When Science Lacks Diversity and Social Relevance, Can

Students be Objective Scientists and Still be Themselves?

Minh TranFelisha Herrera

Juan GaribayHigher 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 Studies1) 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

• 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 Sample

• 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

Quantitative Methods

Working For Social Change is More Important for Non-STEM Students

16.627.7

27.1

28.8

38.732

17.6 11.4

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

STEM (n=2697) Non-STEM(n=3501)

Not Important

SomewhatImportant

Very Important

Essential

Working For Social Change is Most Important for URM Non-STEM Students

20.8 19.831.2

25.628.7 25.8

30.1

41.235.8 38.4

29.3

20.2

13

1614.7 9.4

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Non-URM

URM Non-URM

URM

Not Important

SomewhatImportantVery Important

Essential

Non-STEMSTEM

Working for Social Change is most important for URM Leavers

20.128.4

13.0 17.7

28.730.6

25.423.6

36.730.7

41.3 40.6

14.610.3

20.4 18.0

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

URMStayers

(n=1042)

URMLeavers(n=817)

NonURMStayers

(n=1418)

NonURMLeavers(n=834)

Not Important

SomewhatImportantVery Important

Essential

Quantitative Findings: Regression

(+/-) Predictors of 2008 Social Agency• 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.

Sexual Orientation

Nationality/Immigration Status

Religion/Spirituality

Mental/Physical Ability

Race/Ethnicity

Gender

Culture

Socioeconomic Status

ScienceIdentity

Science Identity Development Model

Multiple Contexts

SocietalSocietal

Family/CommunityFamily/Community

ScienceScience

Science Context• Interactions with faculty/peers in science•Institution/disciplinary culture•Lab/classroom environments

Adapted from: Jones & McEwen (2000)

Science Identity•Internal/External Recognition, Performance & Competence (Carlone & Johnson, 2007)•Validation of cultural capital & recognition from non-science friends/ family (Rendon, 1994)

Science Identity•Internal/External Recognition, Performance & Competence (Carlone & Johnson, 2007)•Validation of cultural capital & recognition from non-science friends/ family (Rendon, 1994)

•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 Sample

• Interpretive/descriptive qualitative study• Semi-structured interview protocol • Coded transcripts using NVivo®

software to identify emergent themes• Reached inter-coder reliability of 85%

Qualitative Methods

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)

• 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: Accessible 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

Qualitative Findings: Redefining Science

Discussion• Social change is very important/essential to

URM STEM students (particularly for Leavers)• STEM major negatively effects social agency• Identity Conflict

• Lack of cultural inclusiveness and relevance in STEM• Divergence between social identities and science

identity• Negotiation Strategies

• Making science accessible• Redefining science in terms of community & justice

From Research to PracticeGroup 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

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.

Papers and reports are available for download at:

http://heri.ucla.edu/nih

Project e-mail: herinih@ucla.edu

Faculty and Co-PIs:Sylvia HurtadoMitchell Chang

Monica LinGina GarciaFelisha Herrera

Postdoctoral Scholars:Kevin EaganJosephine Gasiewski

Administrative Staff:Aaron Pearl

Graduate Research Assistants:Christopher NewmanMinh TranJessica Sharkness

Cindy MosquedaJuan GaribayTanya Figueroa