Old Problem,New Perspectives: Applying Anzaldúan Concepts to Underrepresentation in STEM

Abstract

Women and members of many ethnic minority groups continue to be significantly underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and work settings. In this article, we propose that Gloria Anzaldúa’s concepts of nepantla and nepantleras/os can be used to enrich perspectives on underrepresentation among those studying, working, and persisting in STEM fields. We describe how diversity practices may fail to address and foster inclusion in STEM education and workplaces and link inclusion and belonging to engagement and retention in STEM. Recommendations are offered for combining top-down and bottom-up strategies providing information, awareness, and skills training in STEM environments, including recognizing and engaging the insights and experiences of nepantleras/os.

Keywords

STEM careers women/girls sample populations ethnic minorities nepantla nepantleras science STEM education

The important goal of achieving gender and ethnic diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and STEM workplaces remains far from reach (Fouad & Santana, 2017), necessitating continued attention to the development of frameworks and methods that can serve these aims. In this article, we draw from the work of Gloria Anzaldúa to conceptualize and problematize underrepresentation in STEM education and STEM careers. Specifically, we describe and apply her concepts of nepantla and nepantleras/os to the underrepresentation of women and members of many ethnic minority groups studying, working, and persisting in STEM fields.

STEM Demographics

The shortage of workers and the underrepresentation of women and members of many racial/ethnic minority groups in STEM education and industries is well-documented (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2017) and persists despite significant recruitment and retention efforts. For example, only 14.7% of STEM bachelor’s degrees were awarded to underrepresented minorities in 2010 (NCES, 2017). In spite of progress in some STEM occupations (e.g., women in chemistry), women, Blacks, Latina/o and Native American Indian individuals (hereafter URMs) continue to be underrepresented among U.S. bachelor’s degree holders in physical sciences, mathematics, and statistics and STEM occupations (National Science Board [NSB], 2018; NCES, 2017). The problem of underrepresentation of women and minorities in STEM is a global concern (UNESCO, 2017) and failure to retain women and URMs in STEM is a continuing and costly problem (Chen, 2013; Glass et al., 2013).

A variety of theoretical lenses have been employed to understand why women and URMs are less likely to major in most STEM fields and to leave STEM occupations (the “leaky pipeline”). These lenses include, but are not limited to, social cognitive career theory (SCCT; e.g., Fouad & Santana, 2017; Lee et al., 2015; Lent et al., 2013), social identity theory (e.g., Kim et al., 2018; Sinclair et al., 2019), and expectancy-value theory (e.g., Robnett & Thoman, 2017; Wegemer & Eccles, 2018). Our aim is not to supplant these frames of reference but to propose another perspective that might enhance theoretical and empirical efforts to address underrepresentation in STEM and that we hope leads to fruitful reflection, investigation, and action.

Gloria Anzaldúa and Nepantla

Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004) was a self-identified queer Chicana feminist writer and activist whose work crossed disciplines, defied categories, and integrated contradictions. In her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), Anzaldúa drew upon the Aztec word “nepantla” which means “the space between two bodies of water, the space between two worlds” (p. 276). She used nepantla to describe a multidimensional (physical, spiritual, psychological, and developmental) and transitional location of in-betweenness, a space and an experience of fully belonging neither to one group, territory, identity, or another. She applied this notion to the in-betweenness in her own life, such as speaking neither standard English nor standard Spanish, and experiences of marginalization by White women as a Chicana and by the Mexican American community as queer. Nepantla, Anzaldúa (2002a) notes, is a disorienting experience, “…that uncertain terrain one crosses when moving from one place to another, when changing from one class, race, or gender position to another, when traveling from the present identity into a new identity” (p. 39) and an “…unstable, unpredictable, precarious, always-in-transition space lacking clear boundaries.” The experience is one of difference and displacement, of not belonging. People with identities distinct from the dominant racial/ethnic group, sexual orientation, social class, or the binary construction gender may resonate with Anzaldúa’s concept of nepantla.

