Master Narratives and Resistance Narratives: How Women of Color on Community College STEM Education Pathways Push Back

Abstract

Objective/Research Question: Master narratives, as theorized using a critical race perspective, are stories of the majority that function to obscure and normalize the oppressive operation of power in society. Counternarratives are the stories of minoritized individuals which expose and challenge the stories of the majority. This study examined master and counternarratives in STEM to uncover taken-for-granted power dynamics and hierarchies that systemically exclude and minoritize women of color on community college STEM education pathways. Methods: Narrative interviews were conducted with 12 women of color who were current or former community college STEM students. These interviews were analyzed according to the sensibilities of feminist narrative methodology. Results: Analysis of narratives resulted in three resistance narratives, or the different ways participants made sense of and pushed back against master narratives regarding what it means to be a woman of color in STEM. The three resistance narratives identified were: (1) taking action with the support of others, (2) connecting to something greater than oneself, and (3) redefining one’s identity and goals. Conclusions/Contributions: Attending to individual resistance narratives can unveil harmful master narratives in STEM that hinder the participation and success of diverse individuals. This study urges STEM researchers and practitioners to look beyond blaming individuals for “failing” to fit into the status quo of STEM and to devise solutions that will disrupt oppressive norms and practices that become normalized through unexamined master narratives in STEM.

Keywords

narrative theory master narratives counternarratives women of color STEM education

Despite progress in recent decades in terms of women’s higher education achievement reaching parity or even surpassing those of men in certain disciplines, women of color continue to be underrepresented in the STEM disciplines (National Science Foundation, 2021). Community colleges play an important role in serving as entry points into STEM for women of color and other minoritized students, due to these institutions’ accessibility and affordability (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2016; Wang, 2020). Community college STEM programs hold promise for diversifying the STEM disciplines and ensuring that the needs of historically minoritized students are met. However, during and beyond their time in community college, women of color contend with multiple and ongoing challenges that may ultimately dissuade them from their continued pursuit of STEM (Allen et al., 2022; Reyes, 2011). These experiences may include what Ong et al. (2020) have termed “social pain.” Experiences of social pain may be in the form of being the only one or one of the few women of color in their STEM learning environment, being ignored or made invisible, being stereotyped and spotlighted, and/or being subject to discrimination and harassment. Framing and recognizing these experiences as social pain is important because it points to the significant mental and emotional energy as well as time diverted away from focusing on academic and professional pursuits while managing the social pain (Johnson et al., 2011; Ong et al., 2020). Thus, beyond the issue of simply attracting or enrolling students in STEM, there is an urgent need to address how diverse women experience and contend with the challenges of being minoritized while they continue to pursue STEM.

One approach to explain women of color’s challenging experiences in STEM might be to view them as incompatible with STEM culture and unfit for the rigors of STEM. By focusing on individuals and their “inabilities” to integrate successfully into the existing system of STEM, this approach places the blame on women of color. It also evades the question of what we mean by “STEM culture” or “rigors of STEM.” An alternate approach would be to interrogate what is undergirding and perpetuating these notions in STEM. Prevalent narratives on who does and does not belong in STEM, as well as both subtle and overt messages around what a STEM student or professional looks and behaves like, contribute to how minoritized individuals experience their STEM learning environments (Parson et al., 2021; Rodriguez et al., 2017). These narratives and messages point to the often taken-for-granted power dynamics and hierarchies that divide and arrange groups of people along axes of power, such as race, gender, and class (Collins, 2000). Understanding these power dynamics and their manifestations by way of narratives is an important step in dismantling conditions and experiences of inequity. This study takes the approach of examining master narratives in STEM and women of color’s counternarratives to uncover the underlying and often taken-for-granted ways STEM disciplines operate. Theorized from a critical race perspective, master narratives are stories of the majority that function to obscure and normalize the oppressive operation of power. Counternarratives are the stories of minoritized individuals which expose and challenge the stories of the majority (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). Applying these notions of master and counternarratives to the context of this study, the research question guiding this study was as follows: What do the narratives of women of color on community college STEM education pathways reveal about oppressive master narratives in STEM?

Conceptual Framework and Related Literature

Master Narratives and Counternarratives

Narratives allow individuals to explain the self and connect to others (Bluck & Alea, 2009). In this process of sense-making about self and others, individuals are juxtaposed in relation to master narratives, which are “broad culture-specific stories that are available for individuals to potentially internalize and resist, both consciously and unconsciously” (McLean & Syed, 2015, p. 323). Master narratives play an important role in guiding individuals’ thoughts, beliefs, values, and behaviors. In discussing the notion of master narratives from a critical race perspective, Solórzano and Yosso (2002) foreground the role of race and racism in how the stories of the White majority become the “natural or normative points of reference” (p. 28) against which all other stories and experiences are compared. By normalizing the stories of the majority, master narratives distort and silence the stories of individuals and groups at the margins. Solórzano and Yosso (2002) also recognize the intersections of multiple dimensions of social experiences, beyond race and racism, that manifest in master narratives. They note: “it is crucial to focus on the intersections of oppression because storytelling is racialized, gendered, and classed and these stories affect racialized, gendered, and classed communities” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 31). Through the normalization of such intersecting forms of oppression, master narratives reinforce and perpetuate social hierarchies, while making the very existence of master narratives easy to overlook, and therefore, difficult to dismantle.

At the same time, master narratives are open to resistance and negotiation. Even though individuals oftentimes unconsciously internalize master narratives, it is possible to resist and challenge them through counternarratives. Solórzano and Yosso (2002) note the long and rich tradition of storytelling among communities of color and how these communities have used storytelling as a tool for survival and liberation. Therefore, counternarratives are not simply reactions to master narratives, but they are powerful tools for “exposing, analyzing, and challenging” the stories of the majority, as they can “shatter complacency, challenge the dominant discourse on race, and further the struggle for racial reform” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 32). Informed by this critical race theorization of master narratives, this study focuses on the counternarratives of women of color in STEM. Through focusing on counternarratives, this study was aimed at exposing and challenging the oppressive power dynamics perpetuated by harmful master narratives in STEM.

