Learning Power: A Poststructural Analysis of Academic Help-Seeking in STEM Gateway Coursework

• In Event: Access and Experiences in STEM

Abstract

Underrepresentation of women, racially minoritized, and first-generation students in STEM fields is a complex, long-standing problem in higher education. Accordingly, we examine longitudinal interview data from 14 STEM students in gateway coursework, using poststructural analysis to examine differential impacts of power relations on coursework experiences across students’ sociopolitical positionalities. Sociocultural perspectives on learning and poststructural conceptions of power relations illuminate students’ experiences and learning about power via subject position. Moreover, longitudinal outcomes demonstrate that discourses of power had a disparate impact on Black female students’ help-seeking, belonging, and intended pathway persistence in STEM. We argue that unpacking and reimagining discourses of race, gender, and ability in gateway coursework is vital to increasing representation of students persistently underrepresented in STEM.

Authors

• Amy Jane Rodgers Awtrey, University of Cincinnati

• Amy N. Farley, University of Cincinnati

• Christopher M. Swoboda, University of Cincinnati

• Jarrod E. Druery, University of Cincinnati