Nepantla is more than a location of difficulty, separateness, and challenge; it is also a space of potential and promise. Anzaldúa (2002a) writes, “Nepantla is the site of transformation, the place where different perspectives come into conflict and where you question the basic ideas, tenets, and identities inherited from your family, your education, and your different cultures (p. 548). As such, while, “Nepantla hurts!” (Keating, 2006, p. 6), it yields a transformative power derived from self-reflection, stepping back from and challenging dominant worldviews, and the growth that comes from these processes. Elenes (2013) referred to nepantla as a zone in which critical reflection and analysis of dominant societal beliefs and assumptions takes place, as well as questioning of personal assumptions, beliefs, and practices and those of groups with whom a person identifies. In nepantla, “you glimpse the sea in which you’ve been immersed but to which you were oblivious, no longer seeing the world the way you were enculturated to see it” (Anzaldúa, 2002b, p. 127).

The intersectional nature of human identities, and the continuous process of human growth, adaptation, and development, means that few people, if any, can completely circumvent the experience of nepantla. In fact, many experience nepantla as an ongoing state of being. “Most of us dwell in nepantla so much of the time it’s become a sort of ‘home’” (Anzaldúa, 2002b, p. 1). A person who does not identify with male or female genders may experience nepantla until the notion of the gender binary is dismantled. An immigrant studying under the temporary protection of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is in another type of nepantla or “liminal legality” (Menjivar, 2006).

Entry into the terrain of nepantla may be stimulated by experiences and events ranging from planned to unanticipated, and from terrible to normative: immigration, war, displacement, injury, acquired disability, divorce, death, falling in love, marriage or partnering, pregnancy, or encounter and immersion into a different culture or worldview. These experiences may challenge deeply held beliefs and disrupt the meaning and fit of long-held identities: citizen, heterosexual, able-bodied, worker, partner, “good person.” A jarring encounter with a coworker may expose one’s flawed assumptions and stereotypes, provoke painful questioning of accepted worldviews, and initiate a process of reassessing beliefs and values. Keating (2006) describes nepantla in terms of radical disidentification (from social structures, from beliefs, from accepted notions of identity) and transformative power derived from this disidentification (p. 9). Given that everyone has identities and worldviews that may shift, perceptions of the world and what is right and wrong, stereotypes and prejudices, experiencing nepantla at some point is likely. This experience, while painful, can launch a process that enables people to reexamine beliefs about the world and evolve in their thinking and critical reflection. To the extent that most people may experience nepantla in their lives, it is a concept with broad potential for application.

Anzaldúa’s work has been used as a lens to understand and enhance a variety of processes including social justice activism (Keating, 2006), teacher education pedagogy (Prieto & Villenas, 2012), and literacy development (DiNicolo & Gonzalez, 2015; Lizárraga & Guitierrez, 2018). The construct of nepantla has been engaged to critically reflect on the unraveling of a project with middle school Latinx students (Silva, 2017) and to inform interventions to promote high school Latinx interest in engineering careers (Mejia et al., 2017) and elementary school science education (Aguilar-Valdez et al., 2013). For example, a nepantla experience may be stimulated among students when science teachers lack adequate preparation for understanding diverse learners and quality multicultural training, and “science education becomes an assimilative system that may either marginalize culturally and linguistically diverse students away from the science field or may abruptly force them to transition from their ‘otherized’ views of science to the dominant, Westernized ways of doing, talking, and knowing science” (Aguilar-Valdez et al., 2013, p. 824). To our knowledge, these Anzaldúan concepts have not been applied to understanding persistence in STEM education and careers among college students or adult workers.

Women and URMs in STEM majors and careers may experience nepantla as they enter a setting in which their worldviews and assets are not acknowledged or valued. The prevailing practices may compel assimilation or submission to an organizational culture that is both familiar and foreign. Students and employees who are not part of the majority group can experience identity threat as they strive to become integrated in the organization (e.g., Hall et al., 2015) and may shift how they present their identities in order to stave off discrimination or minimize anticipated conflict (Dickens & Chavez, 2018). At the same time, the efforts and sacrifices they have invested in order to succeed in a STEM major or career may disrupt or erode familial and other social relationships. The increased social capitol (perceived or actual), decreased availability to meet family obligations, changes in worldview, vocabulary, and expression that may accompany higher education and entry into the world of work, may reduce their sense of connection at home and with extended family (Storlie et al., 2016; Vasquez-Salgado et al., 2015). They may feel they no longer quite belong at home and do not fit in at school or work.

We propose that this state of nepantla may be especially familiar to women and members of ethnic minority groups who have navigated their educational and career pathways amid racism and sexism, in settings that privilege maleness and Whiteness. STEM settings may generate nepantla experiences as newcomers encounter norms, values, policies, and assumptions that are incongruent and even conflictual with their own. This may mean living “…in a constant state of displacement” (Anzaldúa, 2002a, p. 1). The extent to which student or worker identities, values, and social locations are ignored, diminished, or devalued may contribute to decisions not to enter or not to persist in STEM education and work settings.