Master Narratives and the Experiences of Women of Color in STEM

In the context of STEM higher education, there are several prevalent master narratives which influence all students regardless of race, gender, class, and other lines of difference. These master narratives can influence students from minoritized backgrounds, such as women of color, particularly acutely. Acknowledging these master narratives in STEM is important as it helps us better understand how oppressive realities and individuals’ responses to these realities are interconnected by prevalent norms and expectations in STEM. It also allows us to dismantle and transform these master narratives through an understanding that they are constructed and perpetuated, rather than inherent or “natural” to the STEM disciplines.

One prevalent master narrative is the notion that in order to be successful in STEM, one must be a “lone genius” or a self-sufficient and innately brilliant individual who can do everything alone (Covarrubias et al., 2019; Fiore, 2013; Leathwood, 2006; Simonton, 2013). The other side of this master narrative is that, if one does seek and receive help from others, one must be less intelligent or less deserving of success. Prior scholarship has documented women of color in STEM delaying receiving help or even self-imposing isolation to avoid confirming negative stereotypes that women of color are intellectually inferior (Ong et al., 2018). Furthermore, there is scholarship to suggest that women and women of color prefer, and thrive in, collaborative, rather than competitive STEM environments (Espinosa, 2011; Riegle-Crumb et al., 2019; Shapiro & Sax, 2011). Thus, the “lone genius” master narrative is incongruous to the way women of color and other diverse groups of STEM students engage in authentic and empowering learning behaviors.

Closely related to this master narrative is the normalization and perpetuation of competition (Johnson et al., 2011; Kachchaf et al., 2015; Ong et al., 2018; Sallee, 2014). This master narrative frequently manifests in the form of STEM faculty grading student performance “on a curve” (assigning student grades as a measure of relative performance). This practice has been documented to promote competition among STEM students (Seymour et al., 2019; Shapiro & Sax, 2011). Additionally, the existence of so-called “weed out” classes (where a significant portion of students are expected to fail or drop out, thus functioning to “weed out” those who do not “belong” in STEM) is a common feature of many STEM higher education programs (Weston et al., 2019). These types of classes reinforce the message that competing and winning over others is how one succeeds in STEM. This master narrative of normalizing the culture of competition not only assumes a perfect meritocracy but assumes that pitting students against one another is an effective way of cultivating STEM learners and professionals. However, the competitive culture of STEM can drive students away from continuing their STEM studies, with magnified impact on minoritized students (Seymour et al., 2019).

Other prevalent master narratives in STEM include those that are particularly harmful to women and women of color, through the depiction of STEM as a “masculine” field; pursuing a STEM degree is oftentimes understood to be well-suited for individuals who are “unencumbered” or free of non-academic responsibilities, such as family and employment (Parson et al., 2021; Parson & Ozaki, 2018). One version of this heteropatriarchal master narrative relevant to this study is the marianismo ideology. This ideology places expectations on Latinas to be submissive and sacrificial of their individual needs in service of the family (Castellanos, 2018; Sy & Romero, 2008; Zavala, 2020). Specific to the context of STEM, the marianismo ideology has been shown to impact Latina STEM students who struggle with reconciling their identities as Latinas and their identities as STEM professionals (Rodriguez et al., 2019).

There is a growing body of literature documenting the challenges faced by women of color in STEM (e.g., Ireland et al., 2018; Ong et al., 2020) and more specifically, women of color whose education trajectories include time spent in community college STEM programs (e.g., Allen et al., 2022; Choi, 2022). Understanding this body of literature through the lens of master narratives in STEM can be a promising path for devising solutions that address systemic causes of women of color’s exclusion and marginalization in STEM. Through a focus on counternarratives, it becomes possible to highlight and make visible the master narratives that oftentimes elude detection. This focus also allows for gaining a better understanding of what is possible in terms of transforming STEM education.

Methods

To uncover the master narratives present in the experiences of women of color in STEM on community college education pathways by way of their counternarratives, I employed feminist narrative methodology (DeVault, 1990; DeVault & Gross, 2007; Riessman, 1987, 2008). Informed by the sensibilities of feminist standpoint theory (Collins, 1986; Haraway, 1988; Harding, 2004; Hooks, 1984), feminist narrative methodology foregrounds the lived experiences of women (of color) to document minoritized voices for the purpose of dismantling oppressive systems of power.

Specifically, this study presents narrative interview data from 12 participants, who were part of a broader study. This broader study was focused on understanding the experiences of women of color affiliated with a STEM transfer support program housed within one community college in California. The broader study employed strategies informed by ethnographic methods, such as participant observation and repeated conversations that can foster long-term rapport building with participants (Emerson et al., 2011). For the broader study, I was embedded in the STEM transfer support program for a period of 17 months. This ethnographically informed approach allowed for optimal data collection conditions that align well with feminist narrative research. In feminist narrative research, contextual realities outside of the immediate interview context are important for informing data collection and analysis (DeVault & Gross, 2007; Riessman, 2008). As noted by Riessman (2008), “[w]orking ethnographically with participants in their settings over time offers the best conditions for storytelling” (p. 26). While a full accounting of the role of the STEM transfer support program is outside the scope of the current study, participant observation data and informal conversations with participants informed the analysis of narrative interviews presented in this study. This study was approved under Oregon State University’s IRB (Study Number IRB-2019-0236).

Study Context and Participants

For the broader study regarding the experiences of women of color who were affiliated with a STEM transfer support program, participants who were current and former community college students were purposefully included in the sample. Community colleges serve as a major pathway to further education and careers in STEM for historically underrepresented students (NASEM, 2016; Wang, 2020). Yet, studies that span participant experiences in and through community college STEM programs are rare compared to those that either focus on current or former community college students exclusively. The broader study was designed to shed light on a topic that has received relatively little attention by describing the experiences of women of color on community college STEM education pathways through time and space.

Over the course of the 17-month participant observation period, I recruited participants for narrative interviews through a combination of strategies. These strategies included making announcements during meetings held by the STEM transfer support program, asking program staff to distribute recruitment messages via email on my behalf, having informal conversations with potential interviewees during participant observation, and snowball sampling.

