Engaging Latino and African American Families in Informal STEM Education: Perspectives From Research and Practice

• In Event: Research and Strategies for Engaging African American and Latino Families in Informal STEM Education

Abstract

SRI International and Girls Inc. of Alameda County have collaborated for the past seven years, developing a STEM continuum of programming for girls in two projects: Build IT and InnovaTE3. Build IT, an afterschool program for middle school girls, is in its sixth year and is being scaled in the United States and Canada through Girls Inc. affiliates. InnovaTE3, an afterschool program for high school girls, is nearing completion of its second year of implementation. In Build IT, 6th- and 7th-grade girls learn fundamental IT and computer science concepts in the context of design and communication technologies. They interact with IT professionals as well as participate in engineering design teams and in addressing real client issues which both become more complex as they move through the two years of the program. After Build IT, 8th- through 11th-grade girls can participate in 4 years of InnovaTE3, where they learn Earth system science, expand their experiences in design to innovation and exploring IT in the context of science learning by doing. In InnovaTE3 girls engage in STEM-rich ecologically sustainable innovation projects in the first 2 years of the program, and then go on to internships and college planning the last 2 years of the project.

Both programs have engaged Latino and African American families through Family Tech Nights, Innovation Celebrations, and home energy and resource usage activities. Family members serve as an audience for presentations, users of girls’ technological innovations, and learners with the girls as their teachers. Staff members at Girls Inc. of Alameda County also secure families and girls’ commitment in program participation, and communicate with families regularly about each girl’s interests, strengths, and challenges. Internships and college planning also involve communication with family members.

Currently, the research team is investigating Build IT and InnovaTE3 participants’ persistence in STEM learning across settings in order to inform the field’s understanding of how to support low socioeconomic status African American and Latina girls’ persistence in STEM. Identifying supports and barriers for girls’ persistence in STEM in school, at home, and in out-of-school programs will provide new insights into how to make connections across these settings to encourage girls’ STEM persistence. The following research questions guide this work:
1. What supports and resources in InnovaTE3, in school, and at home, as well as connections among these settings, contribute to the development of girls’
(a) persistence and resilience in STEM learning? and
(b) identity in either science, technology, engineering, or mathematics?
2. What modifications to the InnovaTE3 program (either within the program, or by fostering links to other settings) need to be made to support girls’ persistence in STEM?
The research team will share its methodology, measurement strategies, and findings to date focusing on the role of the family in supporting or hinder girls’ persistence in STEM.

Authors

• Melissa J. Koch, SRI International

• Patrik Lundh, SRI International

• Christopher J. Harris, SRI International