Nepantleras/os

Some of those experiencing nepantla become nepantleras/os (Anzaldúa, 2002b), described by Keating (2006) as “a unique type of visionary cultural worker” (p. 6). We note that the limits of a gendered language are apparent here, in that being inclusive to females and males by using “as/os” conveys, or leaves intact, a gender binary assumption. We can avoid this by using “nepantlerxs,” consistent with decisions about language made by the National Latinx Psychological Association (Cardemil et al., 2019). At the same time, we acknowledge the newness and challenge of constructing and pronouncing such terms. As such, we opted to employ variations of this word throughout the article.

Nepantleras are people who live within the space of nepantla and who navigate this place of tension and challenge by serving as bridges and connectors between groups and perspectives (Anzaldúa, 2002a). Nepantleras/os refuse to adhere to the belief systems or perspectives of any particular group, which leaves them open to accusations of disloyalty (Keating, 2006). As a poignant example, Anzaldúa (2002a) noted the rhetoric of anger, vengeance, and retaliation that dominated in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack in New York City. She suggested that there was transformative potential within nepantleras’ immediate and longer term responses to the tragedy, writing,
Where others saw borders, these nepantleras saw links; where others saw abysses, they saw bridges spanning those abysses. For nepantleras, to bridge is an act of will, and act of love, an attempt toward compassion and reconciliation, and a promise to be present with the pain of others without losing themselves to it. (Anzaldúa, 2002a, p. 4)
Nepantleras responded to the multifaceted pain of 9/11 and its aftermath with compassion, resisting the intense pressure to essentialize and dichotomize others. Nepantleras/os experience the pain and tension of nepantla and yet move forward into it, utilizing the confusion, contradictions, and pain as a basis for connecting with others, healing, and transformation.

Martinez (2017) argues that the discourse of the 2016 presidential campaign and the subsequent election represented diversity as a threat to the greatness of America and a disruption to White hegemony. In this context, she contends that nepantleras are able to resist the intense pressures to dichotomize the world into us and them categories and do not cocoon themselves among those who share similar beliefs and identities. Instead, nepantleras recognize the multifaceted intersectionalities that characterize their own and others’ lives and continuously learn about, question, and critique their own and others’ positions. Nepantleros are “shapeshifters who leverage our privileged positionalities to provoke critical thought and dialogue” (Martinez, 2017, p. 148), encouraging the development of “accomplice-advocates” and activists through a wide variety of mediums and pedagogies. Nepantleras/os respect the experiences and wisdom of people with widely varying backgrounds and identities. According to Elenes (2013), “Nepantleras/os appreciate that standpoints can emerge out of experiences of privilege and oppression; that is, people of color, women, the working class, and gay/lesbian/ bisexual/transgender are not the only ones who use their experiences as epistemic sources” (p. 136). Thus, while nepantla is not a chosen location, nepantlerismo (acting as nepantlerx) is an agentic response to this location that honors the pain and the potential of not belonging. Both Anzaldúa (2002a) and Martinez (2017) frame nepantlerismo within intense and highly politicized contexts, but nepantlerismo also can be conceived of as a powerful force within everyday STEM education and workplace settings.

Women and URMs often possess lived experiences and resources that are not valued or recognized within their STEM settings. Mejia et al. (2017) propose that a major causal factor of Latinx absence from engineering is that the education system lacks critical sociocultural knowledge about Latinx students. The ongoing tensions and uncertainties of the nepantla state that characterizes young Latinx lives yields knowledge, experiences, resources, and capacities that are unacknowledged and discounted in classrooms. Focus group results showed how the process of applying their lived experience and cultural knowledge to solving engineering problems for their community engaged the assets forged by nepantla:
The adolescents in this study demonstrated that they are nepantleras and nepantleros, and by living in Nepantla, the in-between space, they were able to provide a different interpretation of what engineering means while recognizing their everyday realities. They created bridges and, through their engineering design practices, positioned themselves as agents of change. (Mejia et al., 2017, p. 11)
The Latinx youths’ perceptions of engineering changed, such that they saw engineering as an occupation through which they could help their own communities and live out values of collectivism and familismo (Mejia et al., 2017).

