Transcript When Science Lacks Diversity - Higher Education Research

When Science Lacks Diversity
and Social Relevance, Can
Students be Objective Scientists
and Still be Themselves?
Minh Tran
Felisha Herrera
Juan Garibay
Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA
NCORE 2011 – San Francisco, CA
Background
• Priority: develop, recruit, and retain STEM students
•
•
Maintain U.S. global economic competitiveness
Solve national issues (e.g. sustainable development,
global climate change, and health disparities).
• Persistence in STEM
•
•
URMs earn 17% of STEM bachelor degrees, but only
6-10% of STEM graduate enrollments are URMs
Women earn only 21% of doctorates in engineering
and 30-40% of doctorates in other science fields.
Literature
•
•
•
Developing Social Agency is often overlooked in STEM
disciplines even though STEM has created and perpetuated
many global problems (Harding, 2006; Lima, 2000)
Narrow focus on the “first world” solutions, as opposed to
problems that affect women, people of color, and low
income communities (Pawley, 2009).
Socialization into STEM requires assimilation into the
narrow, exclusive, and objective disciplinary culture
(Carlone, 2003).
Literature
• A fundamental reason students who succeed in the sciences
choose not to continue is because they experience conflict
between their emerging science identity and “the enduring sense
of who they are and who they want to become”. (Cobb, 2004)
• Science identity (Carlone & Johnson, 2007)
• Multiple social identities (Jones & McEwen, 2007)
“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, HSI
Presentation of Two Studies
1) Quantitative Study among undergraduate students
•
Examine the individual background characteristics, college
experiences, and institution structures impact the extent to which
students rate the importance of social agency at the end of college.
•
Explore how majoring in STEM affects social agency outcomes
for college students
2) Qualitative study among STEM graduate students
•
Conflicts that students experience between their social
identities and emerging science identities
•
•
Specifically, conflict related to their motivations for enacting
social change
Negotiation strategies utilized by successful successful
Quantitative Sample
•
•
UCLA CIRP Longitudinal Sample
• 2004 Freshman Survey (TFS)
• 2008 College Senior Survey (CSS)
Sample Description for Regression Analysis (n=5,056)
• 44.6% were STEM students
• 65% were females; 57.2% were URM
• About 45% of the institutions were private, while
about 2% were HBCUs
Quantitative Methods
•
•
•
Analyses
• Cross-tabulations
• Regression Analysis (OLS Blocked Stepwise)
Dependent Variable
• Social Agency (seven-item factor)
Independent Variables:
• Student-level: 2004 Social Agency Pretest, URM,
Gender, Political Orientation, Parent Income,
College Major, College experiences
• Institution-level: Control, Selectivity, HBCU
Working For Social Change is More
Important for Non-STEM Students
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
17.6
11.4
32
38.7
28.8
Not Important
Somewhat
Important
Very Important
27.1
16.6
STEM (n=2697)
27.7
Non-STEM
(n=3501)
Essential
Working For Social Change is Most Important
for URM Non-STEM Students
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
20.2
14.7
16
9.4
29.3
35.8
41.2
38.4
30.1
28.7
25.6
13
NonURM
STEM
25.8
20.8
19.8
URM
NonURM
Non-STEM
Not Important
Somewhat
Important
Very Important
Essential
31.2
URM
Working for Social Change is most
important for URM Leavers
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
14.6
10.3
20.4
18.0
41.3
40.6
30.7
36.7
Not Important
30.6
28.7
25.4
20.1
28.4
13.0
23.6
17.7
URM
URM NonURM NonURM
Stayers Leavers Stayers Leavers
(n=1042) (n=817) (n=1418) (n=834)
Somewhat
Important
Very Important
Essential
Quantitative Findings: Regression
(+/-) Predictors of 2008 Social Agency
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Background Characteristics
+ 2004 Social Agency, URM student, Female,
Institutional Characteristics
+ HBCU
•College Experiences
+ Volunteer, Positive and Negative Crossracial Interaction, Attended a
racial/cultural awareness workshop, Taken an ethnic studies course*,
Participated in an academic program for racial minorities, Participated in an
ethnic/racial student org., Taken a women’s studies course, Worked on
professor’s research project
- Parental Income, Majored in STEM field, Socialized w/ someone of another
race*
*Interaction effect
Final R2=0.41
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.
