Race, Identity, and Resilience: Black College Students Negotiating Success in Mathematics and Engineering

• In Event: Learning From Underrepresented Students’ Perspectives: Investigations by Female Mathematics Education Scholars From STEM Backgrounds

Abstract

Objectives:
Much has been written about the phenomenon of stereotype threat and its effect on the academic performance of African American students, particularly in the mathematics and science fields (Steele, 1997, 1999). Despite a great deal of evidence that stereotype threat can negatively affect intellectual performance, little is known about how Black students, in particular, manage racial stereotypes, even to the point of using them as a motivator for high academic achievement (McGee & Spencer, in-press).

Overview:
This presentation will detail evidence of racial stereotypes serving as one of the multiple motivators toward the production of high achievement in mathematics and engineering for 23 high-achieving advanced African American college students. Over the course of their lives, the results will show that students were inclined to recognize these stereotypes, but as a result of key life transitions and recognizing the permanence of racism, they consciously chose not to utilize their energies to get rid of them.

Methods:
Semi-structured, life-story interviews were conducted with all 23 participants (average interview time: 86 minutes). I combined a phenomenological emphasis with narrative analysis/counter narrative analysis to frame the participants’ perceived experiences in the world and their particular relationships within and beyond the mathematics and engineering classrooms (McAdams, Josselson, & Lieblich, 2006; Reissman, 1993; Spencer, 2006, 2008). I used counter narrative methodology espoused by Critical Race Theorists to challenge the neutrality of racism and colorblindness in mathematics (Delgado, 2000; Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000). These two methodologies focus on the researcher’s experience and respondents’ perspective situated within context, plots, and subsequent actions.

Results:
The data revealed that these students achieved, and maintained their academic success based on different motivations and responses to both perceived and real racism. Stereotype management is introduced to explain academic resilience (traditionally valued high achievement in spite of negative intellectual and societal based stereotypes and other forms of racial bias) among Black mathematics and engineering students. Described as a tactical response to the ongoing presence of stereotype threat, stereotype management emerged along overlapping paths of racial, gender, and mathematics identity development. I further demonstrate that although stereotype management fosters engineering and mathematics success, the participants in this study maintained a concentrated and constant state of awareness that being Black is conceptualized by others as a marker of inferiority in mathematics and engineering contexts. With age development and maturity, the students progressed from more fragile mathematics and engineering identities, characterized by attempts to prove stereotypes wrong, to a more robust form, characterized by a desire to serve as a role model for marginalized learners of color.

Scholarly significance:
By analyzing the stories of successful Black college students and the larger narratives in which their experiences are embedded, this study takes a fresh look at how mathematics and engineering education can be strengthened by probing the factors that help Black mathematics and engineering students succeed.

Author

• Ebony Omotola McGee, Vanderbilt Peabody College