The final sample consisted of 12 participants, eight of whom were current community college students at the time of interviews and four of whom were former community college students pursuing their bachelor’s degree or working professionally. The eligibility criteria for participation in this study were individuals pursuing a STEM discipline and who self-identify as women of color. In addition to meeting these two criteria, all participants described themselves as being a “non-traditional” student in some fashion. These self-ascribed non-traditional experiences include: being a first-generation college student, a first-generation immigrant, an undocumented student, a parent, an older student, and dealing with mental-health issues. Participants were asked to self-identify their racial/ethnic identities in an open-ended manner. Their responses include: Asian/Pacific Islander/Hispanic, biracial (Latina/White), Filipina, Hispanic, Latina/x, Mexican, and Mexican American. The racial/ethnic composition of the participants roughly mirrors the student demographics of the STEM transfer support program from which the participants were recruited. Although it was not my intent to exclude the perspectives of Black and Indigenous women from this study, I was unsuccessful in recruiting participants who identify as such. This is a limitation of this work, yet I employ the terminology of “women of color” in this study to build solidarity and strive toward shared understanding. As critiqued by Miles et al. (2022), the use of the terminology “women of color” in STEM education research is not without its problems. Diverging experiences exist under this umbrella terminology and if not used with care, the terminology can function to oversimplify or erase the multiplicative experiences of diverse women of color. Thus, although it is an imperfect strategy, I refer to the participants of this study as “women of color” in addition to referring to them by the specific racial/ethnic identities with which participants self-identified. This choice was informed by the perspective of Black feminist writer and activist Lorde (1984), who emphasized that women can and should act in solidarity against oppressive forms of power, while still recognizing and embracing the differences among them. Ultimately, I viewed participants’ specific experiences as being a part of the wider struggle concerning women of color in STEM, but I do not claim to make conclusions about the experiences of all women of color in STEM.

Data Collection

I conducted two in-person narrative interviews with each of the 12 participants, lasting between 35 and 90 minutes each. Some of the general topics covered during the initial interviews include: moments the women felt (un)successful while pursuing STEM, and sources of support in navigating STEM. Example interview questions asked during this initial interview include: Tell me about a time you faced an obstacle while pursuing STEM; why did you feel that it was an obstacle? How did you handle the obstacle? What/who supports you in your pursuit of STEM? What/who is your source of information? What/who is your source of emotional support? The follow-up interview was an opportunity to revisit and elaborate on any topics that came up during the first interview. I started the follow-up interviews by asking if the participants had any updates they wanted to share, or if they had other lingering thoughts based on what was discussed during the prior interview. I also came prepared with some follow-up questions based on having reviewed the initial interview transcript. Examples of interview questions I asked during the follow-up interview include: Last time, you talked about X; how did you feel in that moment? Why do you think you handled the situation the way you did? If you encountered the situation again, how do you think you would handle that now? Through specific questions that were aimed at gaining clarity or depth regarding information participants shared during the initial interview, the follow-up interview served as a preliminary form of member checking (Birt et al., 2016; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Data Analysis

The general strategy I employed for data analysis was a modification of Gilligan et al.’s (2003) Listening Guide method. This is a method that “comprises a series of sequential listenings, each designed to bring the researcher into relationship with a person’s [participant’s] distinct and multilayered voice by tuning in or listening to distinct aspects of a person’s expression of her or his experience within a particular relational context” (Gilligan et al., 2003, p. 159). Per the authors of this method, “listening” may entail actually listening to an interview recording, reading a transcript, or a combination of both activities, with the underlying purpose being the active recognition of the subjectivities of both the teller and the listener. The Listening Guide method was originally developed as a way to explore “dissociation, including the cultural pressures on women to dissociate themselves from their own desires and knowledge” (Gilligan, 2015, p. 69) and has been used to “access and understand marginalized and understudied experiences” (p. 70). Example cases in which this method has been used include studies that have explored the experiences of women with postpartum depression (Mauthner, 2002), queer youth (Sadowski, 2013), and college student sex workers (Stewart, 2021). This method was deemed appropriate for investigating the narratives of women of color who are underrepresented and minoritized in STEM since they must contend with master narratives that may not align with their own understanding of themselves.

The Listening Guide method consists of three successive listenings: listening for the plot, listening for the I, and listening for contrapuntal voices (Gilligan, 2015). During these three sequential listenings, I tuned into a different aspect of the story being told by the participants. During the initial listening (listening for the plot), I read the interview transcripts with a focus on understanding the broad narrative arc presented in each woman’s narrative. I kept memos to jot down what I perceived to be the central plot or thesis of each narrative. Across the initial and follow-up interviews for each participant, there was usually a common thread that emerged as unifying the two interviews. During the second listening (listening for the I), I more carefully attended to statements that participants expressed in the first-person voice. These statements were highlighted within the transcript to detect repeating ideas and emergent themes that appeared to make up the broader arc in each woman’s narrative. Based on these themes, I wrote a participant summary for each participant to seek their input regarding my interpretation of their narrative. This step served as another part of my member checking strategy. This member checking step did not result in any substantive modifications to my interpretation of participant narratives. After this step, I engaged in a third and final round of listening (listening for contrapuntal voices) to discern patterns and connections across all narratives. Specifically, during this stage, I intentionally thought about how the participants’ voices were interacting with contrapuntal or contrasting voices expressed in the interviews. I also reflected on how participants navigated the dissonance between their own narratives and the prevalent master narratives in STEM. This process entailed re-reading the transcripts with the research aims in mind and revisiting all memos and notes created during previous listenings. As a part of this process, I placed each participant’s narrative into bins that appeared to be expressing similar counternarratives to a common master narrative. This process resulted in the categorization of narratives into three main ways participants made sense of their experiences as women of color in STEM. I call these the participants’ resistance narratives, as they each told a story of how they exercised their agency to push back against master narratives around what it means to be a woman of color in STEM. After identifying the three types of resistance narratives, I chose a representative narrative for each type. While the three representative narratives do not cover the full breadth and depth of the 12 narratives from the broader study, representatives were chosen to showcase the narratives of women at different stages of their academic and professional STEM pursuits. These representative narratives provide insight into how different life stages and different points in these women’s STEM pathways highlight the power dynamics that show up through time and space. They also demonstrate how the women of color at different points in their STEM journeys navigated these power dynamics. This paper presents findings from these three representative resistance narratives.

