“In Spite of:” Advancing Racial Equity for Black Postsecondary STEM Students in the U.S. Northeast

• In Event: “For Such a Time as This”: Advancing Racial Equity–Focused Research in Varied Sociopolitical Contexts

Abstract

This paper focuses on our approach to recruiting Black postsecondary STEM students from across the U.S. Northeast. Our research questions are: How has our research team navigated the process of recruiting Black postsecondary STEM students across the U.S. Northeast despite growing anti-Black sociopolitical contexts? What are the emerging experiences of Black postsecondary STEM students in the U.S. Northeast? We specifically account for the various communication and mentoring strategies leveraged by the team in a collaborative manner to employ a research design that is rooted in Black liberatory frameworks.

Data for this study comprises field notes and artifacts (e.g., notes from team meetings, documented research processes) specific to how our research team collaborates. Each research team member—Principal Investigators (PIs), Postdoctoral researchers (PDs), Program Manager (PM), Graduate Research Assistants (GRAs), Undergraduate Research Assistants (URAs), and Undergraduate Advisory Board members (UABs)—played a critical role in the recruitment process. Data also includes existing focus group interviews from Black undergraduate STEM students. We adopted a culturally responsive approach for data analysis, as guided by the work of Geneva Gay (2018) and her tenets validating, comprehensive, multidimensional, empowering, transformative, emancipatory, humanistic, and normative and ethical. We applied this framework to unpack the team’s approach to implementing the research design and emerging student outcomes from the focus group data.

Outcomes reflect the “all hands-on deck” approach applied by the research team to implement the design. This approach consists of the multiple communication touch points had between members across different platforms (i.e., Microsoft Teams, Asana, text threads, in-person and virtual meetings). It also comprises established research processes that were co-created, clearly defined roles among the research team, and an intentionality by senior leadership to engage mentoring as praxis. Preliminary findings from the student data suggest that the geographic region of research participants is a salient factor in their STEM narrative, where in the Northeast there appears to be historical and contemporary support for advancing pro-Blackness in STEM.

Implications from this study note the possibilities of employing pedagogical strategies such as culturally responsive approaches to guide the implementation of a Black liberatory research design. We also note the possibilities of employing these strategies to support on-going data analyses.

Authors

• Shari E. Watkins, American University

• Brian McGowan, American University

• Martinique Ann Sealy, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Jess Edwards, North Carolina State University

• Zaki Hawkins, American University

• Ihsan Hawkins, American University