Diverse Group Work on the Margins: Gender and Racial Inequality in Collaboration in STEM

• In Event: Gender and Racial Inequality in STEM

Abstract

Scholars and practitioners have endorsed diverse collaborative learning environments as a way to create more gender and ethnoracially equitable educational opportunities, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments in higher education. Yet little is known about students’ collaborative experiences and their consequences for gender and racial inequality. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of an engineering school at an elite private university, I examine how gender and race/ethnicity shape how students form and navigate collaborative groups. The findings reveal that socially segregated and unequal institutional arrangements, as well as cultural forms of inclusion and exclusion drive disparities in collaborative experiences by gender and race/ethnicity.

Author

• Anthony M. Johnson, The Ohio State University