Positionality and Trustworthiness

I identify as a woman of color with academic and professional experiences in fields that have historically been White men-dominated, much like the STEM disciplines that study participants were pursuing. I have experience in and bring an ongoing commitment to researching the experiences of minoritized students in STEM higher education for the purposes of better serving the needs of these students. These facets of my positionality aided me in forming relationships with my participants, facilitated my data collection activities, and allowed me to make interpretations with empathy and care. At the same time, there were multiple additional dimensions along which participants and I differed, such as the fact that I did not go through a community college education and that I did not share the specific race and/or ethnicity of my participants. These differences as well as my overall commitment to relational ethics (Ellis, 2007; Lincoln, 1995) meant that I took seriously the responsibility to interpret and represent participant narratives not through my own self-interested lens but in ways that truly honored and respected their voice. I interrogated my own experiences and positionalities in an ongoing manner by keeping thorough records of my research activities and writing reflexive memos throughout all phases of research. Additionally, as noted previously, I engaged in member checking in an ongoing manner (Kvale, 1995; Lincoln & Guba, 1985), both during and after each interview as well as during analysis. While member checking, I did not receive substantive feedback that altered my interpretation of participant narratives.

Results and Discussion: Three Resistance Narratives

To showcase how the women of this study resisted harmful master narratives in their navigation of STEM, I present the representative resistance narratives of Student X, Karen, and Ana.¹ For each of these three resistance narratives, I start with a brief introduction of the woman of color representing this narrative, then detail specific components that make up her narrative. Afterwards, I discuss how the resistance narrative is indicative of a prevalent master narrative in STEM that the participants were actively pushing back against.

Resistance Narrative 1: Taking Action with the Support of Others

About Student X

Student X is a Mexican American woman, who was in her early 20s at the time of the study. She was in her third year of attending community college with aspirations of transferring to a 4-year university to pursue a career as either a field biologist or a wildlife veterinarian. Student X was living with her older sister who was an alumna of Student X’s community college and who was pursuing her bachelor’s degree in biology at a nearby university. Throughout her interviews, Student X frequently referred to her older sister as an important source of guidance and support in her life. It was her older sister who suggested that Student X move out of their parents’ home located in a remote rural town to attend college, and it was her older sister who suggested internships and job opportunities that Student X might pursue. Her older sister modeled what was possible as a woman of color and first-generation college student pursuing STEM. Student X stated that she would be “very lost” if she did not have her sister to guide her, attributing many of her academic and professional successes to the assistance and support from her sister.

Student X’s Narrative

Student X’s narrative was characterized by a recognition that her successful journey in STEM would not be possible—or at least would be made significantly more difficult—if she did not rely on trusted others to support her along the way. This recognition of the importance of trusted others was related to her understanding that individual merit was rarely the sole ingredient to success in STEM. Student X mentioned other factors that influenced her ability to successfully pursue her studies in STEM, such as needing to hold a job, the time it took for her to commute to and from school, and her first-generation college student status. Student X summarized her awareness of these systemically rooted disadvantages in the following way:

Let’s say, there’s this person and their main focus is just school—they don’t have to work, they don’t have to worry about pretty much anything, it’s just school. Obviously, their grades are more likely to be better, or they have a better relationship with their professors. . . Versus me, I don’t stay in [town where community college is located]. I live in [next town that is more affordable to live in] . . .I also have to work. Money is an issue for me. . .With studying, it’s like hard to, I mean—I’m first gen, I don’t know how to study [effectively] sometimes.

Rather than seeing challenges as well as successes tied solely to merit (or lack thereof), Student X was aware of socio-economic inequities that shaped her experiences. Thus, she pushed back against the myth of meritocracy, recognizing that she was not on equal footing with other students whose main focus was “just school.”

Given this, Student X recognized the importance of having a support system to help her navigate the additional challenges that she faced. In particular, Student X stated that she would not have been able to navigate her STEM trajectory so far if not for the various types of support offered by her sister. Namely, her sister offered logistical support by inviting Student X to share an apartment with her so that they can share the cost of rent, and so that Student X can live in a location that is close to the community college. Additionally, Student X talked about her older sister offering practical support by showing her the “ins and outs” of college; her sister assisted with locating and applying for jobs, internships, and other co-curricular activities. Student X also mentioned her sister offering emotional support by giving her pep talks to encourage and motivate her whenever Student X felt insecure or doubtful about her ability to succeed.

At the same time, Student X was attuned to how her own sense of agency was synergistically interacting with the support she received from her sister. During interviews, Student X always acknowledged her own hard work and did not diminish her own agentive actions. In her narrative, there was a fair balance between giving credit to her older sister for her encouragement or introducing her to certain opportunities, while acknowledging her own efforts in taking action that ultimately made her who she was. For instance, when asked to tell me about a time she felt most successful in her overall pursuit of STEM thus far, Student X talked about the time she got her part-time job as a kennel assistant at a local veterinary hospital. When asked why working at the veterinary hospital made her feel successful, Student X noted:

One, because it’s related to what I wanna do in the future [wildlife veterinarian or field biologist] and two, because I got it—even though my sister pushed me to do it—I got this on my own. Work ethic is very important to me and my job sees that I’m a very serious person, I’m hard working, I’m determined, I’m always open to learning new stuff.

This response captured the essence of Student X’s resistance narrative. Even while acknowledging the help or initial “push” she received from her sister, Student X saw her part-time position and the subsequent successes she has had in it as resulting from her own agentic actions. Student X simultaneously recognized her sister’s support as well as her own efforts. Additionally, in stating her qualities confidently (“I’m a very serious person, I’m hard working, I’m determined, I’m always open to learning new stuff”), Student X highlighted her agency and accomplishments. She did not feel it necessary to diminish her accomplishment in any way, despite having received the necessary support from her older sister.

How Student X’s Narrative Pushes Back Against the “Lone Genius” Trope

Along with Student X, the narratives of three additional participants in the larger study were characterized by a recognition that their successful journeys in STEM would not be possible if they did not rely on trusted others to support them along the way. Student X’s awareness of oppressive power dynamics in STEM allowed her to make sense of and resist these power dynamics. Student X fully leveraged her support networks rather than feel discouraged by the uneven playing field of STEM. Specifically, Student X’s narrative centered on a recognition of her own strengths and limitations and her willingness to rely on her older sister to help her move forward. For other participants who shared similar resistance narratives, they reported leveraging the support of friends, co-workers, research mentors, and campus student groups. Some participants also shared that even though seeking help from others was not something that came naturally for them, they eventually learned that it can make a big difference and, thus, consciously practiced help seeking behavior. In Student X’s case, she expressed several times over the course of her narrative that she would be “very lost” if not for the guidance and support she received from her older sister. Student X’s sister provided her with a place to live, introduced her to various support services on campus, and gave her tips on internships and other enrichment opportunities outside of college.

