Science That Matters: The Importance of a Cultural Connection in Underrepresented Students’ Science Pursuit

“Following procedures outlined for conventional and directed content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005), G.”

“, 2007, 2009), carry the burden of worrying that his or her performance will be judged through a stereotyped lens (Steele and Aronson, 1995; Chang et al., 2011), and feel uncertain about whether he or she can develop a sense of belonging in the science community (Darling et al.”

“A voluminous body of research driven by stereotype threat theory (Steele, 1992, 1997)—which posits that the academic underperformance of underrepresented students can be partly explained by an anxiety caused by the fear that others’ judgments of their actions will be perceived as confirming…”

“…from a URM group does not directly experience overt discrimination, he or she is likely to face regular experiences with racial microaggressions (Sue et al., 2007, 2009), carry the burden of worrying that his or her performance will be judged through a stereotyped lens (Steele and Aronson,…”

“Constant comparative methods were used to determine saturation (Glaser, 1965).”

“…body of evidence showing that attending to ways in which science can help students embody their personal values is an important aspect of science education, but even more so for particular groups of students (Hulleman and Harackiewicz, 2009; Hulleman et al. 2010; Harackiewicz et al., 2014, 2015).”

“Further, early class performance expectations are correlated with actual performance (grades), interest in classes, and subsequent interest in the field (Harackiewicz et al., 2000).”

“Next, we tested the model again, this time controlling for students’ performance expectations, because differences in performance expectations have been used to explain groupbased differences in interest (Lent et al., 1986; Lapan et al., 1996).”

“Participants completed a six-item scale measuring how strongly they identified with being a scientist (α = 0.88 at time 1, α = 0.91 at time 2; adapted from Chemers et al., 2011).”

“…body of evidence showing that attending to ways in which science can help students embody their personal values is an important aspect of science education, but even more so for particular groups of students (Hulleman and Harackiewicz, 2009; Hulleman et al. 2010; Harackiewicz et al., 2014, 2015).”

“This alarming pattern has inspired several recent interventions to empirically test ways to reduce achievement gaps between FG and CG students (e.g., Smeding et al., 2013; Harackiewicz et al., 2014; Stephens et al., 2014).”

“…from a URM group does not directly experience overt discrimination, he or she is likely to face regular experiences with racial microaggressions (Sue et al., 2007, 2009), carry the burden of worrying that his or her performance will be judged through a stereotyped lens (Steele and Aronson,…”

“CBE Life Sci Educ September 1, 2016 15:ar42 15:ar42, 2 CBE—Life Sciences Education • 15:ar42, Fall 2016 URM students, amplifying the lack of belonging that many URM students face (Smedley et al., 1993; Hurtado et al., 1996; Cabrera et al., 1999).”

“CBE Life Sci Educ September 1, 2016 15:ar42 15:ar42, 2 CBE—Life Sciences Education • 15:ar42, Fall 2016 URM students, amplifying the lack of belonging that many URM students face (Smedley et al., 1993; Hurtado et al., 1996; Cabrera et al., 1999).”

“CBE Life Sci Educ September 1, 2016 15:ar42 15:ar42, 2 CBE—Life Sciences Education • 15:ar42, Fall 2016 URM students, amplifying the lack of belonging that many URM students face (Smedley et al., 1993; Hurtado et al., 1996; Cabrera et al., 1999).”

“Focus groups are an ideal methodology to generate nuanced domain-specific content and are particularly useful in identifying and understanding culturally specific knowledge and meaning that members of a group share (Hughes and DuMont, 1993; Suzuki et al., 1999).”

“Negative racial experiences are not exclusively experienced by URM students, and students from all groups who report negative racial experiences early in their collegiate careers tend to report a lower sense of belonging, seeing themselves as less of a part of their campus communities relative to their peers (Hurtado…”

“…report experiencing negative campus climates that can generate a conflict between their cultural identities and science learning environments (Cole and Espinoza, 2008), and many URM students struggle to integrate their cultural identities with an emerging identity as a scientist (Chang et…”

“…body of evidence showing that attending to ways in which science can help students embody their personal values is an important aspect of science education, but even more so for particular groups of students (Hulleman and Harackiewicz, 2009; Hulleman et al. 2010; Harackiewicz et al., 2014, 2015).”

“However, in one sample, URM biomedical or behavioral science students who had such negative experiences early in their collegiate careers were shown to be more negatively impacted academically relative to their white or Asian peers (Hurtado et al., 2007).”