There is some evidence that sociocultural assets such as values and identities play a role in STEM pathways. According to longitudinal findings summarized by Wegemer and Eccles (2018), the desire to help others, make a difference, or give back to the community through their career choice (“occupational altruism”) mediated relationships between femininity and STEM field choice for both male and female participants, and explained more variance in those choices than did perceived math ability. These findings align with Diekman et al.’s (2017) contention that providing opportunities to pursue communal goals via STEM occupations would help address gender gaps in STEM careers. In another study, Kim et al. (2018) used social identity theory to conceptualize underrepresentation in STEM fields. They recommended promoting a STEM identity among middle and high school students, defined in terms of two components: a psychological sense of belonging in the STEM community and social acceptance by others as a member of a STEM community. When girls do not experience belonging in STEM environments, they may change their group identity and exit the environment; alternatively, they may remain in STEM and challenge the construction of STEM identities that exclude them (Kim et al., 2018). These studies highlight one avenue for nepantlerismo; deconstructing STEM stereotypes and constructing STEM careers that manifest women and URM values and identities.

Not all who experience nepantla become nepantleros. The experience of marginality and being without a “home” can diminish agency and result in paralysis. Some pursue exit of nepantla by sacrificing and silencing a part of themselves—giving up an educational dream, passing, leaving a workplace, denying aspects of their sociocultural identities. Among Latina college students, a value of self-sacrifice had a strong negative association with math and science learning experiences, and hostile classroom climates had a strong negative effect on STEM career goals (Castellanos, 2018). Further, nepantlerismo is not exclusively the product of experiences of oppression. Anzaldúa (2002a) recognized the intersecting and dynamic nature of identities, such that both marginalization and privilege may operate in the lives of nepantlerxs.

Up to this point, we have illustrated Anzaldúa’s concepts of nepantla and nepantlerxs and hinted at how these notions may be useful in conceptualizing the experiences of people underrepresented in STEM education and workplaces. What, in concrete terms, does nepantlerismo look like? Gloria Anzaldúa herself is the ideal example, richly illuminated in her own writings (Anzaldúa, 2002a, 2002b). The following examples are personally known to us.

Case Examples of Nepantlerx

Case Example 1

“Sara” is a White young adult female doctoral student in physics. An excellent student in high school, she was one of only three females to pursue a major in physics. In college, she was consistently targeted by nasty remarks from her female friends implying she was not a “real female,” while male students in class questioned derisively why she was studying physics, “it is too difficult for girls, maybe you are a special girl?” She persisted and completed her undergraduate studies in physics with top grades but found the social isolation painful. Due to her love and interest in physics, and her lack of interest in other topics, she decided to pursue a doctorate in physics. Her isolation was magnified, especially during physics labs as the only female student. The male students made no attempt to include her professionally or socially, consistently engaging in what she referred to as “male talk” and making chauvinist sexist jokes. They ignored her requests to stop this behavior. Sara became increasingly lonely and isolated. She found it extremely difficult to ask professional questions and began to avoid sharing her perspectives and suggestions on projects. She was living in nepantla.

Sara reports that her love of physics drove her to persist, and she sought ways to ameliorate her isolation. She sought female friendships among PhD students in the other STEM departments on campus (chemistry and biology). She initiated numerous conversations with female peers but repeatedly was met with short, closed answers. She began to question whether she had “forgotten how to be a female.” In spite of her doubts, Sara decided to initiate a group for STEM female students. She proposed her idea to the female secretary of her department, who supported the idea, provided encouragement, and helped her to bring the group to fruition. As of this writing, the group meets once a month with two main goals: to provide mutual emotional and academic support to female students in the STEM departments and to communicate their needs and obstacles to the academic staff. Sara has found a sense of empowerment in the group that enables her to voice her ideas and insights within her lab; communicate more easily with her professor; and to contribute her talent, deep understanding, and love to the study of physics. Sara created a space for women PhD students in STEM to develop friendships and a professional network, reflect critically on their experience, generate collective strategies for change, and to experience mutual support and belonging. Recently, Sara began to mediate between the female students in STEM and the Dean of Science, bringing their experiences and concerns to the Dean with practical suggestions to improve the current situation. Sara is a nepantlera.

Case Example 2

“John” is a White, male, mid-career energy systems engineer who recently started a new job. Raised on a farm in Appalachia, he took on many responsibilities at a young age after his father experienced a disabling stroke. He was diagnosed with a severe learning disability in college and, for the first time, provided with accommodations and supports. It was only in college that he began to consider the possibility that he was intelligent.