These multiple forms of support from her sister were particularly effective in countering the effects of the uneven playing field that individuals like Student X had to contend with. As seen in Student X’s narrative, her non-academic responsibilities and life circumstances (e.g., holding a job, being a first-generation college student) impacted her ability to devote the same amount of time and attention to her studies in comparison to some of her peers. Thus, her narrative illustrated that merit alone does not lead to success in STEM. This reality of life circumstances beyond academics playing a major role in students’ experiences and trajectories is well documented in the existing literature about community college STEM students (Blaney et al., 2022; Wang, 2020; Wickersham & Wang, 2016).

Along with this recognition and rejection of meritocracy, Student X fully embraced leveraging the relationship and support from her older sister. In this way, Student X rejected the trope of the “lone genius” or the self-sufficient and innately brilliant individual who can do everything alone (see Covarrubias et al., 2019; Fiore, 2013; Leathwood, 2006; Simonton, 2013). This master narrative also encompasses the notion that if one does seek and receive help from others, one must be less intelligent or less deserving of success. Help seeking behaviors are known to be important for STEM students’ success and persistence (Horowitz et al., 2013). Yet, students from minoritized backgrounds, such as students of color and women, may delay or hesitate seeking necessary academic help due to fears of confirming negative stereotypes about their academic abilities (Lancaster & Xu, 2017; Ong et al., 2018). Student X resisted this master narrative by openly relying on the help of her sister. Additionally, while simultaneously acknowledging the support she received, Student X talked about her own hard work and sense of agency that ultimately worked in concert with the support from her sister. Thus, she confidently showed that seeking and receiving help in STEM does not diminish one’s achievements, especially since much of navigating STEM happens through making and leveraging the right connections and support. Student X’s resistance narrative confirms that despite the prevailing “lone genius” trope, there is in fact much value and reward in pursuing STEM in a collaborative, rather than isolated, manner.

Resistance Narrative 2: Connecting to Something Greater than Oneself

About Karen

Karen is a Latina, who was in her mid-20s at the time of the study. She had spent 4 years in community college before transferring to a university. After transferring to and graduating from a university with her bachelor’s degree in neurobiology, Karen was taking a “gap year” while working at two research labs affiliated with her undergraduate institution. Karen’s eventual goal was to obtain a PhD degree and become a professor of neurobiology. As a Latina and first-generation college student, Karen talked about frequently feeling “out of place” and needing to “code switch” out of her usual way of communicating and being when she was at school or work. She also observed the exacerbating underrepresentation of women of color and first-generation students the further she advanced in her studies. These experiences often made her feel isolated and as though she did not belong. To combat these feelings, she drew inspiration and strength from her prior life experiences while also looking ahead to uplifting other underrepresented and minoritized individuals in STEM.

Karen’s Narrative

Karen’s narrative was characterized by her strong resolve to pursue STEM for the purposes of uplifting others even if it meant enduring some amount of personal discomfort. Elaborating on her ability to withstand and even thrive amidst the challenges of pursuing STEM as a minoritized individual, Karen described herself as having “thick skin” and enjoying challenges since childhood. She explained her reason for wanting to pursue STEM in the following way:

The pull toward science was the fact that it was challenging, the fact that I know no one else [of my background] is doing this or wanting to do this. I wanna be the best at this, I wanna be good at this, and I wanna continue to learn other things I don’t know.

Thus Karen was aware of, and even intentionally sought the challenges of, pursuing STEM as an underrepresented person in the field. Additionally, in her limited spare time, Karen challenged herself further by expending time and energy on science outreach and helping her younger family members navigate their academic trajectories. She remarked on these activities being “draining” but also “rejuvenating” at the same time:

I find a lot of fulfillment with outreach. So yes, it’s draining sometimes, but that is where I get rejuvenated. . . I remember I did this [outreach opportunity]. . . I was talking to [a younger student in the program]. . . I was just telling him about school and college. . . He had never just thought of college in general and at the end [of the program], they had a little [thank you] note that he wrote. And my goodness, this is what I love, this is what I live for. I have [younger] siblings and, it helps that I can help them. . .so to help other kids who aren’t as lucky. . .that brings such joy to me.

For Karen, outreach was an integral part of what it means to pursue STEM; she saw it as fundamentally intertwined with her own sense of happiness and joy. This was because Karen’s focus was on the big picture that transcended her need to protect her time and energy to focus on her own STEM pursuits. Rather, Karen saw herself as contributing to something greater than herself. Additionally, while Karen spoke about often feeling shy, anxious, and experiencing self-doubt because she is an underrepresented individual in STEM, she worked through these challenges by once again focusing on giving back to others. When asked what keeps Karen going despite experiences of feeling personal discomfort, Karen supplied the following response:

My parents—if I don’t do this, if I don’t succeed, what would be the point of all their sacrifices? My siblings—if I don’t do this, who are they gonna look up to? It’s my job to do this. My cousins, too, it’s the same way. I’m the oldest. . .they are all looking up to me. . .I don’t want them to ever feel like they can’t do it. . .What keeps me going? It’s not just for me. It’s for other people—just because I do get shy or [experience] anxiety, [if I were] to quit, then what’s the point of going through this life, if you’re not gonna challenge yourself?

Karen attributed this resolve and commitment to an experience she had when she was in high school. This experience entailed her father being detained and facing possible deportation to Mexico. She noted that her current desire to uplift her community through her pursuit of science, “probably wouldn’t have been so dramatic as it is [now], if this event hadn’t happened in my life.” Karen looked back on this time in her life as motivating her current pursuits since she resolved that no one deserves to feel like they do not belong, whether in a country they considered home but had no legal recognition, or in a field of study that lacked representation and support for those that look like them. Thus, Karen saw herself as being part of a project that is moving toward greater representation and equity in STEM. Furthermore, despite the seriousness with which Karen seemed to be carrying the weight of uplifting her community, she willingly took on this responsibility and saw it as being intertwined with her own happiness and wellbeing. As Karen stated near the conclusion of her follow-up interview, the level of responsibility and commitment Karen felt was what motivated her, and it was what made her personal discomforts “worth it” in the end.

