STEM Stories: Fostering STEM Persistence for Underrepresented Minority Students Attending Predominantly White Institutions

Abstract

Challenges persist in creating a diverse pipeline of STEM professionals. This study aims to understand the multifaceted experiences and needs of Underrepresented Minority (URM) college students as they navigate STEM environments and career choices. Utilizing social cognitive career theory (SCCT), this qualitative, multi-institutional study explored the varied experiences and barriers that 44 URM STEM students negotiated at two Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Implications for practice, research, and policy focus on interventions aimed at increasing persistence and fostering STEM career decision-making.
Keywords: STEM, underrepresented minority students, career exploration, student-faculty relationships, mentoring

Latine Students’ Motivational and Emotional Experiences Related to Their Introductory Statistics Course: Differences by Institution Type Necessitate Tailored Interventions

“…College STEM learning contexts uniquely threaten the expectations, experiences, and perceptions among Latine students (Rodriguez & Blaney, 2021) because of stereotypes about who can be successful, the lack of diverse representation of faculty and students from different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, a curriculum that emphasizes more masculine and Caucasian values, and the inability to support students who enter the classroom with differing levels of academic preparation (Rosenzweig & Wigfield, 2016; van den Hurk et al, 2019). Consequently, undergraduates who identify as belonging to a marginalized group often enter STEM courses with concerns, which are likely to shape their experiences and perceptions and perhaps limit their participation and persistence in STEM (Jehangir et al, 2023).…”

White Male Allyship in STEM Higher Education: An Autoethnographic Study

“…These studies have uncovered phenomena such as: 1)The significance of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in producing minoritized STEM talent [3]; 2) The colorblind lens where all students are treated equally with no regard to unequal advantage for white students [4]; 3) The need to conform to whiteness within STEM spaces [5]; 4) Meritocratic hegemony, which perpetuates the notion that minoritized students do not perform well due to a lack of effort or ability [6]; 5) The lack of minoritized role models and stereotype threat [7]; 6) The limited access to social networks enjoyed by white students [8]; and 7) Under-resourced K-12 schools [9]. In addition, there has been significant research that has reported on phenomena such as imposter syndrome and anti-Blackness [10], [11], [12], [13]. Racially minoritized populations are defined as Black, LatinX, Indigenous and Asian Pacific peoples.…”