What You Need to Know About the STEM Race Gap
Minority students who dream about an engineering career face a host of barriers from implicit bias in early-childhood education to subconscious and overt racism in the workplace. There’s plenty of finger-pointing about where the racial gap starts, with some STEM organizations trying to find a magic solution to seal the gap and help students of color.
A systemic issue with multiple causes and effects can’t be solved simply by blaming teachers or neighborhoods or employers. There needs to be change across the entire STEM journey, not just at a few bad stops along the way.
Here are a few places minority students are being left behind in STEM and how some organizations are making changes. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it should highlight what African American and Hispanic students are up against when they consider STEM careers.
The Elementary School Classroom
While some STEM experts are quick to point to teachers when addressing the lack of diversity in their field, many teachers are in fact highly dedicated to reducing the race gap and actively striving to create equal opportunities in their classrooms. “Teachers alone cannot tackle systemic issues of racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism in STEM,” Cindy Hoisington at Edutopia writes. “But addressing our own biases and enriching our repertoires of STEM teaching behaviors is a manageable goal that has the potential to dramatically benefit not only our individual students but the STEM community as a whole.” Unfortunately, even well-meaning teachers can actually contribute to the STEM/STEAM race gap. Project Implicit, a nonprofit based out of Harvard, creates tests to help people better understand subconscious biases and stereotypes. The tests cover everything from mental health to issues related to race and gender. The goal is to help people across America — including teachers — understand their actions, and how those actions, guided by implicit associations about race, could be adversely affecting students’ futures without realizing it.Implicit Bias Starts in Preschool
A great example of seemingly-fair teachers exhibiting implicit bias is the behavior of preschool teachers watching classrooms. Dr. Walter Gilliam of the Yale Child Study Center conducted a study where preschool teachers were asked to watch videos of students to look for potentially challenging behavior. There was no actual challenging behavior in the videos, but researchers used eye scanning to see where teachers looked and what they identified as potential problems. Not only were African American children in the videos watched more, but black boys in particular were flagged for bad behavior more often. NPR reports that African American children make up approximately 19 percent of all preschoolers but account for about half of all preschoolers who get suspended. These teachers weren’t told that they would be participating in an implicit bias study. They thought the issues were purely behavioral, but it actually highlighted how racial and gender biases start before students can even read and write.Bias in Elementary School Affects High School Performance
Hidden bias might not seem like it affects your students daily, but it has major effects for their futures. One study by the IZA institute of Labor Economics found that assigning African American students from low-income families to at least one black teacher in third, fourth, or fifth grade reduced dropout probability in high school by 29 percent. Black male students in particular saw dropout rates reduced by 39 percent. Both genders are also more likely to want to attend four-year colleges. Even well-intentioned white teachers can hold students back by not promoting them to advanced classes or grading their work in accordance with their own biases.The Middle School Classroom
If you’re looking to see exactly how subjective opinions and subconscious racism hold minority students back, look no further than middle and high school math classes. In most school systems, middle school is where students are sorted into different learning tracks for math and other subjects. Those placed in non-advanced classes are less likely to complete higher courses in high school, making college admission that much more challenging. Historically, placement was determined by teacher recommendations and other subjective factors, but some schools are looking to fight implicit bias and change that. The Brookings Institute recently profiled the Wake County Public School System in North Carolina, which noticed students in advanced high school math classes were disproportionately white. The pattern started right at the point when students were sorted as to those that would take Algebra in eighth grade. When the school system changed from a subjective to objective placement policy, basing placement on test scores alone, educators noticed a decrease in racial and gender gaps in the advanced math classrooms. Within just a few years of its implementation, they had successfully closed part of the gap and cut out some implicit bias. Reducing racial bias can’t be done overnight, but each system, school, and classroom can and should take steps toward doing so. “If we are purposeful and intentional in our actions, we can begin to narrow the achievement gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classrooms,” Dr. Jeff C. Marshall, associate professor at Clemson University, writes at Advanc-ED. “Excellence in the classroom demands that students from all backgrounds are able to thrive and grow.” Eductors are leading discussions about racism and using their classrooms as mirrors to the real world.The High School Classroom
High school is often the last chance for students to catch up with peers or be exposed to STEM and STEAM concepts. As we saw earlier in the math placement studies, African American students are already held back by implicit bias by the time they reach ninth grade, and the school they attend in high school can make or break their learning experience. Cullen White, the managing director of computer science at Teach for America, shares some eye-opening statistics about the state of computer science education:- Only one in four schools across the nation offer computer science courses.
- 98 percent of all undergraduate computer science majors have exposure to the field before college.