Cuenta Me: A Critical Feminist Perspective on School Belonging

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Making Sense of Schooling: Interrogating Inquiry at the Nexus of Disciplinary Knowledge (Table 4)

Abstract

This study considers various factors that may contribute to mathematics achievement amongst Latina students, including socioeconomic status, school locale, and school belonging. The study’s findings reveal stronger predictors of math achievement, other than the school belonging factor that much of contemporary research holds at the forefront of attending to equity and diversity in STEM education. Using a critical feminist framework, results in this paper suggest a critical conceptualization of belonging that includes math identity to attend to Latinas’ achievement in mathematics, which is necessary to capture the experiences of Brown girls in STEM.

Author

• Stephanie E. Hertel, University of California - Santa Cruz