Transcript Exploring the Intersectionality of Science and Racial

Exploring the Intersectionality
of Science and Racial Identity
through Graduate Student Experiences
Sylvia Hurtado
Minh Tran
Felisha Herrera
Josephine Gasiewski
Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA
ASHE 2010 – Indianapolis, IL
Science & Social Identity Conflict
• Socialization into STEM requires students to assimilate
into the narrow, exclusive, and objective disciplinary
culture.
• URMs experience tension because they must detach
their racial identity from their identity as developing
scientists.
“You just don’t see a lot of African Americans in engineering or STEM fields. It’s
a conflict because, even within the academy itself, there’s people who
question, you know, your ability. - Sean(Black Male, Mechanical Engineering)
Science Identity Development Model
Societal
Family/Community
Multiple Contexts
Science
Race/
Ethnicity
Religion/
Spirituality
Mental/Physical
Ability
Nationality/
Immigration Status
Science
Identity
Socioeconomic
Status
Gender
Culture
Adapted from:
Jones & McEwen (2000)
Sexual
Orientation
Science Context
• Interactions with
faculty/peers in
science
•Institution/
disciplinary culture
•Lab/classroom
environments
Science Identity & Social Identity
• Science identity – External and internal recognition
• Social identity – gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation,
nationality, socioeconomic status, religion/spirituality, and
mental and physical ability.
• Motivated to learn science to make sense their position in
relation to the natural & physical world.
“I think I became interested in science just as a way to understand my
surroundings. I grew up on an Indian reservation so I saw a lot of death
and a lot of disease and things like that going on when I was growing up.
My interest was, like I said, was to understand my environment and try to
get a feel for the underlying causes of the things I was seeing.” - Landon
(American Indian Male, Molecular Biology)
Methods
• December 2009 to April 2010
• 60 hours of semi-structured focus group interviews
• 7 universities across US
• 3 PWIs, 3 HSIs, 1 HBCU
• 150 masters/doctoral students
• 35% African Americans
• 21% White
• 25% Latino/a
• 9% Asian Americans
• 5% American Indian
• 5% who marked other
• 50% women
• average age 27.5
(range of 21-53 years old)
Negotiating Identity Conflicts/Tensions
• Previous research on identities use a deficit cognitive frame.
Alternatively, this study uses an anti-deficit framework (Harper,
2007).
• Successful URM graduate students who have persisted through
the STEM pipeline.
•
1.
2.
3.
Negotiation Strategies to Reconcile Identity Conflicts
Wearing different hats within multiple contexts
Simplifying science: Making science accessible
Redefining science in terms of community & justice
“I feel like I’m two different people when I’m at home and when I’m here
at graduate school.” – Julia (Black Female, Genetics)
• “So I do think they interact all the time, but I think being in science
and even as a student with an identity, I think they just blend. I think
sometimes putting on your hat at this certain place is okay. Okay,
now I have to [put on another hat because] now I’m with this group.”
- Benjamin (Latino, Industrial Engineering)
• “So, I find myself often downplaying it with even extended family or
when I go to my hometown hair salon. And they're like, wow, you're
going to be a doctor, right? And I'm like, oh, it's no big deal. It's just a
Ph.D. and it's just another degree. And it's gonna help me get this job
that I wanted.” – Madeline (Black Female, Health/Biology)
“My family definitely cares. It’s one of those things where you’ve got
to bring them along, explain the whole process of science and
basically start at square one.” - Eric (Latino, Ecology)
• “One of my goals in getting a PhD is to develop a language to talk
to people that don’t understand science – I want science to be
more accessible so that people aren’t afraid of it. If I’m in the
American Indian community, I always say diabetes because it’s one
of the biggest things. So that’ll catch somebody’s ear and maybe
they’ll be more interested. I have this story that I’ve made up
where instead of talking about proteins I talk about zombies and
that the misfolded proteins are zombies and they’re affecting
people that are coming into the city. That’s a fun way for me to
talk about what I do and people’s eyes don’t glaze over.”
- Carson (American Indian Male, Bioinformatics)
“My identity is fused with my work. It’s important for me to address
issues that affect African Americans and to understand how to treat
issues that Black people deal with.” - (Black, Female, Psychology)
• “I did research at the School of Public Health. I worked with a
Latina physician, who opened my eyes to sort of a populationbased approach to health as opposed to a one-on-one
individual commission approach. I enjoyed her approach to
problems that I sort of grew up with on the border, in terms
of environmental health conditions. That's what inspired me
in graduate school.” - Jackson (Latino, Public Health)
Contact Information
Faculty and Co-PIs:
Sylvia Hurtado
Mitchell Chang
Postdoctoral Scholars:
Kevin Eagan
Josephine Gasiewski
Graduate Research Assistants:
Christopher Newman
Monica Lin
Minh Tran
Gina Garcia
Jessica Sharkness
Felisha Herrera
Administrative Staff:
Aaron Pearl
Cindy Mosqueda
Juan Garibay
Tanya Figueroa
Papers and reports are available for download at:
http://heri.ucla.edu/nih
Project e-mail: [email protected]
Acknowledgments: This study was made possible by the support of the National Institute of General
Medical Sciences, NIH Grant Numbers 1 R01 GMO71968-01 and R01 GMO71968-05 as well
as the National Science Foundation, NSF Grant Number 0757076. This independent research
and the views expressed here do not indicate endorsement by the sponsors.