Exploring ways to use national datasets to promote broader participation of race-gender groups in STEM

ECR计划强调基础STEM教育研究，将在该领域产生基础知识。该项目将对一个未经测试的想法进行早期探索性研究，以满足国家的STEM劳动力需求。它将使用一种完全不同的方法来揭示阻碍特定种族性别群体更广泛参与STEM领域的障碍。该研究将调查特许学校和传统公立学校内有关安全，纪律，学校犯罪，停学和其他相关因素的学校政策和做法是否导致大量代表性不足的学生从STEM管道中流失。这一点尤其重要，因为几十年的努力并没有带来更强大、更多样化的21世纪STEM劳动力。为了帮助解决这一问题，本研究将探讨三个主要领域的相互作用，这三个领域经常被认为是国家人力资源需求仍未得到满足的原因。该研究将侧重于政策和做法对种族性别群体的STEM成果的影响。它还将研究这些学校在调解这些法规与STEM成果之间的关系方面有何不同。最后，本研究将探讨学校位置和学生居住对所采用的策略的影响。目前还没有研究探索这种方法。本研究将通过跨学科的方法，对国家教育统计中心的学生数据进行合并和分析。由于事先没有努力指导这些合并，这种新颖的方法是有风险的，因为它仍然不知道是否会出现任何可行的解决方案来解决满足未来STEM劳动力需求的障碍。然而，如果结果表明，这种工作不仅是可行的，而且能够促进将学校政策和实践与扩大STEM参与联系起来的基础知识，那么潜在的回报将是显著的。这项工作的主要成果将是9年级学生的纵向数据集，并将包含他们暴露于特定障碍的措施，以前参加的特许或传统公立学校的类型，以及居住地点。该数据集还将把特定的背景因素与代数和科学概念、数学和科学身份以及STEM学位愿望的结果联系起来。因此，这项研究将促进对社会控制和交叉性理论的认识。这项研究的政策相关性也将是重要的，并可能产生有关政策和实践的人力资本成本的知识;以及潜在的变革性替代方案，如果采用，可以将学生的途径重新定向到STEM领域，而不是退出管道。此外，研究成果也将被STEM教育工作者、博士后研究员、研究生和其他机构的研究人员广泛使用，他们可能会产生对社会有益的未来研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that will generate foundational knowledge in the field. This project will conduct an early stage exploratory study of an untested idea that will address the nation's STEM workforce needs. It will use a radically different approach to uncover barriers that impede broader participation by specific race-gender groups in STEM fields. The study will investigate whether school policies and practices regarding safety, discipline, school crime, suspensions and other such related factors, within charter and traditional public schools, contribute to the loss of large numbers of underrepresented students from the STEM pipeline. This is especially important since decades of efforts have not resulted in a stronger and more diverse 21st Century STEM workforce. To help address this condition, this study will examine the interplay of three main areas often cited as reasons the nation's human resource needs remain unmet. The study will focus on the impact of policies and practices on the STEM outcomes of race-gender groups. It will also look at how these schools differ in their mediation of the relationship of these regulations with STEM outcomes. Finally, the study will examine the impact school location and student residency have on strategies employed. There are currently no studies that have explored this approach. This study will attempt to lead the field in that regard.Through an interdisciplinary approach, student data from the National Center for Education Statistics will be merged and analyzed. With no prior efforts to guide these mergers, this novel approach is risky since it remains unknown if any viable solutions will emerge to address barriers to meeting future STEM workforce needs. Yet, the potential payoff will be significant if results show that such work is not only feasible, but capable of contributing to foundational knowledge that links school policies and practices to broadening participation in STEM. The main outcome of this work will be a longitudinal dataset of 9th graders and will contain measures of their exposure to specific barriers, type of charter or traditional public school previously attended, and residential locations. The dataset will also relate specific contextual factors to outcomes in algebra and science concepts, math and science identity, and STEM degree aspirations. Thus, the study will advance knowledge about theories of social control and intersectionality. The policy relevance of this research will also be significant and may generate knowledge about the human capital cost of policies and practices; and potentially transformative alternatives that, if adopted, could redirect students' pathways into STEM fields instead of out of the pipeline. Further, outcomes from the study will also be available for widespread use by STEM educators, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students and researchers at other institutions who may generate future research beneficial to society.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.