How Karen’s Narrative Pushes Back Against the Culture of Competition

Karen’s narrative represents the narratives of four other women who took part in the larger study. For these five women, being connected to something greater than themselves was the main driving force behind their STEM pursuits. Analysis of Karen’s narrative revealed that she was turning her experiences of oppression into sources of motivation. Although Karen’s narrative was replete with moments of grappling with personal discomforts (e.g., anxiety, feelings of not belonging), she remained focused on the bigger picture. This allowed her to endure her personal discomforts and feel motivated. Thus, Karen’s narrative was about pursuing STEM not simply for her own sense of accomplishment or success, but for causes greater than herself, such as helping others and striving for social justice. This resolve to give back, as shown in Karen’s narrative, may be described as her “equity ethic,” which McGee and Bentley (2017) explain as “students’ principled concern for social justice and for the well-being of people who are suffering from various inequities” (p. 6). Karen’s equity ethic serving as a motivator for pursuing STEM is consistent with existing studies showing that many minoritized students in STEM pursue these disciplines for altruistic or pro-social reasons (e.g., Choi et al., 2023; Thoman et al., 2015).

Karen’s experience with the possible deportation of her father and the sacrifices of her parents and family influenced her resolve to focus on the big picture in her pursuit of STEM. Other women who shared similar narratives as Karen’s also described a specific life experience or circumstance that was closely intertwined with the idea of pursuing STEM for some greater cause. Examples of these experiences or circumstances included: witnessing and helping an older sister go through pregnancy as a young single woman, growing up with a well-meaning but conservative father who perpetuated heteropatriarchal norms, immigrating to the United States without parents or older relatives at the age of 18, and maintaining close ties with extended family members in another country. Oftentimes, these experiences and circumstances did not have a direct and immediate relationship to participants’ STEM pursuits. However, they had a profound impact on how Karen and others made sense of their place in the world. As a first-generation Latina pursuing her studies in neurobiology, Karen described frequently feeling out of place and as if she did not belong in STEM. This feeling was similar to the feeling she described in terms of her and her family’s sense of belonging in the United States. In seeing and acting upon the connections she saw between her immediate experiences and the bigger picture, Karen resisted the individualistic culture of STEM.

This individualistic culture of STEM is a manifestation of the master narrative that normalizes and perpetuates an ethos of competition (see Johnson et al., 2011; Kachchaf et al., 2015; Ong et al., 2018; Sallee, 2014). Evidence continues to grow that a competitive STEM learning environment can have negative consequences not only for individual students who may experience imposter feelings and negative course outcomes (Canning et al., 2020), but also for the STEM fields more broadly. This competitive culture hinders the diversification of STEM by discouraging minoritized students from entering and persisting in these fields (McGee, 2021; Mervis, 2011). Karen resisted this master narrative of competition by demonstrating that while she was passionate and ambitious about her future as a STEM professional, the source of her motivation did not lie in achieving success over others. Rather, Karen was driven by a desire to uplift others in the same way that others have supported her. She was also driven to create a more just STEM education system for those who will come after her. Thus, Karen did not see herself as competing for the coveted, exclusive, and limited “spots” in STEM (particularly for women of color and other individuals from historically underrepresented backgrounds). Instead, Karen considered it her duty and responsibility to question and work towards changing the system that produced the reality of limited opportunities for women of color in the first place. In this way, Karen defied the master narrative of the culture of competition in STEM. Additionally, she demonstrated that her purpose for pursuing STEM was to uplift and expand opportunities for others.

Resistance Narrative 3: Redefining One’s Identity and Goals

About Ana

Ana is a Mexican woman, who was in her early 30s and a mother of two boys, 13 and 9 years old, at the time of her interviews. She was working as an engineer in a global company that manufactures medical equipment. She had recently left a 17-year-long relationship, because she had realized (over the course of the 5 years it took her to get her associate then bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering), that she was not getting the support she needed from her then-husband to pursue her dreams and live up to her full potential. Ana took community college classes on and off for 11 years while juggling family responsibilities and changing her major several times. When Ana finally found her passion in engineering and started to devote more time and effort to her academics and professional development, this was met with disapproval and lack of support from her now ex-husband as well as her mother and sisters. While Ana described that everything that she achieved academically and professionally had “cost a lot” in terms of personal and familial relationships, she was also confident that she had made the right choices and was hopeful for more success and happiness in the future.

Ana’s Narrative

Ana’s narrative was characterized by the redefinition of her identity and goals in ways that felt authentic and empowering to her, rather than in ways that were dictated to or expected of her. Ana’s recent divorce and the experiences that led up to this significant change in her life were inseparable from how she understood her sense of self and her aspirations as an individual and professional. During interviews, there were moments in which Ana expressed realizing that her former self was not in line with how she sees herself in the current moment:

Before, when I was just a wife and a mother, I found myself doing a lot of things for my children and for him [ex-husband]. . .But the moment I started becoming more busy [with school], there were small little things that I would think about like, “Oh, it would be great if he could just cook dinner one night or help me with the laundry”. . .I started thinking, “Why is it so difficult for them to do a little bit of what I do every day for them?” And I remember thinking, “Oh gosh, I spent so many years doing all these things for everybody else except for me.”

Over time, Ana developed an awareness of the injustices of heteronormative gender roles, which first started off with moments of frustration. These moments then became a source of change and growth for Ana. During this difficult time in her relationship, Ana re-evaluated her preferences and priorities. In the process, Ana acknowledged how hegemonic ideals of womanhood were impacting her experiences. Whenever Ana described the inability of her family members to see eye-to-eye with her on the topic of heteronormative gender roles, she mentioned the pervasiveness of culture and how difficult it was to break away from one’s upbringing and widespread cultural norms. This manifested in her family members’ initial reaction to Ana ending her marriage, as she explained below:

I chose to do that, to walk out [of my marriage] slowly. . .But it’s something that’s not necessarily culturally accepted—where, as a woman, who has children, just leaves the marriage and just continues her own education. . .My mother and others, they thought that I was kinda crazy because I didn’t have a full-time job and then, I think it’s also because of the way my mother and my other relatives grew up with that message. Again, I think it’s the culture, you know, that a woman needs a man to [financially] support her.