In John’s new position in an engineering firm, he works primarily with younger colleagues from privileged backgrounds. He has expressed amazement at the inefficiencies and illogical processes normative to the organization. He wants to engage the practical problem-solving skills and outside-the-box thinking he developed while helping run a farm with few resources, and recognizes the value that his background adds to his expertise. Yet he also carries a history of being perceived as “stupid,” compounded by a lifetime of exposure to stereotypes about rural, poor Appalachians. This history, the overt age and social class differences between himself and his colleagues, and his role as a new employee and outsider all constrain his potential contributions to the organization and his sense of inclusion. This is a nepantla experience. He struggles with competing tensions: To belong and accommodate, or to offer his perspectives and risk recapitulation of past ostracism and criticism as incompetent.

To date, John’s choices have aligned with a nepantlero stance. For example, at a new job site, John was warned that a colleague there, “Ray,” was an “old-timer” who knew nothing about how a particular set of systems worked. John observed that Ray spoke with an Appalachia-region accent and said little during meetings but was very attentive and appeared to have unexpressed opinions. John sought Ray’s input directly one-on-one and found him to be an excellent source of information. In fact, Ray had a vast knowledge of the system, and professional training directly relevant to the success of John’s team. Ray did not use current terminology and often relied on colloquial metaphors to describe system operations. He was so used to being overlooked and contradicted that he had stopped initiating ideas during meetings. John spoke Ray’s language and was not deterred by the perceptions of others. By drawing out and affirming Ray’s expertise, John satisfied his own values and goals, transformed group perceptions of Ray, and enhanced the group’s ability to achieve its goals. John’s own nepantla experiences allowed him to recognize and activate the critical knowledge possessed by his colleague. John is a nepantlero.

Diversity Initiatives, Inclusion, and Belonging

We have described nepantla as an experience of not belonging that may resonate with women and URMs in STEM settings. But efforts to increase diversity in STEM settings have been in effect for many years. Why haven’t these efforts led to proportional representation? We now consider how lack of inclusion and belonging may stimulate nepantla experiences that are not ameliorated by diversity initiatives in STEM settings.

The motives for increasing and supporting diversity in education and work settings are rooted in business needs as well as moral needs (Lozano & Escrich, 2017; Williams & Clowney, 2007). Business needs include increasing the talent labor pool and ability to meet the needs of diverse markets and to stimulate creativity and innovation (Avery et al., 2007; Jayne & Dipboye, 2004; Joshi & Roh, 2009; Roberson & Park, 2007). Similarly, within higher education, Williams and Clowney (2007) suggest that initiatives focused on diversity are motivated by a combination of four forces: (1) legal and political dynamics associated with changing laws and regulations, (2) increasingly diverse populations that require changes to education in order to maintain competitive advantages in enrollment and funding, (3) need to prepare workers who will be competitive in the post-industrial knowledge economy, and (4) persistent social inequalities that perpetuate racialized divides between those with and without resources and that “make it challenging for institutions of higher education to capitalize on increasing demographic diversity” (p. 3). These are largely business motives. Others note that increasing diversity in education and workplaces is crucial for ethical and moral arguments of equality and opportunities afforded to different demographic subgroups (Bell et al., 2009; Newman et al., 2007). Yet the aim of increasing diversity within higher education settings, whether for business or moral reasons, has been described as a cosmetic one, with the goal, “not so much racial diversity as not being seen as racist against contemporary rhetorics of multiculturalism, multiracialism, and diversity” (Patel, 2015, p. 667).

Diversity practices in workplaces have traditionally focused upon reducing biases that may cause discrimination or upon increasing the managerial representation of minorities (Buengeler et al., 2018; Ely & Thoman, 2001). Investments in diversity training are not always effective (e.g., Homan et al., 2015), in part because many diversity practices fail to foster inclusion (Buengeler et al., 2018). Recruiting diverse students, faculty, and workers is only a first step since actual or perceived differences among organizational members, when left unmanaged, can lead to status distinctions, subgroupings, outgroup discrimination, and polarization (Ferdman, 2017; Shemla et al., 2016; van Dijk et al., 2012). Diversity initiatives may founder when the organization sends mixed messages regarding commitment to diversity (Avery & Johnson, 2008), particularly when employees think that these practices are introduced for profit motives (Ely & Thomas, 1996; McKay & Avery, 2005; Rabl et al., 2020). Heybach and Pickup (2017) contend that diversity efforts limited to increasing women’s access to and confidence in doing STEM work imply that women have much to gain but little to offer STEM; further, they argue that developing a “pink version of STEM” fails to acknowledge the gendered history and construction of STEM fields, perpetuating a gendered hierarchy within science.