“URM students report experiencing negative campus climates that can generate a conflict between their cultural identities and science learning environments (Cole and Espinoza, 2008), and many URM students struggle to integrate their cultural identities with an emerging identity as a scientist (Chang et al., 2011; Tran…”

“…Latinos, African Americans, and American Indians place greater significance on the value of helping others through one’s work, particularly giving back to one’s community (Martin and Martin, 1985; Harper, 2005; Fryberg and Markus, 2007; Torres, 2009; Villarruel et al., 2009; Mohatt et al., 2011).”

“Interviews with URM scientists who have chosen against academic careers indicate that they are questioning the direct relevance of their pursuit of science (Gibbs and Griffin, 2013).”

“, curiosity, enjoyment of problem solving, passion for discovery), the career interests of URM students are also more likely to be influenced by prosocial cultural values than the career interests of their peers (Johnson, 2002; Thoman et al., 2015).”

“A second set of surveys addressed to alumni from a program for URMs in biomedical science supported the importance of prosocial values in science career interest (Villarejo et al., 2008).”

“In addition to these interview and retrospective self-report studies, recent findings from a prospective longitudinal study of advanced undergraduates support similar conclusions (Thoman et al., 2015).”

“Next, we tested the model again, this time controlling for students’ performance expectations, because differences in performance expectations have been used to explain groupbased differences in interest (Lent et al., 1986; Lapan et al., 1996).”

“These students often do not see themselves as fitting their perceived images of scientists (Greenhalgh et al., 2004) and subsequently can lose interest in and disengage from science, typically switching to majors and career paths they perceive as more congruent with their cultural orientations.”

“…Latinos, African Americans, and American Indians place greater significance on the value of helping others through one’s work, particularly giving back to one’s community (Martin and Martin, 1985; Harper, 2005; Fryberg and Markus, 2007; Torres, 2009; Villarruel et al., 2009; Mohatt et al., 2011).”

“…Latinos, African Americans, and American Indians place greater significance on the value of helping others through one’s work, particularly giving back to one’s community (Martin and Martin, 1985; Harper, 2005; Fryberg and Markus, 2007; Torres, 2009; Villarruel et al., 2009; Mohatt et al., 2011).”

“…Latinos, African Americans, and American Indians place greater significance on the value of helping others through one’s work, particularly giving back to one’s community (Martin and Martin, 1985; Harper, 2005; Fryberg and Markus, 2007; Torres, 2009; Villarruel et al., 2009; Mohatt et al., 2011).”

“IN SCIENCE Students from all backgrounds value tasks and careers that afford opportunities to work with and/or help others (Sansone and Morgan, 1992; Isaac et al., 1999), but individuals from different cultural backgrounds place greater emphasis on these prosocial values than others.”

“CBE Life Sci Educ September 1, 2016 15:ar42 15:ar42, 2 CBE—Life Sciences Education • 15:ar42, Fall 2016 URM students, amplifying the lack of belonging that many URM students face (Smedley et al., 1993; Hurtado et al., 1996; Cabrera et al., 1999).”

“IN SCIENCE Students from all backgrounds value tasks and careers that afford opportunities to work with and/or help others (Sansone and Morgan, 1992; Isaac et al., 1999), but individuals from different cultural backgrounds place greater emphasis on these prosocial values than others.”

“This alarming pattern has inspired several recent interventions to empirically test ways to reduce achievement gaps between FG and CG students (e.g., Smeding et al., 2013; Harackiewicz et al., 2014; Stephens et al., 2014).”

“…Latinos, African Americans, and American Indians place greater significance on the value of helping others through one’s work, particularly giving back to one’s community (Martin and Martin, 1985; Harper, 2005; Fryberg and Markus, 2007; Torres, 2009; Villarruel et al., 2009; Mohatt et al., 2011).”

“…of worrying that his or her performance will be judged through a stereotyped lens (Steele and Aronson, 1995; Chang et al., 2011), and feel uncertain about whether he or she can develop a sense of belonging in the science community (Darling et al., 2008; Chang et al., 2011; Tran et al., 2011).”

“Focus groups are an ideal methodology to generate nuanced domain-specific content and are particularly useful in identifying and understanding culturally specific knowledge and meaning that members of a group share (Hughes and DuMont, 1993; Suzuki et al., 1999).”

“For instance, in her case study of TRIO students in a learning community course at a Research 1 institution, Jehangir (2010) used multicultural curriculum and critical pedagogy to illustrate how the framework can bring “students’ narratives, stories, and lived experiences into academic spaces .”

