2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

High school internships that engage students in direct STEM experience has been proven successful in supporting a student’s initial STEM interest as well as encouraging students to pursue a degree in the STEM field. [Blinded] is a 6 week research internship for high school students from low-income cities to do direct work with Biomedical Engineering and Life Sciences research laboratories at University of [Blinded] as well as develop professional skills. Many of the students that enter the program are from mixed language households of different levels, ranging from households speaking mostly in English to households who only speak another language. The development of STEM identity has been found to be key in the success of students in the STEM field, but the development of STEM identity in multilingual household are less studied. Previous literature has shown that homelife has a great impact on a student’s STEM identity from as young as 5 years old, a child’s ability to talk about or translate their STEM knowledge or interests can vary depending on the fluency of their home language. This work-in-progress study works to identify if the need to translate in multilingual households boost or hinder STEM identity development by interviewing both the students who participated in the [blinded] program in 2025 and their parents to explore how they interacted with their families during the program and what STEM related conversations were held. Our research questions are: 1) What effects do translation of STEM topics in multilanguage households have on a student’s STEM identity development? 2) What roles do parents play in their child’s STEM identity development in multilingual households? And 3) What supports would strengthen students’ ability for home STEM talk?