Poster #20 - Exploring STEM Identity Development of Underrepresented Minority Adolescents in Out-of-School Summer Programs

• In Event: Poster Session 19

Abstract

The United States faces a significant disparity in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) degree attainment between underrepresented minority (URM) groups, such as Black, Latinx, and Indigenous groups, compared to White and Asian American students (de Brey et al., 2019; Fry et al., 2021). One reason for this racial underrepresentation in STEM is the difficulties many URM adolescents, particularly URM adolescent women, face in incorporating STEM into their former established identities (Aschbacher et al., 2010; Kricorian et al., 2020). The literature is also limited regarding the STEM identity development in out-of-school summer contexts for URM adolescents.
URM adolescents' identification with STEM changes when they experience critical identity moments outside school (Pattison et al., 2020). They can experience STEM identity dissonance partly due to summer structural inequities, as many low-income URM adolescents are unable to explore summer STEM opportunities given financial constraints (Ghazzawi et al., 2021). Yet, such opportunities could positively enhance their STEM identity, although more research is needed in this area. To further understand how out-of-school summer contexts influence URM adolescents’ STEM identity development, the current study examines the STEM participation and STEM identity development of URM adolescents’ who attended STEM summer programs.
Study participants are 10th to 12th graders living either in Los Angeles or in New York City, who participated in at least one summer STEM enrichment program and have accepted a summer stipend from a non-profit organization. Four types of data were collected: (1) in-depth interview with 7 selected participants via Zoom or in person (see Table 1); (2) document collection about their previous learning records in the non-profit organization; (3) artifact collections (i.e. photos, videos) about their summer learning experience; (4) an online Summer Stipend Feedback Survey with 14 participants. In this narrative research, we used both inductive and deductive coding approaches to generate common themes from the interview transcripts.
Figure 1 visually displays our preliminary interview results, which indicate that our participants’ STEM identity develops through a process of negotiation (dissonance) and enhancement (consonance) between their personal and social STEM identity in relation with mediating actors (e.g. instructors, peers, elder siblings) and multiple-level social contexts. When participants experience STEM identity dissonance, many expressed their resilience in their ability to reconcile the difference between their personal and social STEM identities. In experiencing consonance, participants project their STEM identity on their narratives through the temporal dimension of past-present-future. Additionally, results show how our participants’ STEM identity development is coupled with the development of their character (e.g., persistence, altruism, independence) and other identities (e.g. music), all of which contribute to their whole self.
Next steps include incorporating and analyzing our other related data sources (e.g., previous learning records, summer stipend feedback survey). Such analyses can help elucidate the ways summer STEM programs influence URM’s STEM identity and help develop future summer programs/after school programs to better address the racial and gender underrepresentation in STEM fields.

Authors

• Hui Huang, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Jeffrey Yo, University of California - Los Angeles