After realizing that these gender norms were not in line with her academic and professional goals, Ana could have chosen to abandon her identities as a mother and wife in order to focus on pursuing STEM. However, this would have meant accepting the premise that women with familial responsibilities like Ana are somehow not fit to succeed in STEM. Rather than trying to fit into the existing culture of STEM that favors men unencumbered by familial responsibilities, Ana chose to redefine her sense of self and goals, in order to resist these oppressive hegemonies. Specifically, Ana embraced her role as a mother and as a potential future wife, but on her redefined terms:

As a mother, me personally, I don’t regret ever doing those things for my kids because they’re my kids. And even as a wife, too, I can honestly see myself somewhat doing that again [i.e., housework she used to be solely responsible for in her previous marriage], but not completely by myself. I would want that other person to do half, some of those things as well. You know like, give back to me.

Thus, Ana re-envisioned marriage as an equal partnership rather than the woman making sacrifices for her husband. Additionally, in terms of her role as a mother, Ana discussed reprioritizing how she spends her time and re-evaluating her motivations. For example, Ana excitedly talked about having purchased two empty frames that were hanging on the wall of her home under her framed bachelor’s degree. When Ana hung those three frames on her wall, she said that she had a chat with her two sons about adding their degrees to the frames one day and how she will build a family tree out of academic degrees. This example showed that motherhood for Ana was now more than making sure her children were clothed and fed—rather, her notion of motherhood started to incorporate inspiring and encouraging her children to reach their full potential by being a role model and source of inspiration for them. Ana recognized and resisted the hegemonic expectations regarding her role as a woman and as a STEM professional. As a result, she redefined her identity and goals as a mother, wife, and engineer.

How Ana’s Narrative Pushes Back Against the Marianismo Ideology

Ana and two other women who participated in the larger study described making sense of their experiences as minoritized individuals in STEM through redefining their identity and goals in ways that felt authentic and empowering to them. They achieved this by breaking away from the identities and goals that were dictated to them or expected of them. In Ana’s narrative, she exhibited change and growth as a result of recognizing and resisting oppressive power dynamics in STEM. Ana’s narrative was a story about redefining her sense of self, despite the pressures from her family that disapproved of her drive to pursue a career as an engineer. Ana’s narrative demonstrated that social categories and the meanings attached to them do not exist as immutable, a priori entities that define her permanently. Following Ana through her resistance narrative highlighted how she redefined what it means to be a wife, mother, and engineer without giving up on any of these aspects of her identity. While axes of power (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender) and their manifestations in specific contexts (e.g., family) can influence the identities of women of color in STEM (Rodriguez, Pilcher, & Garcia-Tellez, 2021), Ana’s narrative is consistent with existing studies demonstrating that minoritized individuals in STEM oftentimes author their own identities through resistance and agency (Godwin et al., 2016; Johnson et al., 2011). Basu et al. (2009) define agency as “a process of understanding the effects of oppression and leveraging resources to act against it” (p. 355). Ana’s narrative exemplified this notion of agency since she recognized the pervasiveness of culture and upbringing, then devised ways to redefine herself.

Ana did not blame her family members for the expectations they had of her, but she felt the effects of their belief that the STEM fields are well-suited for individuals (particularly men) who are “unencumbered” by family responsibilities (see Parson et al., 2021; Parson & Ozaki, 2018). Other participants who shared a similar narrative to that of Ana’s also reported their loved ones perpetuating stereotypes regarding women of color’s “fit” in STEM by having low expectations of their success in STEM or recommending STEM careers that reinforce care-taking roles that women of color are often expected to take on (e.g., nursing). By connecting her encounters with family members to the role of culture and upbringing, Ana did not dismiss her experience as a one-off case of unsupportive individuals in her life, but, rather, she was able to illuminate and push back against a harmful master narrative in STEM that can influence how individuals and society operate.

In particular, Ana pushed back against the marianismo ideology, or the idea that Latinas should be submissive and sacrifice their individual needs in service of the family (see Castellanos, 2018; Sy & Romero, 2008; Zavala, 2020). This heteropatriarchal ideology can manifest in various cultural contexts that is not specific to those experienced by Latinas. At the same time, for Ana and many other Latinas in STEM, the lack of role models or peers on how to navigate the ideology of marianismo may prove to be particularly challenging. Furthermore, because family members or one’s cultural community can be important sources of support for Latinas in STEM (Rodriguez et al., 2019; Rodriguez, Pilcher, & Garcia-Tellez, 2021), marianismo can be a complicated master narrative to navigate since Latinas may feel uncomfortable with the notion of going against family or cultural norms and values. It is clear from Ana’s narrative that this prevalent master narrative about how Latinas should behave and what they should value impacted Ana’s pursuit of STEM. However, Ana found a way to redefine herself against this master narrative and still thrive in STEM. Ana neither succumbed to the marianismo ideology nor did she abandon her ties to her family or completely forsake her identity as a wife and mother in order to “play by the rules” of dominant society. Rather, she found a way to redefine what it means to be a mother and a wife and how these identities may coexist with her identity as an engineering professional and woman of color in STEM.

Implications and Conclusion

In this study, I examined the resistance narratives of women of color who continue to be some of the most underrepresented and minoritized individuals in the current arrangement of power in U.S. systems of higher education and STEM. These resistance narratives highlighted the master narratives with which the women of color contended in their navigation of STEM higher education as minoritized individuals. The three master narratives unveiled by the participants’ resistance narratives were the “lone genius” trope, the culture of competition, and the marianismo ideology. These master narratives were found to “naturalize” a social order that is based on the notions of hierarchy and scarcity of opportunity, benefitting few individuals beyond those who currently hold power.

