Sowing the Seed of Diversity:
A Call to Diversify Physics Through Small Social Interactions
April 11, 2008
The following article was also published in Hands On! magazine, Winter 2007/2008.
In the 21st century, promoting the interest of all students in physics as well as other STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines should be a central concern to U.S. educators, scientists, and citizens. As never before, we must focus on the recruitment and retention of females and students of color. The United States faces a crisis caused by a gap between an increasing need for scientists and engineers and the decline in the number of STEM majors. The growing void points to the neglect of our own young people as potential resources to fill critical positions in STEM. In recognition of the "quiet storm," as Shirley Ann Jackson termed the impending crisis, agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the American Society for Engineering Education, and the American Physical Society have called for the United States to cultivate its domestic resources that explicitly include women and racial/ethnic minorities.
However, before we can fix the problem, we need to better understand the cause. Through sociological research I have conducted over the past decade, I have sought to address effective ways to recruit and retain young people, especially women and racial and ethnic minorities, in physics. A number of studies amply documents how physics departments and professional laboratories operate as cultures that are often unfriendly to women and minorities. My research focuses on contexts of success: the day-to-day work and academic environments as experienced by 28 female and minority students-of which ten are women of color-who would eventually earn bachelor's degrees and pursue graduate school and/or careers in physics or a physics-related field. Through annual interviews and ethnographic observations conducted over a 10-year period, I have endeavored to identify the challenges encountered by these students, as well as the strategies that fostered their ability to persevere.
One of the more important, and perhaps surprising, findings is that sometimes even subtle interactions can have a significant impact. For example, an undergraduate physics major's social experiences with peers and faculty can strongly influence his or her decision to abandon or pursue a physics degree. In my research, I have found that students' experiences of alienation and being disrespected by peers or faculty members often outrank other contributing factors, including grades. While most physics students might typically react to such experiences the same way, women and racial minorities are particularly vulnerable to messages that define them as outsiders.
To understand the perceptions held by women and minorities, consider the following remarks that were expressed by some of the students who participated in my research study:
A whole class of us will be working, like, two hours before some homework is due, and we'll have different answers. And everyone will make an argument as to why their answer's right. You know, for the benefit of everyone. And so we all help each other, and everyone's helping everyone. But there's so many [male] students who are so willing to help me, but unwilling to hear me when I say something.
- CHICANA STUDENT
If we asked [the professor] a question, he'd talk to us like we were kindergartners.... Whenever we asked him for something, it would take three hours to explain it to us, and we wouldn't have that time. When you have only four or five days to an experiment, you can't miss a whole afternoon on one minor thing.
- LATINA STUDENT
My [male] partner and I had this question on some lab we were doing and we were asking [the professor] questions, and the thing is, I would ask a question. He would say about one sentence to me, and then the rest of his conversation was directed at Dave, my partner. And I have no idea why he did that. Because [the professor's] a great guy. You know, I wouldn't think that he has anything against women. I'm sure he had no idea he was doing it.
- FILIPINA-AMERICAN, RECENT GRADUATE
When members of a group that are marked by a particular stereotype, and risk the possibility of conforming to or being judged in terms of that stereotype (e.g., "females aren't good at math"; "African Americans lack intellectual aptitude"), they respond-in an effort to reinforce their group identity-by "disidentifying" with a domain (e.g., math or science).
Psychologist and author Claude Steele called such domains "stereotype threats." Steele argued that this phenomenon can be especially harmful to "the academic vanguard," that is, high-achieving students of a particular group who choose to be in a domain for which their group is negatively stereotyped. These students can be successful in school and still be at risk for abandoning the discipline or dropping out of school entirely.
Even when women and minorities display greater skill and competency than their white-male counterparts, they may continue to experience stereotype threat and may eventually lose confidence in their abilities.
I just remember at times, taking exams [in upper division] where I was the only minority woman … and just being so convinced that everyone just looks smarter than me. And I'll sit there and I'll think, 'No, it's not true.' But [it's hard] to really change the way you feel.
- CHICANA STUDENT
An important, and rather controversial, implication of Steele's work is that remedial programs for women and minority students, though well-intentioned, serve to reinforce the very stereotypes that would cause these particular students to underachieve in the first place. Perhaps a more effective approach with students who already identify with academic achievement, would be to reduce stereotype threat by establishing learning environments where the bar for achievement is high and no student's ability is questioned.
For students who disidentify with a particular domain, instructors can foster more positive academic identities through safe learning environments where there is "little cost of failure," thereby fostering students' sense of self-efficacy and competence. One student comment from my study illustrates the impact of such an environment:
My grade in physics is what kept me in the University. And I would not have been able to get that grade had I not gone through the program, for sure. I have had more support than probably any one person deserves. I mean, I've had a really great support team. The instructors, program directors, teaching assistants, all of them, have always been really rooting for me. And that really means a lot. Probably the single most important thing that you need to get through this place is someone to say, 'We believe in you.' It really makes you rise to the occasion.
- AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENT
Fortunately, models of positive learning environments for minority students already exist in physics and other STEM programs. Among the most well known, perhaps, are the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County and the "workshop" model, founded by P. Uri Treisman, which began in the mathematics department at the University of California at Berkeley, and has since been implemented in STEM disciplines all around the country. A "workshop" type of program-which had the characteristic collaborative group work and deep-level problem solving-was implemented in the lower-division physics courses where I conducted a large part of my research. While it welcomed all students, it served primarily minority students. The physics department also sponsored the Women in Physics Group, which served as a resource for professional development. In addition to hosting a website that featured information on the graduate school application process and national conferences, the group sponsored monthly events that brought together undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty. The group's monthly meetings often revolved around the concerns of aspiring women scientists-ranging from discussions on how to balance family and a career in physics to lab simulations to help undergraduates gain experience using the tools and equipment common in experimental physics.
Indeed, subtle messages that convey exclusion undermine efforts to recruit and retain women and minorities. Yet, small, incremental attempts at social inclusion can have a significant impact on increasing the number of minorities in physics. Toward that end, more physics departments should sponsor support programs and social events that welcome undergraduates. Such efforts require money, space, and time, but the more undergraduates are engaged in their education and departmental culture, the higher the high return on investment.
Due to the still prevalent assumption that gender and racial equity and the attainment of excellence are incompatible goals, STEM fields, in general, and physics, in particular, continue to be among the most segregated and conservative of domains. Last year, I founded Project SEED (Science and Engineering Equity and Diversity) as an initiative of The Civil Rights Project at University of California, Los Angeles, to point to the many benefits of gender and racial diversity; call upon diversification and equity in STEM as a social justice issue as well as a national security issue; and challenge the prevailing exclusionary definitions of "best and brightest" and "excellence" in order to make it more inclusive and compatible with the demands of a democratic society.
In the end, diversity benefits not only women and minorities, but all individuals and institutions by making them more creative and competitive.
For more information, see: Project SEED.
The research was funded in part by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the American Educational Research Association, and the University of California at Berkeley.
Reprinted with permission from Maria Ong, Sowing the Seed of Diversity, Interactions Across Physics and Education, June/July 2007, pages 27-28. Copyright 2007, American Association of Physics Teachers.
Maria (Mia) Ong is a Project Leader in the Center for School Reform at TERC, and Founder and Director for Project SEED (Science and Engineering Equity and Diversity), an initiative of The Civil Rights Project at UCLA. She is a member of the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, an advisory committee to the National Science Foundation. maria_ong@terc.edu.