Unequal Success: Race-Intentional Methods Reveal Divergent Asian and White Realities in STEM Mentoring

• In Event: 50260 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 2: Challenging the Model Minority Myth: Work, Health, and Inequality Among Asian Americans

Abstract

As federal agencies dismantle diversity programs and institutions retreat from equity initiatives, opponents of racial justice increasingly weaponize Asian Americans' achievement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) as evidence that these fields already function as pure meritocracies requiring no equity interventions. This study adopts a race-intentional methodological approach to critically examine whether Asian Americans truly share the privileges of a "White experience" in STEM mentoring relationships. Drawing on survey data from a national sample of NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs (n=709), we analyze how race consciousness in mentoring relationships differs between Asian and White individuals, and how these differences vary across gender and power dynamics. Our findings reveal that Asian participants express significantly higher race consciousness in mentoring relationships than Whites, with particularly pronounced differences among women and non-binary individuals. While Asian undergraduate mentees report higher race consciousness compared to White peers, this gap disappears at faculty and postgraduate levels, where Asian mentors report similar levels of race consciousness as White mentors. These patterns challenge both STEM's meritocratic premise and the "model minority" narrative by demonstrating how technical achievement alone cannot erase the complex ways race shapes professional interactions. Our results suggest that Asian Americans' numerical success in STEM has not translated into genuine inclusion, as their heightened racial awareness reveals an ongoing process of racialization. This study contributes to a growing critique of how quantitative methodologies in STEM education research can reproduce racial hierarchies while maintaining a facade of objectivity and neutrality.

Authors

• Danielle Xiaodan Morales, University of Massachusetts-Boston

• Ke Yao

• Mariam Machabeli, University of Massachusetts Boston

• Timothy William Collins, University of Utah

• Sara Elizabeth Grineski, University of Utah