Uplifting Black Girls and Mothers: The Role of Multi-Layered Mentoring and Community Cultural Wealth

• In Event: Protection After 16 Carriages: Curating Safety in and With Research for and by Black Girls

Abstract

Purpose
Historically, Black girls in STEM education have faced structural barriers that hinder access to opportunities, affecting their participation in STEM curricula and career fields. Previous research has focused on factors contributing to the underrepresentation of Black girls and women in STEM disciplines. Our study explores the developing STEM identities of Black mothers and their influence on their daughters' socialization in informal settings. Developing STEM counterspaces (King & Pringle, 2019; Ong et al., 2018) fosters positive and culturally relevant STEM learning experiences for Black girls. InventHers Institute, developed by the first author, uses a multi-layered mentoring model, providing mother-daughter dyads with hands-on engineering activities guided by equity ethic (McGee & Bentley, 2017), building Black student STEM identity (Collins, 2000) to support community empowerment. Separate focus groups with the girls and their mothers captured reflections on their experiences. This study presents preliminary findings from the semester-long program, seeking to understand, what are the impacts of a multi-layered STEM counterspace on participants' perceptions of STEM identity? By examining mother-daughter dynamics, our research focuses on the transformative potential of such environments in educational settings and broader societal contexts.
Theoretical Framework and Methods
We conducted focus groups as counterspaces, empowering sites of community building and collective healing (Author, 2024), with the young girls and their mothers, asking about STEM identity, perceptions of STEM, and the impact of specific programmatic elements. Our analytical approach was grounded in Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005). We developed a comprehensive codebook informed by this theoretical lens to demonstrate how it manifested in the participants' narratives. Prevalent codes such as “breaking the cycle," "confidence,” and “safety” were gathered to explore the most pervasive themes around the mothers’ resistant, aspirational, social, and navigational capital.

Findings and Discussions
Focus groups revealed that both mothers and daughters experienced significant shifts in their STEM identities and perceptions, drawing on their collective experiences and strengths. One mother had aspirational capital, “This helped me in a sense of identifying, as a Black woman, that I'm powerful, I'm strong, I can do it, I'm smart, and not allow people to criticize who I am, and it also helped my daughter in that same way." They reported enhanced confidence and a stronger sense of belonging through social capital based on artificial intelligence developed storylines that reflected their identities. Another mother noted, “I see the little chocolate faces in all the pictures and all that.” The findings underscore the importance of addressing structural barriers that hinder Black girls' access to STEM and highlight the transformative potential of family dynamics in shaping STEM identities. One mother emphasized resistant capital, “Whether it's inventing a new hair product...I want her to understand that it's okay, regardless of judgment or what people might say.” By creating supportive environments through multi-layered mentoring and community empowerment, programs like InventHers can significantly contribute to the inclusion and success of Black girls and women in STEM fields. Future research should expand on these findings to further validate and explore the long-term impacts of such initiatives.

Authors

• Whitney N. McCoy, Duke University

• Reagan L. Razon, Duke University