2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Broadening the talent pool in STEM fields starts with increasing social justice and equity for racially minoritized undergraduates and women. While the demand for STEM workers and high-earning wages provides an excellent opportunity for upward socioeconomic mobility, women and people of color remain significantly underrepresented in most STEM fields (National Science Foundation, 2021; Fry, Kennedy, & Funk, 2021). Centering middle and high school students with racially minoritized backgrounds, [Project Title] aims to better understand practices that increase students’ motivations and capacities in pursuit of careers in STEM fields. Overall, the project aims to develop transformative paradigms for advancing interests, self-efficacy, abilities, and pathways in STEM with a set of three interconnected strategies.
• School-based teams consisting of classroom teachers and academic advisors participate in year-round professional learning experiences focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM, as well as a projects-based electrical engineering curriculum.
• Participating schools receive resources and technical assistance to establish or expand a STEM club using the strategies and content from the professional learning experiences.
• Students from these schools are then eligible to receive scholarships to attend the university’s summer programs for pre-college students interested in STEM.
This paper focuses on the professional development component of [Project Title], which supports the creation of affective and knowledge spaces among guidance counselors and teachers as advocates for social justice and equity in STEM education. Using a qualitative case study approach (Baxter & Jack, 2008), we examine what happens when a pair of middle school educators (science teacher and dual language science teacher) develop an after-school STEM club with a specific goal of creating an equitable and inclusive environment for girls and students from racially minoritized backgrounds. Further, we use grounded theory methodology in practice (Chun Tie, Y., Birks, M., & Francis, K., 2019) to process propositions on professional development aspects of [Project Title] programming and its influence on STEM Club design and student experiences.