STEM Education Reform With Minoritized High School Students: It’s Complicated; It’s Consequential; Is It Just?

• In Event: Pathways to Educational Justice for Students of Color in STEM and Beyond

Abstract

In the past decade, STEM education reform, specifically to serve historically underrepresented students, has been a national priority in the US. In response, many urban school districts have introduced reforms to improve STEM education and outcomes for low-income students of color. Now, more than a decade later, we ask: what can be said for this effort?
This paper reports the results of a 9-year ethnographic, comparative, and longitudinal study of low-income, minoritized Black and Brown students—all high-achieving and all interested in STEM in grade 9--in two urban school districts where significant math and science education reforms began in 2010. Unlike many studies that take a snapshot view of students or schools, this study encompassed 3 years of observations and interviews of 96 strategically sampled 9th grade students in 8 urban high schools in 2 cities (Denver, CO and Buffalo, NY), followed by 6 years of interviews, surveys, and online activities with the same students (2010-2019). The schools were generally representative of the kind of urban, public, non-selective, non-charter schools that many underrepresented students attend, and the students were generally representative of the type of student who is the focus of contemporary efforts to broaden participation in STEM.
Overall, we found that initial efforts to strengthen STEM education in the 8 schools began in promising ways but did not fully translate into meaningful or sustained improvements. High hopes and good intentions for STEM improvements quickly collided with other school priorities (class size, graduation requirements, standardized testing). STEM capital and interpretive schemes were hollowed out in ways that limited development of STEM knowledge and skills. College and career counseling for high-achieving students interested in STEM was inadequate. Although comparable in many ways, the schools in Denver were able to tackle these limitations better than the schools in Buffalo, and the STEM outcomes for Denver students were better than in Buffalo. Compared to Buffalo, Denver students took more advanced math and science in high school, were more likely to pursue STEM in college, were more likely to attend 4-year colleges or universities, were more likely to receive BA/BS degrees, and were more likely to pursue graduate work in a STEM field. As in many studies of educational reforms, the findings reveal educational, social, and personal accomplishments, as well as breakdowns, as students, teachers, and schools struggled to achieve their goals for STEM education. What is unique about this study is its ability to reveal how comparable 9th grade students, when engaged in initially comparable reform efforts, accumulated noticeably different STEM-related qualifications and credentials as they completed high school, went to college, and then moved into the workforce. The experience of STEM education reform for students in the 2 cities turned initially small differences into much larger and more meaningful ones for these students’ futures.
Grounded in theories of cumulative advantange (DiPrete & Eirich, 2006) and effectively maintained inequality (Lucas, 2001), this paper interrogates the course of these developing inequalities and considers possibilities for changes that are both promising and practical.

Authors

• Margaret A. Eisenhart, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Lois Weis, University at Buffalo - SUNY