Exploring Racial Microaggression in Science Education

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The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This project will examine ways to broaden participation in STEM for science education faculty of African ancestry and science education Latino/a faculty. Research shows that science and science education faculty and students from these populations regularly face intentional and unintentional acts of racial microaggressions that often negatively impact whether they remain in the STEM pipeline. Since many of these acts of racial microaggression come from administrators, colleagues, and peers, this project will serve as an important step in directly addressing this issue. The research will (a) identify actions or activities that might be precursors of or lead to microaggressions; (b) seek to better understand why the microaggresssors might be aware or unaware of their acts; and (c) collect data about approaches and policies that have been used by colleagues and administrators to minimize racial microaggressions.The Critical Race Theory will be used as the lens to frame the study. Questionnaires, an Implicit Attitude Test, interviews, and other archival documents will be used as sources of data for this study. These sources will allow the exploration of gaps in the literature where prior research focused almost exclusively on faculty and students of color within science education rather than on performers of microaggressions. This investment will support a risky, yet, potentially transformative venue for theory development relative to reducing racial microaggressions in science education. The outcomes will assist in the development of an instrument that will reliably measure implicit bias that will be of benefit to the at-large scientific community.