Institutional diversity initiatives that emphasize how “diversity helps all students” fail to acknowledge that, in fact, it is White students who derive the benefits of diverse classrooms because racism remains unaddressed and adversely affects the students of color (Cabrera & Corces-Zimmerman, 2017; Linder et al., 2015). In spite of findings that STEM environments are isolating, unwelcoming, and dominated by a culture Whiteness, Patton (2016) contends that faculty largely carry on with the same ethnocentric curricula, practices, and biases, noting that in addition to recruitment, “The racism embedded within STEM learning environments must also be disrupted, particularly if the goal is to retain students of color to contribute to a more diverse STEM workforce” (p. 328). Further, a series of studies conducted by Danbold and Huo (2017) suggested that successful initiatives to increase the representation of women in STEM majors and occupations may increase resistance among some male colleagues, in the form of exclusionary behavior and expecting women to conform to male norms. Thus, recruiting more women and URMs to STEM education and workplaces is not sufficient to achieve the moral or business aims of diversity initiatives.

Inclusion is described by Ferdman (2014, p. 137) as follows: “In inclusive organizations and societies, people of all identities and many styles can be fully themselves while also contributing to the larger collective as valued and full members.” Shore et al. (2018) emphasize that inclusion provides equal opportunities for participation and contribution for members of marginalized and dominant groups while supporting “employees in their efforts to be fully engaged at all levels of the organization and to be authentically themselves” (p. 177). An important aim of inclusion practices is to make diversity an organizational advantage, however, “Diversity of a workforce only provides the opportunity for greater innovation, but without inclusion such a benefit is unlikely” (Shore et al., 2018, p. 178). While diversity can be promoted and developed through policies and legislation (i.e., Affirmative Action, the establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), inclusion involves voluntary actions that require more educational processes (Winters, 2014). Inclusion broadens the scope beyond legally protected attributes to encompass a much larger and wider ranging pool of individual differences (Jayne & Dipboye, 2004).

Belonging is an aspect of inclusion that has been investigated in relationship to underrepresentation in workplaces. Cheryan et al. (2017) found that one of the major reasons for gender imbalance in STEM fields (computer science, engineering, and physics) is a masculine culture that signals a lower sense of belonging to women. A daily diary study of professional women and men engineers found that social identity threat was triggered for women (but not men), via conversations with male (but not female) colleagues that communicated messages of incompetence and not belonging (Hall et al., 2015). These experiences of identity threat were associated with higher levels of mental exhaustion and psychological burnout. For adolescent girls, a lower sense of belonging mediated the effects of gender on their interest in taking a course in computer science (Master et al., 2016). Together these studies suggest that fostering a sense of belonging, and supporting and affirming identities of women and URMs, may be important elements of inclusion that contribute to retention.

How might the concepts of nepantla and nepantlerxs serve efforts to increase inclusion and belongingness among STEM students and employees who bring diverse backgrounds, assets, perspectives, and assumptions into the status quo of a setting? Certainly all efforts to increase inclusion within STEM education and work settings should engage the strengths, experiences, and insights of women and URMs themselves. In keeping with critiques by Heybach and Pickup (2017), Patel (2015), and Parson and Ozaki (2018), the goal is not to change women and URM students and workers in STEM but to transform education settings and workplaces. Such transformation must involve collaboration that addresses individual and group attitudes and behaviors, norms of the setting, and the systems and processes that combine to reinforce assimilation to a White and masculine status quo.