“That is, the experience of being a person of color from a lowincome background facilitates a commitment to remain connected to and to support family members at home (see Covarrubias & Fryberg, 2015; Jackson et al., 2016; Jehangir et al., 2015; Nelson, Englar-Carlson, Tierney, & Hau, 2006; Vasquez-Salgado et al., 2015)…”

“Work on student affect suggests that this grittiness—defined as perseverance and passion in the pursuit of long-term goals—may spring from differences in motivation, with URM and first-generation students more likely to be driven by a commitment to help their families and broader communities than their well-represente…”

“Students express less interest or engagement in STEM careers when they believe STEM careers do not afford communal goals (Brown et al., 2015; Jackson et al., 2016).”

“Future studies could extend our findings by incorporating other demographic characteristics that are theoretically predictive of math motivation, such as social class (Flores, 2007; Kriegbaum & Spinath, 2016), being the first person in a family to attend college (Harackiewicz, Canning, Tibbetts, Priniski, & Hyde, 2016…”

“Finally, we examine how students' career interests relate to their equity ethic, or lack thereof. generally concerned with helping others and reducing inequity (Gibbs & Griffin, 2013; Jackson, Galvez, Landa, Buonora, & Thoman, 2016).”

“This framework is grounded in research on racially minoritized STEM undergraduate (Garibay, 2018; McGee & Bentley, 2017; Jackson et al., 2016; Ortiz et al., 2020), doctoral (McGee et al., 2016; Naphan-Kingery et al., 2019) and postdoctoral scholars (Gibbs & Griffin, 2013).”

“, 2021), as well as a cultural mismatch between their backgrounds and that of the department (Stephens et al., 2012; Jackson et al., 2016).”

“Inclusion of such developmental opportunities should enrich the experience of those in the programs and increase the sustainability of their participation in science in general (Holtzclaw et al., 2005; Estrada-Hollenbeck et al., 2011; Jackson et al., 2016; Layton et al., 2016).”

“…and environmental justice topics into engineering education attracts URM students with altruistic values (Thoman et al., 2015), culturally connected career motives ( Jackson et al., 2016), or an aspiration to use their careers to help others and achieve social justice (McGee and Bentley, 2017).”

“For example, there is evidence that, at a population level, women and students from URM backgrounds are disproportionately motivated to pursue science because of the ability to apply scientific knowledge to real-world problems (Thoman et al., 2015; Diekman et al., 2016; Jackson et al., 2016).”

“First-generation college students are often motivated by pro-social learning— being able to give back to their communities (Jackson et al., 2016).”

“Students who experience more guilt might also endorse stronger family-based motivations for attending college, including helping family after graduating (Jackson et al., 2016; Stephens et al., 2012).”

“The underrepresentation of historically/currently marginalized social and cultural groups in mainstream science poses challenges to learning (e.g., Jackson et al., 2016; Harper & Kayumova, 2022; Visintainer, 2020).”

“…education as incompatible with their cultural backgrounds or as oppressive learning environments (Browman & Destin, 2016; Covarrubias et al., 2018, 2019; Davidson, 2017; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Jackson et al., 2016; Jehangir, 2010; Markus, 2017; Nasir & Bang, 2012; Rendón, 1994; Thelin, 2011).”

“For these students, involvement in community-engaged science early on may be especially impactful in sparking further interest, motivating students, and ultimately retaining them in STEM (Tibbetts et al. , 2016; Jackson et al. , 2016; Harackiewicz et al. , 2023).”

“Prosocial goals positively influence interest in STEM careers for underrepresented students, and in terms of family, such goals can be particularly key for Latine STEM majors [36].”

“…of science (i.e., how science can be used to help one’s community), for example, predicted stronger connections to science (i.e., stronger scientist identity) over time for students who held these culturally relevant motivations, namely, first-generation students of color (Jackson et al., 2016).”

“…are especially important in developing more inclusive science learning experiences, and HEG students who enter undergraduate programs with a stronger view of science as culturally relevant to issues in their home communities develop greater science identity over time (Jackson et al., 2016).”

“…minorities (URMs; i.e., African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans; e.g., Tyler et al. , 2006; Fryberg and Markus, 2007; Gibbs and Griffin, 2013; Smith et al. , 2014; Thoman et al. , 2015; Jackson et al. , 2016), the communal goal congruity logic has also been applied more broadly.”

“Jackson et al. (2016) suggested the importance of culturally connected career motives; students who believed that science can be used to help their communities were more likely to identify as scientists.”

“…focusing on Latino male college students (Garcia et al., 2017 ); “underrepresented minority (i.e., Black, Latino, and American Indian)” students who were first-generation college students (Jackson et al., 2016, p. 1) and first-generation Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (Museus, 2011 ).”

“Research has shown that first-generation college students and underrepresented minority groups that traditionally have a harder time developing their science identity could benefit greatly from participating in experiential learning (Linn et al. 2015; Jackson et al. 2016).”

