Examining Change in Queer and Trans Students’ Science and Math Identities in High School

• In Event: Exploring Queer and Trans Student Secondary Experiences Using the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009

Abstract

Purpose
Research shows that queer and trans (QT) students face obstacles throughout high school (Baricevic & West, 2019; Chesir-Teran & Hughes, 2009; Goodrich & Luke, 2014; Mattheis et al., 2021), and inclusion of QT issues in classrooms can improve their experiences (Dodge & Crutcher, 2015). Additionally, minoritized students with a strong STEM identity persist in STEM and have higher rates of success (Chen et al., 2021). However, high school STEM education may introduce challenges to those STEM identities for marginalized students (Aschbacher et al., 2010).
This study examines how QT high school students' perceptions of science and mathematics may change over time. These perceptions include self-efficacy, science and math identity, science and math utility, and interest in science and math courses. In this paper, the focus is not on how students performed in science and math courses; rather, we focus on how students perceive themselves in relation to math and science, engaging with an anti-deficit approach to understanding success and identity in STEM (Harper, 2010).
We ask the following research question: Are there differences in QT students’ in self-efficacy, science and math identity, science and math utility, and interest in science and math courses from 2009 to 2012?

Theoretical Framework
This study utilizes the Leyva’s and colleagues (2022a,b) STEM education as a white, cisheteropatriarchal space framework, which highlights the ways STEM education has used neutrality to cause harm to marginalized students in STEM. This framework centralizes the experiences of marginalized students in STEM, and in conjunction with science identity (Carlone & Johnson, 2007) and math identity (Voigt et al., 2022), this study purposefully brings QT students to the forefront of the conversation.

Methods and Results
Data for this paper come from the HSLS:09 data set, which include approximately 1,600 QT students (Table 3). Dependent samples t-tests compare QT students' outcomes from the beginning of data collection (2009) to the second stage (2012), which was typically from 9th to 12th grade. These t-tests (Table 4) demonstrate statistically significant differences (p<0.001) between the first and second dates of data collection for all eight of these variables.
Findings indicate that QT students had lower mathematics self-efficacy, lower interest in math courses, a decreased math identity, and a decreased sense of math utility from the start to end of high school. Similarly, they had a lower science identity and decreased sense of science utility over time. However, QT students reported higher levels of science self-efficacy and an increased interest in science courses during that same time frame.

Scholarly Significance
There has yet been little work done to explore the relationship QT students have with science and mathematics identities. This study may be among the first to examine quantitatively how QT students' science and math identities change over time. We examine QT students' perspectives without comparing them to cishet students to disrupt historically discriminatory and oppressive research practices against marginalized individuals, utilizing the strength of queer (Gunckel, 2009) and critical quantitative research approaches (Gillborn et al., 2018; Sablan, 2019).

Authors

• Madison Fitzgerald-Russell, University of Iowa

• Arsene Frederic, Howard University

• William Shelton, Graduate Center - CUNY

• Mario I Suárez, Utah State University