Examining STEM/Health Career Pathways for Women of Color: A QuantCrit Mixed-Methods Approach

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Diversity and STEM

Abstract

With more women of color (WOC) aspiring to study science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and healthcare (STEMH), colleges and universities serve as a critical environment for supporting their transition into the STEMH workforce. This study advances Quantitative Critical Methodology (QuantCrit) by using a mixed methods design to examine how race, class, gender, and sociohistorical context of the 2008 economic recession shaped the college and career pathways of WOC who earned STEMH bachelor’s degrees between 2006-2010. Findings expand understandings of intersectionality as a theoretical lens to reveal individual and structural forms of oppression, advance QuantCrit methodology and the application of intersectionality in research methods, and provide new knowledge about the role of higher education in facilitating or stalling WOC’s STEMH career pathways.

Author

• Krystle Cobian, University of California - Los Angeles