NSF INCLUDES Collaborative Change Consortia: Association of Collaborative Communities Ensuring Equity in Youth STEM+C Success (ACCEYSS)

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During the Civil Rights Era, faith-based and grassroots organizations served as functional centers and community hubs intervening in social and political matters to assure and protect the civil rights of people of color. Since institutionalized racism and inequitable access to quality education still exists among historically underrepresented minorities (HURM) and women, faith-based and grassroots organizations can play a significant role in improving educational equity (access, participation, outcomes) for youth and girls of color in K-16 STEM and computing (STEM+C) education. The Association of Collaborative Communities ensuring Equity in Youth STEM+C Success (ACCEYSS) is an NSF INCLUDES Collaborative Change Consortia project led by Texas State University (TXST) in collaboration with the National Black Church Initiative (NBCI). The consortium leverages NBCI’s national network of 150,000 faith-based institutions and its population of 6 million children to broaden participation of youth and girls of color in underserved communities in two states, Texas and Florida. Both are considered U.S. mega states as they educate nearly 15% of all historically marginalized students enrolled in U.S. public schools and have the highest percentages of low-income and diverse learners in the nation. ACCEYSS is well positioned to improve low-income Black and Hispanic (BH) youth and girls’ access and participation in the K-12 STEM+C education pipeline while in middle school (grades 6-8) and entry into postsecondary STEM+C degree programs in Texas and Florida. This work informs best practice interventions to increase HURM access, and participation in rigorous course-taking in middle school, high school, and postsecondary STEM+C degree programs across the U.S. This project builds upon the NSF INCLUDES DDLP: ACCEYSS - Association of Collaborative Communities Equipping Youth for STEM Success (1764404) and NSF CAREER: Effects of Community Cultural Wealth on Black and Hispanic Women in the P-20 Computing Workforce Pipeline in Texas (2046079). ACCEYSS is grounded in evidence that faith-based institutions are critical assets for broadening participation of youth and girls of color. Since the Civil Rights Era, faith-based institutions have been uniquely poised to motivate and galvanize their congregations and constituents to drive action towards economic and social change in communities of color. Community-engaged institutions of higher education, such as TXST, have also served as conduits of change since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Most notably, TXST alumnus President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the hallmark Higher Education Act of 1965 at his alma mater, which increased educational access for low-income students of color. ACCYESS adapts and integrates these models to advance STEM diversity. ACCYESS leverages faith-based institutions as historically significant structures to drive collaborative systems change in the U.S. K-16 STEM+C education pipeline. Complementing work traditionally done in formal educational settings, the new understandings gained through ACCYESS’ research will inform on the social processes through which BH experience and persist in STEM+C contexts and the role that modern religious entities can play in STEM+C education for BH youth.This project is funded by NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (INCLUDES) Initiative, which seeks to motivate and accelerate collaborative infrastructure building to advance and sustain systemic change to broaden participation in STEM at scale.  This award is also supported by the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) program, which aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs.  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.