The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM (2019) / Chapter Skim
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3 Mentoring Underrepresented Students in STEMM: Why Do Identities Matter?
3 Mentoring Underrepresented Students in STEMM: Why Do Identities Matter?
Pages 51-74
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From page 51... ...
Students with nonvisible disabilities include students with identities such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and other neurodiverse conditions. 3 ultural capital refers to the level of comfort a student has in enacting behaviors that are consistent with C the dominant culture surrounding them (Bills, 2003)
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From page 52... ...
While many of the topics discussed in this chapter are relevant to multiple identities -- and may be presented in generalized terms -- the committee stresses that the discussions here should not be understood as disregarding the intricacies of any particular identity or the differ ences between identities.5 Instead, the intent for this chapter is to raise awareness and motivate mentors to engage in introspection and do "self-work" as a means of becoming more effective in their mentoring relationships with their diverse mentees.6 Additionally, this chapter provides UR mentees with a vision of how to see themselves in the context of STEMM and potentially recognize some of their own experiences.7 THE IMPORTANCE OF IDENTITIES Faculty working with undergraduate and graduate STEMM students in classrooms and research environments are interested in sharing knowledge, providing training, 4 n recognition of intersecting identities, intersectionality is the term that is used to acknowledge, ccount I a for, and conceptualize "multiple grounds of identity" (Crenshaw, 1991)
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From page 53... ...
However, as of 2017, women, persons with disabilities, and members of three racial and ethnic groups -- African Americans, Latinx, and American Indians or Alaska Natives -- as well as FG college students are still underrepresented in educational attainment and the STEMM workforce (Espinosa et al., 2019; NASEM, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2019; NCSES, 2017; U.S.
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. Although FG college students account for one-third of all students entering post secondary education -- and almost half of all students enrolled at minority-serving insti tutions (Harmon, 2012)
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. White FG college students also view personal and career development as key mentoring benefits, while African American FG students saw career clarification as the most crucial mentoring benefit.
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This marginalization, sometimes in the form of microaggressions,12 has the effect of barring UR students from benefiting fully from opportunities afforded to members of more well-represented and prototypical groups. Student experiences in STEMM contexts are highly contingent upon their social identities (Kim et al., 2018; Tajfel, 2010; Tajfel and Turner, 1986)
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From page 57... ...
. One study found that mentors taking time to help African American male students in STEM work through their research tasks had a statistically large influence on the students' science identity, research self-efficacy, and research career intentions (Bidwell, 2015; Byars-Winston and Rogers, 2019)
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From page 58... ...
program show that over nearly 20 years, Hispanic and White students received comparable student perfor mance evaluations from their mentors, while African American students were evaluated on average only 50 percent as positively (Brown et al., 2019) .18 Because individuals can not construct a social identity in the absence of recognition from others, feeling invisible can thwart the development and reinforcement of a person's science identity.
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From page 59... ...
. Identity interference occurs when cultural meanings and stereotypes assigned to social identities cause those with multiple identities to feel that one identity interferes with the successful performance of another identity.20 For UR students, identity interference means they often maintain separate social and academic peer networks (Malone and Barabino, 2009; Tate and Linn, 2005)
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. This finding is ripe for further inquiry into the effect of mentors' cultural awareness in research mentoring relationships and has implications for mentorship education to support mentors' cul tural responsiveness in their mentoring practices.23 In this section, we review research 22 ncluding I race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, and gender.
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From page 61... ...
. Some UR faculty in STEMM, especially those at predominantly White institutions, may be likewise uninclined to directly address social identities and cultural diversity matters because of their own experiences with inequities in institutional roles and research support, being the one to whom more UR students turn for support, and fatigue from being overextended in service and teaching (Armstrong and Jovanovic, 2017; Xu, 2008)
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.28 Together, these studies indicate that culturally responsive mentoring correlates with students feeling more attached to their field of study and to the research world. Many interventions are designed to target multiple social identities as a group, such as low-income, UR, and FG students.
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One study of mentoring experiences between White faculty mentors and Black college students found that White faculty saw mentorship as a "purposeful and iterative process of developing relationships with students" (Reddick and Pritchett, 2015)
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. Subsequent research has shown that both male and female students perceive female mentors as offering more psychosocial support, including role modeling, and male mentors as offering more career support, which is consistent with typical gender roles (Sosik and Godshalk, 2000)
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. However, while a study of female students in economics found that female doctoral students with female faculty mentors took longer to graduate than did female doctoral s tudents with male faculty mentors (Neumark and Gardecki, 1998)
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This suggests that while mentees may prefer social identity matching with their mentors, what is ultimately important is the mentor's acknowledgment of the role of students' social identities in their career development. Moreover, some workplace mentoring research indicates that mentors from a well-represented background can use their available social capital through the mentoring relationship to benefit the mentee's career support and outcomes (Eby et al., 2013; Johnson and Smith, 2016)
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From page 67... ...
. For the purposes of this report, sexual- and gender-minority students include, but are not limited to, students with sexual orientation identities such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and asexual, as well as gender identities such as pre- and posttransition transgender, intersex, and nonbinary.
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From page 68... ...
.37 Sexual- and gender-minority individuals also face neglect or encounters with many discriminatory practices and policies, such as the refusal of institutions to provide gender-neutral restrooms. In addition, there is inconsistent protection for sexual orienta tion and gender identity in nondiscrimination laws by state.38 In diversifying STEMM, more support and research is required to improve mentorship practices for sexual- and gender-minority populations.
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A study of 110 undergraduate students found that less than a quarter of students who have individualized education programs or 504 plans register with college disability services, and only 60 percent of those receive accommodations (Cawthon and Cole, 2010)
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Since disability can occur throughout one's life, a better understanding of the onset of disability diagnosis and its influence on STEMM enrollment and degree persistence would benefit university dis ability services in providing developmentally specific supports in place for students who have recent disability diagnosis.41 Research has generated some lessons on facilitating the success of college students with disabilities. Having students with a disability use institutional disability services and existing resources allows faculty to focus on STEMM content, peer tutoring, lab communities, improved recruitment strategies, self-advocacy programs for students, professional development, and mentorship programs for stu dents with disabilities in STEMM (Thurston et al., 2017)
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Neurodiverse Students One group of people with disabilities who pursue STEMM majors are those diagnosed with a neurodiverse condition, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
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.44 Students in this program participated in extracurricular research projects that allowed them to work, interact, and connect with other neurodiverse students and use their intel lectual strengths in a way that might be confined in the traditional engineering course environment. The study found that this intervention increased the participants' interest 44 ttention A deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is sometimes considered a neurodiverse condition.
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From page 73... ...
With the expected growth of this segment of the postsecondary population, this appears to be a large and ripe area for research. Nonetheless, in light of the differences that define ASD, it is reasonable to surmise that mentoring strategies for ASD students may require significant modification from those used with other students in STEMM.
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