Centering Women of Color in STEM: Identifying and Scaling Up What Helps Women of Color Thrive

美国的经济繁荣依赖于科学的进步、国家卫生计划的推进，以及日益技术化的经济中的整体国家繁荣。这种繁荣依赖于有能力灵活应对新挑战和开发创新技术的人才队伍。学院和大学可以通过确保教育环境对各种各样的学生有效来为未来的劳动力做好最好的准备。在美国，从2001年到2012年，女性获得了20%的物理学学士学位，而黑人女性和拉丁裔女性只获得了2%。虽然女性也获得了大约20%的工程和计算机科学学士学位，但与物理学的同事相比，这些女性中黑人和拉丁裔所占的比例略高：工程领域为3.4%，计算机科学领域为6%。该项目将建立在先前研究男女同校的STEM部门的基础上，这些部门主要是白人机构，有色人种女性在这些机构中茁壮成长。在之前的研究中，600多名有色人种女性中，很少有人在自己的本科院系找到支持。该项目将探索STEM教授可以采取的行动，以便有色人种女性可以在自己的部门内找到支持，而不必从这些部门寻求庇护。尤里卡科学公司（Eureka Scientific, Inc.）和马里兰圣玛丽学院（St. Mary's College of Maryland）的研究人员将对美国和英国表现优异的STEM部门进行深入的混合方法研究，在这些部门，有色人种女性的数量明显高于其他地方的平均水平。该项目将有助于确定这些部门之间的共同方法；制定一系列经过测试的、实用的成功要素，供STEM部门采用；还有一套措施，可以让各部门监督其转型过程的成功。该项目将推进以研究为基础的知识，以促进STEM教育的系统性变革，并将使人们更清楚地了解在各种制度背景下促进有色人种年轻女性成功的因素。该项目最终将与来自11个机构的参与者举行会议，他们将审查研究结果在其本国机构的适用性，包括：博士大学、硕士大学、学士学院、公开招生、公立和私立机构。

The economic prosperity of the United States relies on progress in science, the advancement of national health initiatives, and overall national prosperity in an increasingly technical economy. This prosperity relies on a talented workforce with the ability to nimbly address new challenges and develop innovative technologies. Colleges and universities can best prepare this future workforce by ensuring that educational environments are effective for a diverse range of students. In the United States from 2001-2012 women received 20% of the bachelor's degrees granted in physics, but Black women and Latinas received only 2%. While women also received about 20% of engineering and computer science bachelor's degrees, only a modestly higher percentage of those women - when compared to their colleagues in physics - are Black and Latina: 3.4% in engineering and 6% in computer science. This project will build on prior work studying STEM departments at coeducational, predominantly white institutions in which women of color are thriving. In prior studies, few of the over 600 women of color found support within their own undergraduate departments. This project will explore actions STEM professors can take so that women of color can find support within their departments rather than having to seek refuge from those departments. Researchers from Eureka Scientific, Inc. and St. Mary's College of Maryland will conduct in-depth, mixed-method studies of out-performing STEM departments in the United States and England in which women of color are thriving in numbers significantly higher than averages elsewhere. The project will serve to identify shared approaches across these departments; develop a body of tested, practical elements of success that STEM departments can adopt; and a set of measures that will let the departments monitor the success of their transformation process. The project will advance research-based knowledge to promote systemic change in STEM education and will provide a clearer understanding about factors that promote success for young women of color in a variety of institutional contexts. The project will culminate in a meeting with participants from 11 institutions who will examine the applicability of the findings at their home institutions including: doctoral universities, master's universities, baccalaureate colleges, open enrollment, public and private institutions.