Abstract
In this chapter, we argue that intersectionality is a theoretical and methodological framework by which education researchers can critically examine why and how students in STEM fields who are members of intersecting marginalized groups have distinctive experiences related to their social identities, other psychological processes, and educational outcomes. Taken separately, the bodies of education research focused on the experiences of Black students and female students in STEM fields often render Black women and girls “hidden figures” in that they have not sufficiently addressed their simultaneous racialized and gendered experiences in educational contexts. Additionally, we find that the current discourse on intersectionality is limited in that it does not attend to key psychological processes associated with identity and the intersectional experience in STEM education. We take a theoretical and methodological approach to examining intersectionality in STEM education and provide a new interpretation of the literature on Black women and girls in this social context. A synthesis of (N = 60) research studies revealed that (1) identity; (2) STEM interest, confidence, and persistence; (3) achievement, ability perceptions, and attributions; and (4) socializers and support systems are key themes within the experiences of Black women and girls in STEM education. Our analysis also highlights the ways that researchers have employed intersectionality to make the experiences of Black women and girls in STEM education more visible, or “unhidden.” We discuss these findings from a psychological perspective and provide insights to guide future research and practice directions in STEM education.
Margo Lee Shetterly’s non-fiction book, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race, was released in 2016 and met with critical acclaim. Set in 1967, Hidden Figures tells the story of three African American 1 women, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughn, who worked as “human computers” for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration performing highly complex calculations to support pivotal space launches from the United States. The book details not only the persistent gender and racial discrimination the women faced professionally but also their extraordinary intellectual aptitude in mathematics and engineering, and the full lives they led as daughters, wives, mothers, teachers, and members of their community. Hidden Figures rose to first place on the New York Times bestseller list, and a motion picture film of the same name was released the same year, earning three Academy Awards nominations including Best Film. Despite the recent popularity of these stories and decades of research studies and educational interventions aimed at increasing the participation of “women and minorities” in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), policymakers, researchers, and educators still contend with ways to explain and address the gender and racial disparity in these fields (National Science and Technology Council, Committee on STEM Education, 2013).
There are three prominent reasons for the attention placed on the status of women and racial ethnic minorities in STEM: the current demand for professionals to fill the STEM workforce, the benefit of diverse perspectives and ideas to promote STEM innovation and discovery, and the social justice imperative to ensure equity in STEM access and literacy as our society advances technologically. However, the rhetorical focus on “women and minorities” in STEM risks treating these two groups as mutually exclusive and obscuring the particular experiences of individuals who exist as members of both groups. Furthermore, education research and practice efforts to address diversity issues in STEM have failed to adequately contend with the ways U.S. institutions have historically marginalized students of color while educationally privileging both whiteness and maleness (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Intersectionality, a term that has been used to describe the meaning and consequences of multiple categories of group membership (Cole, 2009), is a concept that can facilitate a critical examination of educational experiences of students in STEM fields across and within groups, and consider the multidimensional co-constructing factors that may promote or preclude the participation of underrepresented students in STEM fields.
Black women represent approximately 7% of the United States (noninstitutionalized) population, yet they remain underrepresented in the majority of STEM fields. As of 2014, the proportion of Black women earning degrees in biological sciences (4.23%), computer sciences (2.61%), physical sciences (2.83%), mathematics and statistics (2.35%), and engineering (0.99%) remain disproportionately low (National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2017). In the context of national efforts to promote diversity and inclusion within STEM fields, the double bind is cited as a hindrance for Black women throughout the educational and professional pipeline (Charleston, Adserias, Lang, & Jackson, 2014; Hanson, 2008; Malcom, Hall, & Brown, 1976; Ong, Wright, Espinosa, & Orfield, 2011). The double bind refers to the exclusion of women of color in STEM and the undermining of their career pursuits because of both racism and sexism. Notwithstanding its conceptual ambiguity in the research literature, we assert that the concept of intersectionality, rooted in Black feminist theory (Crenshaw,1989), has particular utility for advancing discourse on Black women and girls beyond the initial framing of the double bind and examining their complex and multidimensional experiences within STEM education.
In our discussion of STEM education, we focus on core subjects across the academic pipeline as well as STEM fields in which Black women are significantly underrepresented. Therefore, we do not address research on Black women and girls in psychological science or other social sciences. We also do not address training in allied health professions such as medicine, dentistry, or nursing; however, we acknowledge that preparatory educational experiences in core academic subjects such as biology and chemistry will encompass the students who are positioning themselves to enter those professional fields. We also acknowledge the variance in degree of underrepresentation for Black women and girls across the various STEM fields, the unique cultural and historical contexts of each discipline, and thus the need for differentiated interventions and approaches to understanding the way students are educated in these areas.
