Technology Capacity-Building Strategies for Increasing Participation & Persistence in the STEM Workforce

TL;DR

This paper explores strategies for capacity-building in STEM education aimed at increasing participation and persistence of underrepresented minorities by addressing social, cultural, and educational barriers through an emancipatory approach.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework for evaluating pedagogical methods that improve STEM pipeline diversity by considering social and political realities affecting underrepresented groups.

Findings

Educational interventions can improve minority STEM participation.

Addressing social barriers enhances persistence in STEM fields.

Culturally responsive teaching supports underrepresented students.

Abstract

This research model uses an emancipatory approach to address challenges of equity in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce. Serious concerns about low minority participation call for a rigorous evaluation of new pedagogical methods that effectively prepares underrepresented groups for the increasingly digital world. The inability to achieve STEM workforce diversity goals is attributed to the failure of the academic pipeline to maintain a steady flow of underrepresented minority students. Formal curriculum frequently results in under-preparedness and a professional practices gap. Exacerbating lower performance are fragile communities where issues such as poverty, single-parent homes, incarceration, abuse, and homelessness disengage residents. Since data shows that more minorities have computing and engineering degrees than work in the field, this discussions explores how educational institutions can critically examine social and political realities that impede STEM diversity while capturing cultural cues that identify personal barriers amongst underrepresented groups.