Centering Race in the STEM Education of African American K–12 Learners

About the book

Centering Race in the STEM Education of African American K–12 Learners boldly advocates for a transformative approach to the teaching of STEM to African American K–12 learners. The achievement patterns of African American learners, so often described as an “achievement gap” between them and their White peers, is in fact the historical legacy of slavery and the racial hierarchy that was necessary to maintain it. The achievement gap is a contemporary manifestation of the racial hierarchy that continues in STEM to the present time. The racial hierarchy in STEM education is upheld by structural arrangements, policies, and practices, sometimes invisible, but ultimately denies access and depresses performance of African American K–12 learners in STEM. This book argues that disrupting these patterns of achievement and realizing more equitable outcomes for this demographic is essentially a political act that requires that race be overtly addressed and centered in the STEM education of these children—an approach called “race-visible pedagogy.” While this approach incorporates some of the elements of culturally responsive pedagogy and other anti-racist or liberatory pedagogies, it advances the thinking about such approaches by shifting the emphasis from the outcomes of such pedagogies to the experience of them. This book covers a range of issues related to the STEM education of African American K–12 learners and includes theoretical pieces that offer insightful, new, and asset-based, as opposed to deficit-based, frameworks for understanding and disrupting the patterns of achievement of African American children, as well examples of the practice of race-visible pedagogies.

Broadening Millennials’ Participation in STEM and the Teaching Professions Through Culturally Relevant, Place-Based, Informal Science Internships

Jacqueline Leonard, Scott A. Chamberlin, Elsa Bailey, Geeta Verma, and Helen Douglass

Abstract

The empirical work reported in this chapter was a part of a larger study. The chapter accomplishes two primary goals. First, we present a model that broadens interns’ knowledge of and participation in culturally relevant, place-based teaching through engagement with underrepresented elementary-aged children in informal science programs. Second, we examine the efficacy of this model to enable interns to engage younger children in science and broaden their own participation in STEM or teaching careers. Twenty-five interns participated in Saturday science academies and/or summer science camps. Results indicated the interns’ training reinforced content knowledge, provided guidance to teach science lessons, and allowed for reflection on professional goals. While the interns who participated in the summer camps had stronger content knowledge than the interns who participated in Saturday academies, the interns in the Saturday academies reported more robust opportunities to teach compared to interns in the summer camp. Nevertheless, the program succeeded in maintaining or promoting excitement about STEM and teaching professions. We conclude that the program was moderately successful in providing interns with opportunities to learn and teach science. ←95 | 96→