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Type IV: STEM Education Research

Concurrent Session 7.8 - Regular Sessions

College Students Reflect on Their Socialization into STEM and Observe Their Higher-Education STEM Contexts in a New Course on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility

Saturday, November 9, 2024
8:00 AM – 8:30 AM East Coast USA Time
Location: Tidewater II, 2nd Floor
Program Abstract: Despite efforts to broaden participation, STEM fields remain dominated by white, Western, and male worldviews. A new course focused on inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility in STEM aims to educate students about the exclusionary culture of STEM and to empower them to become advocates for change through identifying and pushing back against inequities as they continue in the field of science. Prior to assessing the effectiveness of the course, we analyzed enrolled students’ baseline understanding of their own socialization into the world of STEM and ways they perceive this world to be enacted in higher education contexts. This work reveals how these STEM students recognize and reflect critically on various forms of social identity and capital that have influenced their path into science. Additionally, students describe, connect, and critique four aspects of the figured worlds of science in their postsecondary learning spaces: people, artifacts, rules, and meaningful acts.