This project aims to serve the national interest by increasing the participation of women of color in STEM. It will do so by examining the impact of a multigenerational mentorship environment designed to support persistence of undergraduate women of color in STEM. This environment focuses on supporting student well-being and thriving. Women of color include women who identify as Black/African American, Latina, Asian American, and Indigenous. This group remains significantly underrepresented at all levels of education in the physical sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This continued underrepresentation does not reflect limited academic capacity to excel in STEM, but instead appears to be driven by experiences that lower the sense of belonging in STEM. More research is needed both to understand the psychological toll of persisting in an unwelcoming STEM environment, and to implement effective interventions. This project will examine efforts to transform STEM participation through creation of spaces (i.e. counterspaces) that holistically support the complex interplay of students’ intersecting identities, including their STEM identities. Such counterspaces have the potential to shift deficit narratives to asset narratives and thus promote students’ persistence and achievement.
The goals of this project are to: 1) evaluate the effectiveness of a counterspace on student persistence; 2) extend the application of this counterspace to a minority-serving institution and compare its effectiveness among women of color enrolled at an minority-serving institution and a predominantly white institution; 3) understand the ways in which an intentional and explicit focus on psychosocial wellbeing affects STEM persistence among women of color; and 4) examine the long-term impact of engagement in the counterspace on women of color, including on degree completion and entry into the STEM workforce. To achieve these goals, the project team will conduct a multi-methodological longitudinal research and evaluation study that includes both process and outcome metrics. This intersectional examination has the potential to advance knowledge and theory in three significant ways. First, these studies will add to the understanding of counterspaces, and the features of counterspaces that are supportive of women of color in STEM. Second, it will identify the similarities and differences in the experiences of women of color in different types of institutions and in both urban rural settings. Third, the longitudinal results will suggest ways in which continuous engagement in a counterspace may facilitate persistence and retention in the STEM workforce. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This is an Engaged Student Learning project, through which the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
