How Students from Different Racial Backgrounds Enact and Resist Racial Scripts in Peer Discussion

• In Event: Mapping Racial Projects in Postsecondary STEM: Interrogating Scripts, Schemas, and Structures for Justice

Abstract

--Objectives
Racial equity in STEM higher education remains elusive, with students of color leaving STEM majors at higher rates than White students (Riegle-Crumb et al., 2019). Even among those who persist, success comes at a high cost to their health and well-being (McGee, 2021). Traditional practices like lecturing contribute to this attrition (Handelsman et al., 2022). In response, active learning (AL) strategies have been introduced, which reduce failure rates by 55% and narrow the “achievement gap” between marginalized and overrepresented students (Freeman et al., 2014, Theobald et al., 2020). Yet, recent research also shows that peer discussion, a major component of AL, can lead to inequities. This study explores the dynamics of positive and negative peer interactions in active learning classrooms and how racial scripts (Molina, 2014) might be informing different experiences based on race. Systematically characterizing racialized experiences in peer discussions and whether and how they are informed by racial scripts, can ultimately lead to active learning classrooms and environments that are equitable by design.
--Theoretical Framework
Race is constructed relationally via racial scripts, societal narratives that shape how racialized groups are simultaneously but differently “acted upon” by various actors and institutions, often reifying hierarchies (Molina, 2014). Whether consciously or unconsciously, racial scripts can perpetuate various assumptions about different racial groups and therefore contribute to racial microaggressions and other negative racialized interactions. Further, racialized actors often offer counter-scripts as a form of resistance.
--Methods
This critical qualitative inquiry was conducted at a research-intensive Predominantly White Institution (PWI) in the Southern U.S where AL practices, including peer discussion, are being institutionalized, but instructor training is race-evasive (Annamma et al., 2017). Data was analyzed via Template Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022).
--Data Sources
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 57 racially diverse STEM majors (14 Asian, 22 Black, 12 Latiné, Multi-racial, and 9 White). Member-checking interviews were conducted with 22 participants who reviewed their interview transcripts and a summary of preliminary analysis.
--Findings
Students from different racial groups described positive and negative peer interactions in markedly different ways. White students often evaded race, discussing negative experiences by describing peers as not contributing. In contrast, Black students reported their contributions were often ignored or devalued by peers who were often White and Asian men, and that White peers actively avoided interacting with them. Latiné and Asian women straddled these two spaces, indicating the importance of an intersectional analysis of racialized experiences. All students of color also described positive, affirming experiences in classroom counterspaces, often with same-race peers and drawing on their Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005).
--Significance
By examining different students’ experiences in peer discussion through the lens of racial scripts, we see the nuanced ways in which race is constructed relationally in the STEM classroom. Thus, without intentional race-conscious training and practices, despite best intentions, AL classrooms will remain sites of racialized exclusion.

Authors

• Hannah Nichols, University of Georgia

• Talia Swanson, University of Georgia

• Tatiane Russo-Tait, University of Georgia