Latinx Graduate Pathways in STEM and Beyond: Mapping Belonging, Capital, and Cultural Persistence

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:45 am - Gold 3

Session Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

This roundtable brings together four studies that examine how Latinx graduate and professional students mobilize cultural and social capital to persist in STEM and medical education. Through qualitative, mixed-methods, and spatial approaches, presenters explore Latina graduate students’ use of community and patchwork capital in STEM; rural Latinx graduate students’ spatial belonging and critical cartographies; first-generation undergraduates’ social networks shaping research participation; and Latinx medical students’ and residents’ leveraging of familial capital to navigate professional pathways. Grounded in Community Cultural Wealth and critical epistemologies, these studies illuminate how Latinx students transform structural barriers into sources of resilience, relationality, and cultural continuity. Collectively, the panel advances equity-centered understandings of persistence that honor Latinx knowledge systems and community-rooted ways of thriving.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Latina/o/x Research Issues

Chair

• Nicole Perez, University of Illinois at Chicago

Papers

• Cultivating Capital: How Latina Graduate STEM Students Promote Their STEM Perseverance - Yolanda Arciniega, University of California - Los Angeles

• Entre Cartas y Mapas: Exploring Spatial Belonging of Rural Latinx Graduate Students - Marlene Lopez Torres, University of California - Santa Barbara; Carlos A Fitch, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Familia, Redes, y Research: Social Networks in the Research Journeys of First-Generation Latinx STEM Students - Katherine Arias Garcia, University of California - Irvine; Gustavo Orosco, Yale University

• Latinx Students and Residents Leveraging Familial Capital in Medical Education - Nicole Perez, University of Illinois at Chicago; Vanessa Pena, University of Illinois at Chicago; Isabella Perez Pecchio, University of Illinois at Chicago; Sarah Medina-Aguirre, University of Illinois at Chicago