Examining Undergraduates' Conceptions of Equity and STEM

• In Event: 72.041 - Researching the Design and Delivery of Equity Courses in Mathematics Education

Abstract

Objective
This paper investigates undergraduate students’ definitions of equity and the equity topics in particular that were of most interest to them in the course, “Equity and STEM.” Courses attending to equity, diversity, and social justice in STEM education have the potential to push undergraduates to probe, challenge, and potentially transform borders of inequity in STEM. Understanding how students respond to these courses helps to continue to develop and execute these courses and to consider what matters most in developing such courses.

Perspective
This study recognizes learning as situated in contexts (Putnam & Borko, 2000). It attends to how undergraduates made use of the resources that they and others brought to the Equity and STEM course (Cobb & Bowers, 1999) to develop their own conceptions of equity and STEM.

Methods and Data Sources
Data from 21 undergraduate participants includes: weekly feedback forms, three papers, and course feedback (midpoint and end of course). I also examined weekly agendas of course content and the syllabus. I identified key topics addressed in the syllabus (e.g., SES, race, ethnicity, gender, disability, LGBTQ, linguistic diversity) to consider both how the students were defining equity and STEM and to which aspects of equity students were attending. I used case study analysis (Yin, 2009) and self-study (Loughran, 2005) to examine how each undergraduate developed conceptions of equity and STEM and then understood the course as a whole using cross-case comparisons.

Findings
The first key finding relates to all students increasingly sophisticated ways of discussing equity and STEM. On the surface there were three initial differences between the beginning and end of the course that stand out. First, students were able to define equity (at least five students at the beginning of the course claimed “I am not sure what equity means”). Second, most students were able to define equity apart from equality. Third, students considered equity and inequity beyond a focus on gender.

The second key finding was what the students chose to discuss in their short papers, as a reflection of which equity topics were “sticking” with them most. Students’ short papers on the discussions, readings, and key topics in class provided students an opportunity to flesh out their thinking on equity topics that were of interest to them in more depth. Across all papers, over 50% of the students discussed the topics that were assigned in a given time period. However, some students used the three papers to follow a single topic throughout to think through myriad aspects of a topic like gender or linguistic diversity or to delve into a topic like intersectionality. These papers clarify how students conceptualized equity throughout the course and pushed on some of the topics of equity raised in the course.

Significance
This study gives us an idea of how undergraduate students approach topics of equity so that we, as a field, can consider what we should include in these courses, how to approach students with content, and how to continue to support the development of more equitable STEM classrooms.

Author

• Sarah Ann Roberts, University of California - Santa Barbara