Recommendations

Thus far, we have noted the persistence of the problem of underrepresentation of women and URMs in STEM education and occupations. We introduced the concepts of nepantla and nepantlerxs to shed light on some possible dynamics experienced by women and URMs in STEM and highlighted belonging and inclusion as an important aspect of understanding and improving current inequalities. Consistent with the vision of Frank Parsons, career counseling and guidance professionals advocate for socially responsible interventions that foster inclusion and interrupt replications of marginality, inequality, and injustice through their work (Blustein, 2006, 2013; Duffy et al., 2016; Hartung & Blustein, 2002; Hooley & Sultana, 2016). Our stance is that equal representation is a moral imperative and one that also has significant social and economic benefits for individuals, communities, and society. The nature and quality of STEM education, research, and practice will be enhanced by the reconstructions, critiques, and possibilities that emerge with authentic inclusion (Heybach & Pickup, 2017). In this section, we make suggestions for engaging the concepts of nepantla and nepantlerismo to transform STEM education and workplaces. These recommendations are relevant for and may be tailored to four different groups: Leaders in STEM settings, such as educators, managers, and supervisors; women and URMs in STEM education and work settings; STEM students and employees who are not members of underrepresented groups; and students in preparation for professional roles as career development professionals. Rather than a specific intervention, we propose elements and targets that are consistent with our conceptualization of the problem. We hope to generate ideas that can be tested in support of transformative change.

First, as a general approach, we suggest combining bottom-up and top-down strategies to foster inclusion of women and URMs in STEM settings. Bottom-up strategies elicit, value, and engage the experience and perspectives of students and employees to inform practices and policies in an organization, akin to “Nothing about us without us” from the empowerment movement of people with disabilities (Charlton, 2000). The group of women PhD students in STEM organized by Sara represents a bottom-up strategy, to the extent that their feedback and critical perspectives are respected and purposed to enhance their departments. Bottom-up strategies should tap into the sociocultural assets of all students/employees, and particularly those who are marginalized; nepantleros such as John should be identified and engaged. Authentic inclusion requires that bottom-up strategies deliberately attend to differences in privilege, identity, and experience that shape how and under what conditions (e.g., safety) input is expressed, as well as how processes such as “majority vote” can replicate marginalization (Shore et al., 2018). Top-down strategies are driven by those with supervisory, executive, or other leadership roles (program and department heads, deans, human resources (HR), executives, managers, supervisors). Leaders implement the processes and policies that shape the experiences of STEM students and employees. Leaders influence the tone of their units, and their attitudes, knowledge, skills, and deficits will enhance or constrain the fruits of inclusion efforts. Top-down strategies should promote an authentic and deep commitment to a culture of inclusion, which will require navigating multiple tensions and paradoxes (see Ferdman, 2017).

Top-down and bottom-up intervention models have been used successfully in organizational interventions aiming to increase job resources and work engagement (see Bakker, 2015). We suggest combining top-down with bottom-up strategies to realize interventions in three emphasis areas: information, exploration, and skills training.

Information

Information interventions can be used to create shared understanding of the meaning and practice of inclusion, its moral value, and its benefits to individuals, the organization, and the broader society (Ferdman, 2017). Content should disentangle diversity from inclusion and address intersectionality, privilege, and power (Shore et al., 2018). Inclusion may be presented as a human right. Information interventions should convey the realities and experiences of women and URMs in STEM through dissemination of research findings as well as drawing upon context-specific sources. For example, are there meeting minutes, program evaluations, program or organizational reports that can be examined with an ear to voices from nepantla? Focus groups may be utilized to generate information and insight into the unacknowledged assets of diverse students and workers and identify practices that elicit and that stifle these assets. It may be useful to introduce the concept of nepantla, and how messages of not belonging may give rise to isolation and disengagement and deprive STEM settings of critical resources. It is important also to highlight the transformative potential of nepantla as a basis for agentic action.

Exploration

Exploration interventions engage participants in processes of self-reflection and development of critical awareness. Greater understanding of experiences of nepantla may generate a sense of validation as participants come to recognize how the pain and ambiguity of this existential experience also can lead to growth and development. How are experiences of nepantla—of not belonging, of unrecognized assets—being systematically reinforced in the STEM environment? What or who have been resources for navigating nepantla? Who are the nepantlerxs in the immediate education or work environment, and how do they challenge assumptions and build bridges? Exploration activities can illuminate and affirm the sociocultural assets that develop from student and worker nepantla experiences. Special attention should be given to students-in-training and leaders/managers to connect with their own nepantla experiences and to identify how their own sociocultural assets have been engaged, ignored, or devalued in their current settings and prior experiences. Another focus of exploration is to identify assumptions about diversity and inclusion in academia and in the world of work and enable participants to recognize and process their own negative reactions, resistances, and fears regarding inclusion and inclusive practices (Danbold & Huo, 2017; Fisher, 2018).

