STEM Undergraduate Education for Minoritized Students: A Longitudinal Mixed-Methods Study of the STEM Experiences of Hmong American College Students

虽然在提高STEM专业的少数族裔和种族学生的入学人数和毕业率方面取得了进展，但仍存在显著的差距。需要更多的调查和干预措施来改善STEM中有色人种学生的教育成果。作为一个群体，亚裔美国学生经常被排除在这些调查之外，因为他们在STEM教育和职业成就方面取得了积极进展，占科学和工程劳动力的13%。然而，当“亚洲”亚群体的数据被分开时，很明显东南亚裔美国人（即柬埔寨人、老挝人、越南人和苗族人）被忽视和服务不足。尽管东南亚人的高中和本科学位获得率是全国最低的，但由于“模范少数族裔刻板印象”，他们的奋斗往往被抹去，这种刻板印象将亚裔美国人视为一个统一繁荣的移民社区，掩盖了亚裔美国人面临结构性种族主义、贫困和教育支持不足的现实。该奖项扩展了威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校教育研究人员和苗族学生活动家进行的一项正在进行的研究项目，该项目旨在调查威斯康星大学系统13个校区苗族学生的STEM大学经历。本研究通过与苗族美国学生、学者和社区建立真实的、积极的伙伴关系，并通过集中受系统性种族主义造成的不平等影响的人的知识和声音，以促进STEM途径中的种族平等，直接解决了NSF的项目目标。学生和其他利益相关者积极参与这项研究将对整个威斯康星州和超越苗族社区产生更广泛的影响。调查威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校苗族美国本科生经历的试点研究发现了几个因素，如咨询、把关机制和种族气候，这些因素有效地将苗族学生从竞争激烈的STEM专业中重新定向和/或排挤出去。在这个由美国国家科学基金会资助的项目中，研究人员将通过研究影响苗族美国大学生STEM路径的社会文化和制度因素来研究这种“重定向”现象。一项调查将对西澳大学系统所有13所大学的苗族美国学生进行，一项纵向访谈研究将在西澳大学系统为苗族美国学生提供服务的三所大学进行。本研究将填补文献的主要空白：1)考虑亚裔美国人个体的特殊教育需求及其交叉的社会身份；2)深化对招聘、留用和毕业途径的讨论；3)采用参与式行动研究方法，让学生参与影响其高等教育经历的决策过程。本研究将为苗族和其他少数民族大学生STEM学习途径和成绩影响因素的理论化提供有力和补充的证据。这些结果将成为制定制度实践和政策的基础，以支持西澳大学更具包容性的STEM教育。它还将作为在STEM中其他代表性不足和服务不足的学生群体中进行类似研究的基础。这个合作项目是通过STEM教育项目中的种族平等（EHR种族平等）资助的。该项目支持研究和实践项目，调查种族平等因素如何影响科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教育和劳动力的改善。获奖项目旨在将STEM企业中受系统性不平等影响最大的个人、社区和机构的声音、知识和经验集中起来。该项目符合美国国家科学基金会的核心价值，即支持来自全国不同人口群体、地区和组织类型的杰出研究人员和创新思想家。EHR种族平等的资金来自EHR各个项目，以表彰其项目与董事会四个部门的集体研究和开发重点的一致性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

While progress has been made to increase enrollment numbers and graduation rates for ethnic and racial minorities in STEM, significant disparities remain. More investigations and interventions are needed to improve the educational outcomes for students of color in STEM. As a group, Asian American students are often excluded from these inquiries because they have shown positive gains in STEM education and career attainment, constituting 13% of the science and engineering workforce. However, when the data on “Asian” subgroups is separated, it is clear that Southeast Asian Americans (i.e., Cambodian, Lao, Vietnamese, and Hmong) are being overlooked and underserved. Despite having one of the lowest high school and undergraduate degree attainment rates in the nation, the struggles of Southeast Asian populations are often erased because of a “model minority stereotype” that views Asian Americans as a uniformly prosperous immigrant community and obscures the reality that Asian Americans deal with structural racism, poverty, and inadequate educational supports. This award expands on an ongoing research project conducted by University of Wisconsin (UW)–Madison educational researchers and Hmong student activists to investigate the STEM college experiences of Hmong students at the 13 campuses in the UW System. This study directly addresses NSF’s program goals by cultivating authentic, engaged partnerships with Hmong American students, scholars, and communities, and by centering the knowledge and voices of those impacted by the inequities caused by systemic racism in order to advance racial equity within STEM pathways. Active involvement of students and other stakeholders in this research will have broader impacts on the Hmong community throughout Wisconsin and beyond.Pilot research examining the experiences of Hmong American undergraduate students at UW–Madison identified several factors, such as advising, gatekeeping mechanisms, and racial climate, that affectively redirected and/or pushed out Hmong-identified students from competitive STEM majors. In this NSF-funded project, researchers will investigate this “redirection” phenomenon by examining the sociocultural and institutional factors that impact the STEM pathways of Hmong American college students. A survey will be administered to Hmong American students at all 13 UW System universities and a longitudinal interview study will be conducted at three UW System institutions that serve Hmong American students. The study will fill major gaps in the literature by 1) considering the specific educational needs of individual Asian American populations and their intersectional social identities; 2) deepening the discussion of recruitment, retention, and graduation pathways; and 3) engaging students in decision-making processes that affect their higher education experiences using a participatory action research approach. This mixed-methods, longitudinal, multi-sited study will provide robust and complementary evidence to serve as the evidentiary basis to theorize factors impacting the STEM pathways and attainment of Hmong and other minoritized college students. These results will form the basis for efforts to develop institutional practices and policies supporting more inclusive STEM education at UW. It will also serve as the basis for similar studies in other groups of underrepresented and underserved students in STEM. This collaborative project is funded through the Racial Equity in STEM Education program (EHR Racial Equity). The program supports research and practice projects that investigate how considerations of racial equity factor into the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce. Awarded projects seek to center the voices, knowledge, and experiences of the individuals, communities, and institutions most impacted by systemic inequities within the STEM enterprise. This program aligns with NSF’s core value of supporting outstanding researchers and innovative thinkers from across the Nation's diversity of demographic groups, regions, and types of organizations. Funds for EHR Racial Equity are pooled from programs across EHR in recognition of the alignment of its projects with the collective research and development thrusts of the four divisions of the directorate.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.