgender students and professionals in STEM face various microaggressions in academic settings, such as being subjected to cis-normative language, incorrect pronoun usage [21,22,23], or being forced to use their deadname, which is the birth name they no longer use [24,25].…”

“…Mentoring services allow HUG students to meet with experienced STEM professionals from similar backgrounds and have been found to increase the retention of HUG students [30]. Furthermore, Safe Zone ally training is an effective way to positively change campus climate by educating people about the terminologies of gender minorities and the biases these minorities experience [31,19].…”