Ebony O. McGee

Young, Black, Mathematically Gifted, and Stereotyped

In this paper, I describe the academic dilemma experienced by Tamara (pseudonym), a mathematically high-achieving high school sophomore. Raised in an economically strapped neighborhood, Tamara had the opportunity to attend a prestigious private high school, tuition free. Confronted by being viewed as an affirmative action student Tamara uses this negative stereotype as an extra source of motivation to achieve high marks on the admissions test. A new framework explains Tamara’s reaction to this situation that I call stereotype management (McGee & Martin, 2011b). Stereotype management describes the range of strategies and various forms of individual agency that high-achieving Black students employ to reduce the academic impact of demeaning stereotypes while maintaining high standards of achievement. For Tamara, however, her high test score and ability to achieve in the face of being stereotyped was bittersweet, as she examined the potency and permanence of being perceived as less than.

Risk and Protective Factors in Mathematically Talented Black Male Students: Snapshots from Kindergarten through Eighth Grade.

Within urban elementary schools are Black students who continue to challenge the normative deficit characterization of the educational opportunities of students like them. This study attempts to provide a more holistic picture of the scholarly trajectories of 13 African American males who are particularly talented in mathematics and who attended urban schools. PVEST to used to explore stage-specific outcomes to identify dynamic and situational risk and protective factors, both internal and external, by which these young men operate and negotiate within multiple contexts to achieve success in and beyond their classrooms. Results identify major traits that foster mathematics identity development and academic achievement.

Entertainers or education researchers? The challenges associated with presenting while black

How black faculty experience presenting their research in educational venues within the context of historical objectification of black people as sources of entertainment is an underexplored topic in higher education research. Presenting research has far-reaching implications for black academics’ advancement, such as future employment and opportunities for research collaboration. Thus, how black faculty are perceived while presenting has significant implications for their career trajectories. This study is concerned with understanding how black higher education faculty perceive, interpret, and respond to how they are perceived while presenting within a context of racialized academic scrutiny. Thirty-three black professors were interviewed about their participation in a number of presentation contexts, including national conferences, symposia, and campus job talks. Study participants discussed encountering multiple layers of racial stereotyping and bias, and also how their keen racial awareness enabled them to develop strategic coping mechanisms to manage audience reactions. These strategies also represented the self-sacrifices they made that altered their racial identities. By examining black faculty members’ struggles to be valued personally and professionally in white-dominated academic sites, the study findings can enrich critical interpretations of racism in higher education.

Addressing Negative Racial and Gendered Experiences That Discourage Academic Careers in Engineering

Engineering faculty members play a multifaceted role in the profession in that they help discover, promote, and disseminate advancements in technology, and they engage in capacity-building by training a future workforce of engineers. However, many potential faculty members are dissuaded from academia. A study of Black engineering PhD students and postdoctoral scholars investigates their career decision-making processes concerning the professoriate. The racial and gendered experiences of these students and scholars have impacted their desires and choices to pursue an academic career. Programmatic innovation is needed within graduate mentoring programs to address racial, gender, and other identity-based biases within engineering and academia, in addition to traditional content that focuses on presentation skills, networking, and other professional development areas. A new approach develops a mentoring curriculum that raises racial and gender consciousness by utilizing the expertise of scholars from various social science disciplines.

Black engineering students’ motivation for PhD attainment: passion plus purpose

Purpose Much of the extant research, practice and policy in engineering education has focused on the limited persistence, waning interest and lack of preparation among Black students to continue beyond the post-secondary engineering pipeline. However, this research suggests that many Black PhD students persist and succeed in engineering, fueled by various motivational strengths. To better understand the motivations of Black students in engineering doctoral programs, this study aims to explore the factors that influence their decision to enroll in either an engineering or a computing doctoral program. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses an intrinsic and extrinsic motivational framework to investigate the inspiration of 44 Black engineering doctoral students in PhD engineering programs in 11 engineering schools across the country. Findings Results show that the participants’ motivation to pursue a PhD in engineering comes from several distinct factors, including the following: an unyielding passion for their particular discipline, a sense of responsibility to serve marginalized peoples and society, a path toward autonomy, pre-PhD mentorship and research opportunities and family and prior work experience. Research limitations/implications Based on this study’s findings, a reconceptualization of graduate engineering education that incorporates the importance of “being Black” and its relationships with motivating and, potentially, retaining Black science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students is also offered. Originality/value This paper seeks to expose particular constructs and behaviors surrounding Black students’ motivation to learn and achieve in engineering at the highest academic levels, offering a more nuanced perspective than currently is found in traditional engineering education literature.

