"For My Family, for My People": Altruism, Science Identity, and Protective Spaces

• In Event: 14.045 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.045-9 - STEM Education in Local Contexts

Abstract

: Our research in a school serving primarily refugee and immigrant students seeks to understand the institutional and individual mechanisms that constrain and create academic opportunities for these youth. In this paper, we examine the intersection of opportunity structures and the development of science identity for female refugee high school students. Our research asks: How do refugee students collectively self-author their school experiences and the complicated college-going process, in order to attempt to produce their own anticipated futures, especially vis-à-vis their interest in STEM? We argue that students develop science identities in order to buttress an altruistic desire to help others. In order to actualize these identities and pursue and persist in academics, students rely upon self-created protective spaces and relationships.

Authors

• Rachel Fix Dominguez, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Kristin Cipollone, Ball State University

• Lois Weis, University at Buffalo - SUNY