Understanding Centrality and Marginalization in Undergraduate Physics Teaching and Learning to Enhance Student Persistence and Success

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This ECR project will explore the extent to which educational strategies, tools, and materials in undergraduate physics classrooms and laboratory sessions center some students and marginalize others. This project will identify teaching strategies, tools, and materials that communicate who is welcome, important, and influential in physics and what characteristics are valued and necessary for success in physics. The ways that undergraduate physics is taught may lead to reduced persistence and interest of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in physics, which is important because diversity in the STEM workforce at all levels has been shown to benefit the outcomes of scientific research. Physics has among the lowest representation of women and people of color of all the sciences compared to the total population in the country as well as the population enrolled in higher education. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans collectively earn only 11% of undergraduate physics degrees in the US and only 6% of doctoral degrees, and women earn about 19% of degrees at both levels. This project will contribute to the ECR focus areas of STEM learning environments and broadening participation in STEM. The aim of this project is to develop a knowledge base that could lead to awareness of how power relations may be embedded in the way physics is taught and learned. Data for this project will include video of undergraduate physics classes, reflective interviews with physics instructors and learners, and instructional artifacts. Methods will include empirical observations of who is centralized (or marginalized) and how they are made central (or marginal) in instructional settings, using Situated Learning Theory (SLT) methodology and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS). This project will draw on CWS perspectives to show how privilege operates in undergraduate physics teaching and learning. SLT offers a vision of power relations, in which power is indicated by centrality and learning is a process of STEM identity development that moves learners from peripheral to central participation in learning environments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.