CAREER:Broadening Participation in STEM: Intersectional and Institutional Influences on Underrepresented Minorities' College and Career Pathways in Longitudinal Perspective

教师早期职业发展(CALEAR)计划是美国国家科学基金会(NSF)范围内的一项活动，旨在为那些通过杰出的研究、出色的教育以及在其组织使命范围内整合教育和研究而体现教师学者作用的初级教师提供奖励。在经济衰退后收入不平等加剧的背景下，大学学位对于实现金融稳定的重要性仍然至关重要。这个项目着眼于解决弗吉尼亚理工学院和州立大学(VT)STEM专业的未被充分代表的少数族裔(URM)本科生持续存在的问题。这项研究意义重大，因为STEM的大学成绩、毅力和职业成就在性别、种族/民族和家庭收入方面仍然不平等，无论是在群体内部还是跨群体。因此，这项研究将检查持续存在的跨部门不平等，并探索可以做些什么来改善体制政策和做法，从而可能促进VT的这种条件。这项研究与大学校长包容性和多样性执行委员会的S议程非常吻合，该议程最近进行了重组，以推进一项大胆的议程，为整个大学系统的包容性计划和服务提供倡导。首席研究员(PI)的研究将通过两个总体目标利用包容性议程。第一个目标是确定和检查个人和机构的影响，这些影响导致性别、种族/族裔和家庭收入在大学持久度、毕业和职业结果方面存在差异。第二个目标是多层次的，旨在通过对研究生和本科生的培训和指导，增加从事STEM研究的专业人员的数量和多样性。这一目标还增加了研究生和本科生在大专后研究、职业轨迹以及目标URM中的留存、毕业和成功获得职业成就方面使用混合方法的情况。这项研究具有潜在的变革性，因为现有的研究更多地关注于对男性或女性路径的单一解释，而不是交叉不平等。PI将该项目建立在一个结合结构理论和社会学性别理论的交叉框架上，以考察大学背景下个人信念(意义和效用)和制度实践(政策和计划)的融合如何影响学生的成就、坚持性以及跨类别差异的大学和学位获得。PI将使用纵向深入访谈和二次调查数据来检查这些个人和机构因素。深度访谈将分五波进行，对象为500名URM本科生。其他焦点小组面谈将由两位同行面试者进行。调查将专门针对VT，包括多年通用数据集以及针对新生、大四学生和其他班级学生入学、坚持不懈、毕业率和经济援助的数据集。将对访谈和调查的数据进行分析，以确定VT可能采取哪些措施来增加URM本科生在STEM职业生涯中的参与度。这些调查结果还将在国内和国际上传播，以填补文献中关于解决跨部门不平等问题如何显著提高城市管理人员参与STEM的空白。

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation (NSF)-wide activity that offers awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. In a post-recession context of rising income inequality, the importance of a college degree to the attainment of financial stability remains critical. This project looks at ways to address this continuing problem for underrepresented minority (URM) undergraduate students in STEM disciplines at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VT). The research is significant since college achievement, persistence and career attainment in STEM remain unequal by gender, race/ethnicity, and family income, both within and across group categories. Therefore, this research will examine continuing intersectional inequalities and explore what can be done to improve institutional policies and practices that might be promoting such conditions at VT. This research aligns well with the university President's Inclusion and Diversity Executive Council?s agenda, recently reorganized to advance a bold agenda for providing advocacy for inclusion programs and services throughout the university system.The principal investigator's (PI) research will capitalize on the inclusion agenda through two overarching goals. The first goal is to identify and examine individual and institutional influences that lead to variance in college persistence, graduation and career outcomes by gender, race/ethnicity, and family income. The second goal is multi-tiered and aims to increase the number and diversity of professionals conducting STEM research through training and mentoring of graduate and undergraduate students. This goal also increases the use of mixed-methodology by graduate and undergraduate students relative to postsecondary research; career trajectories; and the retention, graduation, and successful career attainment among targeted URM. This study is potentially transformative in that existing studies focus more on monolithic explanations for male or female pathways rather than intersectional inequalities.The PI builds this project on an intersectional framework combining theories of structure and sociological gender theory to examine how the confluence of individual beliefs (meanings and utility) and institutional practices (policies and programs) in the college context affect student achievement, persistence, and college and degree attainment across categories of difference. The PI will use longitudinal in-depth interviews and secondary survey data to examine these individual and institutional factors. The in-depth interviews will be conducted in five waves with 500 URM undergraduate students. Additional focus group interviews will be conducted by dyads of peer interviewers. Surveys will be specific to VT and include multi-year common datasets as well as those administered to freshman, seniors, and other class levels on student enrollment, persistence, graduation rates, and financial aid. Data from the interviews and surveys will be analyzed to determine what steps VT might take to increase the participation of URM undergraduate students in STEM careers. The findings will also be disseminated nationally and internationally to fill gaps in the literature about how addressing intersectional inequalities might substantially improve URM participation in STEM.