Minorities in STEM

Author: Arlene Vinion Dubiel

We’ve spent the past three weeks talking about the STEM workforce gender gap. We identified the magnitude of the gap in the workforce, talked about why this gap exists, and shared ways that we, as teachers, can help to bridge that gap in the classroom. A separate but related topic is minorities in STEM. Here the gap is larger, but we don’t discuss it as much as we do the gender gap. In this week’s blog, we will address the racial and ethnic gap in the STEM workforce in the United States.

What do we know?

If you search Google Scholar using the phrase “Women in STEM,” 3,210,000 results are returned. If you search “Minorities in STEM,” only 257,000 results are returned. Searching the ERIC database, results are a little better with 1,395 education research articles for “Gender in STEM” and 969 articles for “Minorities in STEM.” Thus, according to education research literature, we know much more about gender and women in STEM than we know about minorities in STEM.

There are multiple reasons for this difference in knowledge base. Chief among them is that this discussion about minorities is limited to the United States. The United States is a ‘melting pot’ of cultures and has a long history of discrimination against minority groups including but not limited to African Americans and Native Americans or First Nation Peoples. So, while less is known about minorities in STEM, we, as a nation, are at least talking about the issue and are trying to identify and fix racial, cultural, and ethnic injustices that have, and may still be, occurring in our education system.  

Minorities in STEM Occupations

When we look at the Current Population Survey data, we see what it means to be a minority in the workforce in the United States. Approximately one of every four people in the workforce identifies as non-white. These minority groups are then split further into Black or African American, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino. Looking at the three STEM occupation categories listed in Table 1, we see differences among these three minority groups. There is a much higher percentage of Asians in these careers than in the total workforce, particularly in Computer and Mathematical occupations. Black or African American and Hispanic or Latino have much smaller percentages than are found in the total workforce. Thus it is these two minority populations that we will focus on as they are underrepresented in STEM occupations.   

Education Gap

There is not only an underrepresentation of Blacks or African Americans and Hispanic or Latino persons in STEM occupations, but in all of the Professional and Related occupations for which a college degree is usually required. Looking at college graduation rates from the National Center for Education Statistics, 60.4% of all students who started at a four-year institution in 2011, graduated within six years. Of racial and ethnic subgroups, 64.4% of white students and 73.4% of Asian/Pacific Islander students graduated within this time frame. Hispanic students had a six-year graduation rate of 55.0% while only 39.8% of Black students graduated in this time frame. Said another way, we’re losing over 60% of Black students who initially enroll at 4-year institutions!

Why are we losing so many minority students in college? There is little concrete evidence of concerted institutionalized racism that hasn’t been yet dismantled. But there is more than enough evidence of bias - whether explicit or implicit, microaggressions, and students of minority groups not receiving the support that they need to succeed. For example, there are often socioeconomic inequities with minority groups that necessitate many students to hold jobs while engaging in studies. Trying to maintain work-school balance increases stress, causing many students to discontinue their studies, particularly in STEM fields that require long hours in a laboratory setting. We also must acknowledge that there is an absence of teachers who identify with a minority group. Look at the last line of table 1. Over 80% of those in Education-based occupations are white. In other words, those of us who work to shape the future, usually do not look like our students. 

What can we do?

We need to be cognizant that we and our students have different cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds and work to shape our instruction to be inclusive. I had the privilege of attending sessions on equity in education at the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) Engage 2020 Virtual Conference recently. Contessa Akintunji of Twig Education shared that minorities who chose to study STEM did so because they had a family member in STEM or a positive experience with STEM programs. However, many left STEM because they lacked mentors or other people who looked like them.

We can make an effort to show minority students that there are former students, just like them, who are now successful STEM professionals. Public Broadcasting System (PBS) Education shares resources on ten Black scientists teachers should know about. Of course this includes the famous George Washington Carver and the now well-known Katherine Johnson. (If you have not yet seen the movie, Hidden Figures, or read the book, I highly recommend it!) But there are lesser-known scientists as well, like Gladys West whose work was the foundation for Global Positioning System (GPS). For our Hispanic students, the Hispanic Network shares stories of Latinas who are currently making waves in STEM. 

We can also use lessons in the classroom that purposely promote racial and ethnic equity in the classroom. A previous blog on implicit bias highlighted math content lessons from Teaching Tolerance. If you are teaching physics or chemistry content, check out the lessons from a National Science Foundation grant-funded project through University of California Irvine. The Underrepresentation Curriculum Project also has lessons to promote all students to engage in STEM. The idea with many of these lessons is that what is good for a small group of students can also be good for all students.

Many of the resources that promote equity in STEM education are quite new and the amount of available content is continuing to grow. The hope is that, with these efforts, and over time, we can see these gaps in both education and the STEM workforce diminish so there are no longer perceived barriers to career success.

The STEM gap for minorities is truly a gap in higher education. We can help bridge that gap by consciously using equitable teaching strategies and showing students that there are very successful scientists and mathematicians who look just like them.

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