“Such connections increase motivation in learning (9).”

“For example, Jackson et al. (2017) reported that STEM education must demonstrate compatibility with culturally relevant career goals for underrep-resented undergraduates to maintain motivation to pursue STEM careers.”

“Further, a great deal of research provides evidence that RMM students are more likely to see science as an essential aspect of their identity when they feel a connection between their culture and STEM (Smith et al. , 2014; Jackson et al. , 2016; Cech et al. , 2019).”

“…students to state altruistic and community-oriented motivations for pursuing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)  elds, 7,12 – 14 and yet, most graduate STEM programs include little curricular discussion of science's inequitable impacts on historically excluded…”

“…values, interests, and societal impact) impacts their career choice, how shifting from a destina­ tion-driven to a purpose-driven approach informs their path, and how developing a purpose-driven lens impacts their identity formation by increasing their willingness to explore multiple paths (19–21).”

“…of security; cultural and traditional science knowledge contextualization and integration with hegemonic Eurocentric science (Apple et al., 2014; Jackson et al., 2016; Zidny et al., 2020); the availability of academic resources for adequate teacher preparation (Bizimana & Orodho, 2014); and,…”

“…(Harrison & Tanner, 2018; O'Keefe & Greenfield, 2019), lack of generational knowledge about academia (Morgan et al., 2022), discordance in the cultural upbringing of the student and academic culture (Chow ‐ Garcia et al., 2022), and much more (for a review of these, see (Jackson et al., 2016).”

“Likewise, students who benefit most from commu-nally oriented values are often women-identified, from mi-noritized ethnic backgrounds, or first-generation (Smith et al. , 2014; Jackson et al. , 2016; Harackiewicz et al. , 2023).”

“Alaska is experiencing tremendous climate change impacts which are altering the daily life of many residents [33].”

“…environment has been associated with increased number and diversity of STEM graduates, better learning in the classroom, science experimentation, discovery, and knowledge, and ultimately more creative and skilled scientists (Hart fi eld-Méndez, 2013; Bouncken et al., 2016; Jackson et al., 2016).”

“Age range 18–25 22 (71) 9 (35) 2 (29) 33 (52) 26–30 8 (26) 14 (54) 3 (43) 25 (39) > 30 1 (3) 2 (8) 1 (14) 4 (6) Race/ethnicity Black or African American 9 (29) 7 (27) 2 (29) 18 (28) Latinx 13 (42) 10 (38) 3 (43) 26 (41) Asian 5 (16) 4 (15) 2 (29) 11 (17) White 1 (3) 3 (12) 0 4 (6) Multiple race/ethnicity 3 (10) 1 (4)…”

“Many first-generation college students, particularly those from collectivist cultures, desire to stay connected to their families (Benigno, 2012; Covarrubias et al., 2019; Jackson et al., 2016; Jehangir, 2010; Jehangir et al., 2015; Sy & Romero, 2008; Telzer & Fulgini, 2009).”

“Connecting disciplinary practices to student values has been shown to be especially important for students from backgrounds not well represented in science [18].”

“Jackson et al. (2016) found that culturally connected career goals were crucial in motivating marginalized students, especially first-generation college students, to persist in science.”

“It is possible that having greater motives to attend college for personal and familiar economic mobility (Jackson et al., 2016) increases attention to and questioning of whether one’s SES is changing (Destin et al.”

“…Stephens et al. , 2012) that may conflict with stereotypes associated with a more individually oriented science discipline (Allen et al. , 2015; Jackson et al. , 2016; Boucher et al. , 2017; Belanger et al. , 2020), we predicted FGS would value factors that contribute to a cooperative…”

“Studies have also noted high social motivations related to career goals among groups from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups [22-24].”

“Underlying reasons were associated with social and psychological barriers, including the impact of stereotype threats on attrition [6], cultural barriers [7], lack of role model identification and mentoring [8], or instructor mindset beliefs on class engagement and performance [9,10].”

“Familial responsibilities also create constraints and pressures for Hispanic students, as families often do not see the compatibility or cultural relevance of studying to be a scientist or engineer with their cultural heritage (Jackson et al., 2016).”

“The teacher has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, with brief experience in industry and an extensive background in STEM education (predominantly physics and engineering).”

“…college involve a host of familiar traditions, interactions, values, and meanings; these experiences help shape their identity and persona yet may cause some amount of dissonance (Covarrubias et al., 2020; Moreno, 2019) and even a cultural mismatch (Jackson et al., 2016; Stephens et al., 2012).”

“, 2011) and of research experiences (Jackson et al., 2016) is a growing area of interest.”