Science Identity Development Model
Science Identity
• Internal/External Recognition, Performance &Societal
Competence (Carlone & Johnson,Family/Community
2007)
• Validation of cultural capital & recognition from nonscience friends/ family (Rendon, 1994)
Science
Race/
Ethnicity
Multiple Contexts
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
Qualitative Sample
•December 2009 to April 2010
• 60 hours of semi-structured focus group interviews
• 7 universities across US
• 3 PWIs, 3 HSIs, 1 HBCU
• 132 masters/doctoral students
• 46% Women
• 64% Men
• 8.4% Multi-Racial
• Avg. age 27.5
(range of 21-53 years old)
Qualitative Methods
• Interpretive/descriptive qualitative study
• Semi-structured interview protocol
• Coded transcripts using NVivo® software to
identify emergent themes
• Reached inter-coder reliability of 85%
Qualitative Findings: Conflict
• I would talk to my professors about things, like Black history. Like “Don't
skip over that page about Ernest Everett Just in the book. That's in the
book. Let's read about this. I want to know. ” I know they didn't because
that doesn't necessarily intrigue the students at Iowa like it intrigues me,
but why can't other students know about what he did? – Kaelyn, African
American Female, Biology, HBCU
• For me there's a dichotomy between what I want to do and the
preparation that is being imposed on me. That's the conflict. It's about
getting in the lab, doing things only on a research level, but not necessarily
changing the way education or other things are. They make you force
those other things [social justice] to the periphery. In my opinion, this
class is preparing us to go out into the world and be Black scientists. And
so if they never talk about malaria and sickle cell, they would have done
you an injustice. – Isaac, African American Male, Chemistry, HBCU
Qualitative Findings: Conflict
• The reason I sometimes resist the label of a scientist is because that label
comes a certain perspective that if I can’t observe it, then it doesn’t exist.
The problem with science is that it’s only as good as the information
you’re taking in, which is always limited. Because there’s so few people in
the discipline who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, that leads to the
interpretation that they’re not physicists because they can’t cut it. I guess,
that makes a presumption of ignorance until proven that you’re
competent. – Brody (African American Male, Physics Major, PWI)
• I think inside you’re either a good scientist or you’re not. You’re not a
female scientist.You’re not a male scientist. You’re either a good scientist
or you’re not. – Landon (American Indian and African American Male,
Molecular Biology, HSI)
Qualitative Findings: Accessible Science
• 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, PWI
Qualitative Findings: Accessible Science
• I’d like to use my PhD just to make sure that I’m educating in particular
the minority population about the genetic resources that are available.
So I know that genetics information is not something that people talk
about on a daily basis. It’s something that some communities never talk
about just because they’re not informed. So I really like to use my PhD
to, I guess, provide them with the information that’s available and let them
know about some of the life-saving technologies that are coming out, to
which they may not be aware. For me, history plays a significant part in
my career decisions too just because I am aware of unethical
experiments that have been performed with minority populations. So I
also see myself kind of going into like genetics, the ethical side of genetics,
just to ensure that those same situations don’t occur again. – Julia, African
American Female, Genetics, HBCU
Qualitative Findings: Redefining Science
• I think it's undeniable that it's going to shape you in some way to dedicate
my entire life for five or six years to becoming a scientist at the highest
level. I think ultimately for me it does not determine my total trajectory. I
think I'd like to use my PhD in other ways. Although the PhD process is
very much research-oriented, I think it has potential to manipulate social
concerns as well. – Isaac, African American Male, Chemistry, HBCU
• I do remember the reason why I chose genetics was that I used to get so
upset because I used to watch the news a lot and every health segment
that would come on, they would just state African Americans have the
number one this or a higher rate of that or a greater susceptibility toward
certain diseases. I was like ‘This is just horrible. Can’t they look at
something else or some other gene?’ So I was like, ‘I have to do something
about this because this is really getting on my nerves.’ – Audrey, African
American Female, Genetics, HBCU
Qualitative Findings: Redefining Science
• And I think it’s quite interesting that I identify myself as a scientist
or someone who has a science background and I have an
opportunity now to do something that I actually work with people
and look at poverty reduction and issues of electricity when it
comes to poverty reduction. So I get to actually do something I feel
that’s meaningful in everyday. – Brandon, African American Male,
Applied Physics, PWI
• I did research with a Latina physician, who opened my eyes to a
population-based approach to health as opposed to a one-on-one
individual 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. PWI
Discussion
• Social change is very important/essential to URM
STEM students (particularly for Leavers)
• STEM major negatively effects social agency
• Identity Conflict
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Lack of cultural inclusiveness and relevance in STEM
Divergence between social identities and science identity
• Negotiation Strategies
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Making science accessible
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Redefining science in terms of community & justice
From Research to Practice
Group Activity
•Given the themes and challenges we just presented…
please discuss in small groups how these issues affect
your individual campuses and develop a list of
recommendations for your respective institutions. A
spokesperson from each group will share your list with
the rest of the participants.
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.