To examine these master and resistance narratives, I employed Gilligan et al.’s (2003) Listening Guide method. Through this method, I viewed each participant’s holistic narrative as the unit of analysis, rather than focus narrowly on individual segments of the interview transcript, which can lend themselves more easily to decontextualized analysis (Riessman, 2008). The holistic approach allowed me to interpret participant’s resistance narratives as entities that are created in relation to master narratives and the sociopolitical context in which they are embedded. Furthermore, because the Listening Guide method foregrounds participant subjectivities, I listened for how participants were exercising their agency through the process of narrativizing their lived experiences. This focus allowed me to listen to and interpret their stories from an asset-based, rather than deficit-oriented perspective (see Gonzalez et al., 2020; Harper 2010).

Given some of these affordances of the Listening Guide method and narrative analysis more broadly, future directions for research include investigating other master narratives and resistance narratives that surface in diverse contexts and lived realities beyond those investigated in this study. The original scope of the study was to understand master and resistance narratives pertaining to the experiences of women of color. Yet, experiences and identities that went beyond participants’ race/ethnicity and gender, such as their social class and family dynamics were found to be important aspects of their lives that surfaced in their resistance narratives. In recognition of these intersections and additional groups of students that face challenges in higher education (e.g., men of color; see Harris & Wood, 2013; Rodriguez, Blaney, et al., 2021), future research could take up narrative methods to uncover and disrupt oppressive power dynamics that function in interconnected ways in diverse contexts.

An additional avenue of future research may be longitudinal research that seeks to better understand how minoritized students navigate challenges and resist master narratives across an extended period of time. The participants of this study represented a cross section of possible pathways that women of color may take in their navigation of STEM, both during and after their time as community college STEM students. Longitudinal research may illuminate additional insights, such as how individuals’ capacity for navigating oppression may change over time, or how different master narratives or different aspects of participants’ identities may become more or less salient over time to influence participants’ evolving resistance narratives.

To combat the specific master narratives discussed in this study, some of the following strategies may be employed, although these suggestions should form a small part of a more comprehensive strategy of vigilance against the spread and perpetuation of master narratives. In terms of combatting the “lone genius” trope, STEM programs and faculty should aim to normalize help-seeking and collaborative behaviors by creating a learning environment that is conducive to the co-creation of knowledge. Tutoring services and other supports that encourage students’ help-seeking and collaboration should be visible, accessible, and ingrained into institutional culture. Such efforts will also contribute to dispelling the “lone genius” trope. Targeted messaging that normalizes help-seeking can increase minoritized STEM students’ use of support services and ultimately lead to better course outcomes, which are in turn connected to student retention in STEM (Covarrubias et al., 2019).

To combat the master narrative of competition, STEM educators should normalize and encourage pro-social and egalitarian norms and practices. For instance, because many minoritized students pursue STEM to give back to their communities or respond to broader social issues (Choi et al., 2023; McGee & Bentley, 2017; Thoman et al., 2015), incorporating such foci into STEM curricula will better serve these students while disrupting the master narrative of the culture of competition in STEM. Grading policies that institutionalize the use of rubrics rather than grading on a curve is another way to relieve the pressure of competition among students (Weston et al., 2019).

To support individuals who may be impacted by stereotypes or expectations like the marianismo ideology, programs and related personnel should pay particular attention to diverse students’ life circumstances and responsibilities. As one example, identity-based academic and social support programs (such as the program from which participants of this study were recruited) should be supported both financially and ideologically. Such programs have the potential to function as counterspaces that are vital to minoritized students’ experiences in STEM (Choi, 2023; Ong et al., 2018) while also communicating the institution’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (Vega, 2022). Flexible course policies to accommodate students’ non-academic responsibilities, (e.g., childrearing, employment), are important as well, along with the institutionalization of holistic support services (e.g., childcare, food insecurity support, mental health support). These efforts are especially important since minoritized students, and particularly those navigating community college STEM education pathways, are more likely to be burdened by life circumstances that go beyond educational responsibilities (Blaney et al., 2022; Wang, 2020; Wickersham & Wang, 2016).

The list of suggestions provided here is not exhaustive. These and many other context-specific innovations should be put to practice and institutionalized into policy to continually combat oppressive master narratives in STEM higher education. To this end, all members of the STEM education community should remain vigilant to the ways master narratives easily disguise themselves or elude detection via the unwritten and unspoken ways they are perpetuated in the STEM disciplines. Rather than defaulting to blaming individual students or their communities for “failing” to achieve and persist in the existing system of STEM, individuals with institutional power (e.g., faculty, administrators) should strive to recognize and address patterns of systemic marginalization and oppression. This is in line with STEM education researchers’ calls for taking an asset-based approach to supporting minoritized students (see Gonzalez et al., 2020; Harper, 2010).

A starting point for developing an asset-based approach may be intentional efforts at training institutional stakeholders to recognize and address patterns of systemic marginalization and oppression in STEM. These trainings should be offered in an ongoing manner, rather than as a single event. Additionally, given that the context and foci of such trainings can influence their effectiveness (Kalinoski et al., 2013), they should explicitly address issues of power, privilege, and oppression, rather than engage with the topic of diversity in power-neutral ways. Furthermore, STEM educators and researchers should be prepared to remain vigilant and hopeful in the face of possible pushback from individuals and institutions that are interested in maintaining the status quo.

To inspire and motivate the STEM community’s efforts in this regard, STEM educators and researchers should center the voices and wisdom of students who are most impacted by the oppressive status quo of STEM. Efforts should be made to elevate and honor minoritized students’ needs as well as to learn from students’ resilience and strength. Not only should individual practitioners and researchers in STEM pay close attention to these students’ experiences and stories, but minoritized students should be given leadership roles and adequate support by individuals with more institutional power. Students should be empowered to lead movements that can exert pressure on institutionalized decision-makers to bring about needed systemic change. As demonstrated in this study, the voices of women of color and other minoritized individuals have an important role to play in envisioning and enacting a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive field of STEM. As a field, we must continually listen closely to and elevate these voices while committing to disrupt oppressive master narratives in STEM.

Footnotes

Author’s Note

Yoon Ha Choi is now affiliated to Learning Sciences Research, Digital Promise, Washington, DC, USA.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Yoon Ha Choi

Notes

Author Biographies

Yoon Ha Choi (she/her), PhD, is a Postsecondary Senior Researcher on the Learning Sciences Research team at Digital Promise. Her research focuses on elevating the voices of women of color, community college students, and otherwise minoritized students in higher education to strive towards a more equitable and just system of STEM education.

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