The burden of being “model”: Racialized experiences of Asian STEM college students.

This qualitative study used narrative methodology to investigate what becoming a scientist or engineer entails for Asian and Asian American college students stereotyped as “model minorities.” We present the narratives of 23 high-achieving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college students who self-identified as Asian or Asian American as they focused on the social contexts in which they encountered racialized bias in their academic environments. This study was guided by epistemological and methodological assumptions and beliefs, which influence how the data were interpreted, analyzed, and reported and were based on a 5-step phenomenological research design. Results included how these students experienced, negotiated, challenged, and managed distress from externally imposed stereotypes. The students constructed personal narratives mediated by symbolic cultural systems to make meaning of their experiences, which more often disputed than confirmed the model minority stereotype. This research has larger implications for STEM college education programs throughout the United States, which should not simply accept the normalization of successful Asian STEM students without robust understanding of the stereotypes they endure.

The Troubled Success of Black Women in STEM

ABSTRACT We examine the experiences of 3 high-achieving Black undergraduate and graduate women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Our findings reveal that structural racism, sexism, and race-gender bias were salient in the womens STEM settings. These experiences were sources of strain, which the women dealt with in ways that demonstrate both resilience and trauma. We discuss how their experiences might motivate institutions to offer support for high-achieving students who sometimes face risks from multiple sources.

Racial and gendered experiences that dissuade a career in the professoriate

Faculty members play a multi-faceted role in the engineering profession. They help to discover, promote, and disseminate advancements in technology, and they engage in capacity-building by training a future workforce of engineers. Yet, many potential faculty members are dissuaded from academia. This paper describes findings from both interviews and focus groups of 60 Black engineering Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars, which were conducted during our study to understand their career decision-making process. Their racial and gendered experiences impact their desire and choice to pursue an academic career.

Colorism as a Salient Space for Understanding in Teacher Preparation

In this article, we posit the salience of colorism as an important aspect of race in the knowledge construction and preparation of teachers. Although many more teacher education programs across the United States have begun to infuse aspects of race into their curricula, there is sparse literature about the role of colorism in teacher preparation and its potential impact. This article explicitly focuses on darker-skinned students, who experience trauma differently from lighter-skinned students. This research chronicles the particular experiences of African American female students who endure deep-seated biases and attitudes regarding their skin color, both outside of and within school environments. We argue that teacher education programs should include learning opportunities on construction of race as a phenotype (the physical construction of skin tone, hair texture, facial features, and body physique) as an influence on the thinking, beliefs, and consequent practices of teachers in P–12 classrooms. The article concludes with an explicit recommendation for teacher education programs to prioritize colorism in the preparation of teachers.

The factors affecting the persistence of Latina faculty: A literature review using the intersectionality of race, gender, and class

This literature review explores the state of research on the factors affecting the persistence of Latina faculty. Although its focus is on engineering, it also draws from research on Latina faculty in other areas of science. The results are analyzed through Intersectionality Theory, which considers overlapping identities related to gender, race and class and their interactions to promote or hinder the advancements of Latinas in academia. The synthesized research identifies the influence of factors such as group identity, familismo, value of community, resilience, availability of role models and mentors, financial barriers, as factors most affecting Latina faculty during their education and academic careers. Although current literature explores factors and paradoxes surrounding strategies for and barriers to Latina success in STEM careers, this synthesis finds a lack of literature examining the multiple identities of Latina women, and few reports considering the intersectionality of identities as it pertains to Latina underrepresentation in Engineering. This critical literature review concludes with opportunity areas for future research to be conducted.