NSF INCLUDES Planning Grant: Broadening Participation of Rural K-12 Girls in Mathematics Intensive STEM Fields

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This NSF INCLUDES planning grant is funded by NSF Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES), a comprehensive national initiative to enhance U.S. leadership in discoveries and innovations by focusing on diversity, inclusion, and broadening participation in STEM at scale. The goal of this planning grant is to bring together key stakeholders in a Research-to-Practice Partnership (RPP) to broaden participation of rural K-12 girls in mathematics intensive STEM fields. Over the past 20 years, there has been a great deal of research identifying the barriers and potential pathways to STEM careers experienced by young women, but only for the general population or specific subpopulations. This project focuses on a population that has gone unnoticed and underrepresented in STEM education research - young women from rural areas of the United States. The planning grant will lay the groundwork to build a large-scale partnership and network from the ground up by combining the forces of the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance (MMSA) and the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) with rural educators, young women across the Nation, 100kin10 partners, and key STEM organizations such as the Roux Institute. The RPP approach to this research will amplify the voices and experiences of rural young women, the communities they live in, the STEM business sectors they could work in, and the educators they work with, to build lasting partnerships, pathways forward, focused research questions, and a strategic plan to address this overall agenda. This planning grant will build the solid foundation needed to advance knowledge and inclusion practices across the Nation, to build a more inclusive environment, and help close the ever-widening gender gap for rural young women in mathematics intensive STEM fields. Additionally, the use of an RPP to advance this research with rural communities provides a unique model that could be scaled and replicated to address additional research questions in partnership with members of rural communities. Utilizing Expectancy-Value Theory as a framework, the PIs will initially focus their efforts on exploring the motivational beliefs of young women from rural areas across the K-12 continuum. By assembling a diverse and passionate team of researchers, practitioners, and young women, the research team will push beyond understanding the structure of the problem to identifying ways to solve the problem. The RPP activities will develop a shared vision of reform to broaden participation of rural young women in mathematics intensive career paths by collaboratively: 1) Unpacking and developing a common understanding of the problem, including identifying the specific problems of practice that construct barriers that keep young women from choosing a mathematics intensive STEM field; 2) Designing evidence-based solutions to those problems of practice that inform common goals and metrics; 3) Generating research questions related to supporting young women from rural regions in pursuing opportunities in mathematics intensive careers; and 4) Designing a coordinated strategic plan that increases the networks’ technical, programmatic, and research infrastructure to address the problems of practice. This project will create evidence-based solutions that will significantly increase rural young women’s participation in mathematics intensive STEM careers, a critically underrepresented group. The development of a rural RPP of this scale focused on gender equity will offer a model for building inclusive coalitions that are based on the assets and experiences of underrepresented populations. The lessons learned through this planning grant will address the gender inequities in mathematics intensive STEM careers by designing initiatives that build inclusive environments for rural young women.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.