Skill Training

The tensions and fruits of nepantla living generate experiences and knowledge that typically are invisibilized in homogeneous higher education and workplace settings. Leaders can be supported in developing the skills to recognize and engage the critical sociocultural knowledge that diverse students and employees bring (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016), to practice inclusive leadership, and to identify practices that allow such assets to be overlooked and sacrificed in education and work settings. Educators, managers, and students in training can learn to elicit and affirm others’ sociocultural knowledge, experiences, and worldviews and to implement practices that activate these resources.

The ability to identify and support nepantlerxs within classrooms and organizations may help retain not just those individuals but the students and workers who they affect and enrich. Nepantleras/os in STEM settings will have insights valuable, if not essential, to transformation efforts. They will have feedback that challenges current assumptions and practices. Nepantlerx input will be easy to dismiss as too radical, not how we do things, inconsistent with policy, not necessary, and inconvenient. In Anzaldúa’s words:
They can see through our cultural conditioning and through our respective cultures’ toxic ways of life. They try to overturn the destructive perceptions of the world that we’ve been taught by our various cultures. They change the stories about who we are and about our behavior…. They serve as agents of awakening, inspire and challenge others to deeper awareness, greater conocimiento…. (p. 293)
Efforts to support nepantlerx in STEM programs and organizations may include helping students and employees to live with the tensions and challenges of nepantla, to manage multiple and contradicting ideas, feelings, and identities, and to forge more complex identities that include a STEM identity. Training may include how to foster agency and advocacy among nepantlerxs, and training setting leaders and other students and employees to listen, and to seek and consider diverse perspectives. Training might also include how to interrupt stereotypical comments and other microaggressions, how to respond to White fragility (DiAngelo, 2011) and to beliefs that White men are prototypical of STEM students and professionals (Danbold & Huo, 2017). Training should also focus on inclusive practices and how to change the environment to convey and promote a sense of belonging. Students in training should learn to see all “residents” of nepantla as potential change agents, and as resources and assets for themselves and others.

Across information, exploration, and training interventions, bottom-up and top-down strategies mean that the diverse perspectives and lived experiences of women and URMs in STEM are sought, engaged, and affirmed. Such efforts and inclusive practices have broad benefits, from individuals’ experience of being valued to organizational capacity and well-being.

Research Recommendations

The concepts of nepantla and nepantlerismo have not been applied to STEM education and workplace settings with college students or adults, and we found only two applications of these concepts to Latinx children in science and engineering, respectively. There is great potential for research on this topic, using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies, to address questions such as the following: Can nepantlerxs be reliably identified? Is the presence of nepantlerx students and workers associated with greater inclusion and belonging, and/or less stereotypical STEM identities? What processes contribute to the transformation from dwelling in nepantla to becoming a nepantlerx? What practices are effective, and under what conditions, for training leaders in STEM settings (e.g., managers, professors, supervisors) to (a) recognize and engage nepantlerx, (b) identify and activate unrecognized sociocultural assets, (c) disrupt stereotypes regarding STEM identities, and (d) foster inclusion and belonging? How can nepantla experiences be engaged to foster nepantlerismo? That is, how can experiences of not belonging, of unrecognized or devalued assets be translated into agentic practices used to build awareness, change practices, and foster inclusion? What qualities, processes, and policies characterize STEM settings in which inclusion is practiced and nepantlerxs are valued? How does a moral agenda of inclusive practice and engagement of nepantlerx in STEM translate into recruitment and retention in STEM?

Summary and Conclusion

In this article, we use the work of Gloria Anzaldúa, specifically her notions of nepantla and nepantleras, to expand perspectives of the underrepresentation of women and URMs in STEM. We propose that STEM education and work settings initiate and/or perpetuate nepantla experiences and that efforts to increase representation in STEM must go beyond diversity aims and strive for full inclusion. Nepantleras/os within STEM environments are a critical resource for education and workplace inclusion efforts because of their ability to bridge divides, recognize sociocultural assets, and transform contexts through their empathy, critical awareness, experience, and knowledge. Our recommendations are framed within a bottom-up, top-down model that emphasizes information, exploration, and skill training efforts. Transforming STEM environments to be authentically inclusive will require the insights and advocacy of nepantlerxs people and the proactive collaboration of STEM setting leaders and fellow students and workers. Recognizing the pain and potential of nepantla and activating the resources of nepantlerx within STEM settings, are key elements of transformational change.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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

Funding

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

ORCID iD

Ellen Hawley McWhirter

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