Taken separately, the bodies of education research focused on the experiences of Black students and female 2 students in STEM fields often render Black women and girls hidden figures in that they have not sufficiently addressed their simultaneous racialized and gendered experiences in educational contexts. When the unique experiences of Black women and girls are hidden in aggregate results, their intersectional experiences are largely ignored. Recently, notable reviews of education research on women and girls of color in STEM across the educational pipeline have provided insights on the personal and institutional factors that influence their participation and success in STEM fields (see Espinosa, 2011; Joseph, Hailu, & Boston, 2017; Ong et al., 2011), and authors have discussed the invisibility of Black women and girls in discourse on participation and achievement in particular STEM fields (see Gholson, 2016). These works are enriched by their nuanced interpretations of the literature and their use of critical frameworks such as critical race theory and intersectionality.
Collins and Bilge (2016) argue that “much is at stake for getting the relationship between identity and intersectionality right” (p. 115) and present an extensive discussion on this topic, including the implications of identity politics in the context of hip hop culture and the limits of essentialized or “fixed” perceptions of identity in intersectionality discourse. However, we also find limitations in the literature on intersectionality in that it has not consistently conceptualized identity (i.e., the internalized and evolving narrative of self; see McAdams, 2001) and has not addressed the multidimensional psychological nature of social identity (e.g., salience, centrality, regard, and ideology; see Sellers, Smith, Shelton, Rowley, & Chavous, 1998) or attended to other key psychological constructs and dynamics related to the intersectional experience, such as identity interference (i.e., experience of difficulty enacting multiple identities; see Settles, 2006), stereotype threat (i.e., risk of conforming to stereotypes about one’s social group; see Bowe, Desjardins, Covington Clarkson, & Lawrenz, 2017), and self-efficacy (i.e., belief in one’s ability to succeed in a given situation or accomplish a given task; see MacPhee, Farro, & Canetto, 2013). We believe it is important to attend to the psychological meaning and experience (i.e., mental processes and behaviors) associated with being a Black woman or girl in STEM education because these factors influence students’ choices and ultimate success in STEM fields.
We argue that intersectionality is a theoretical and methodological framework by which education researchers can critically examine why, how, and in what situations students in STEM fields who are members of intersecting marginalized groups have distinctive experiences related to their social identities, psychological processes, and educational outcomes. This framework can also be used to evaluate the extent to which research methods facilitate the illumination or obfuscation of student experiences across multiple axes of power and privilege within STEM education. We also argue that Black women and girls exist at the intersection of two primarily underrepresented social identity groups in STEM education and that intersectionality is an essential lens through which Black women and girls emerge as unhidden figures and by which education researchers and practitioners can enhance our understanding of this particular population in the literature. We consider how the construct of the psychology of intersectionality in education adds value to theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding Black women and girls’ experiences in STEM education.
In this chapter we (1) describe ways intersectional approaches have produced new knowledge about the education of Black women and girls in STEM and identify common themes throughout this body of work with a focus on psychological processes and educational outcomes and (2) evaluate the various ways in which researchers of Black women and girls in STEM education have employed intersectionality as both a theoretical and a methodological framework, including opportunities for intersectionality to advance education research in this area. First, we present the theories and perspectives that frame our analysis and discussion of intersectionality among Black women and girls in STEM education. Next, we detail the methodological approach we took for this review, including our literature search process and analytic framework. We then present the findings of our analysis with respect to themes within the literature and intersectional approaches. We conclude with a discussion on how scholars and practitioners can advance knowledge about intersectionality among Black women and girls in STEM education.
Theoretical Framing
The Evolution of “Intersectionality”
The context of Crenshaw’s (1989, 1991) discussion of intersectionality was to confront the inadequacy of one-dimensional antiracist and antidiscriminatory discourse in addressing the sociopolitical concerns of Black women. Over time, scholars from multiple disciplines have wrestled with how to conceptualize the term intersectionality (see Cho, Crenshaw, & McCall, 2013; Cole, 2009; Collins, 2015; Collins & Bilge, 2016). Is intersectionality an experience, an analytic framework for conceptualizing problems, or a method of inquiry for scholarship and practical application? Scholars have also grappled with how to best characterize its origins (e.g., expressions of it in writing, naming of the term). Should the origins of “intersectionality” be credited to early activists who asserted in various ways within their movements that race, gender, and class are simultaneously experienced (e.g., Combahee River Collective, 1977/1995; hooks, 1981) or should its origins be attributed to the explicit coining of the term intersectionality and its legal application (see Crenshaw, 1989, 1991; J. A. Winston, 1991)?
Also, scholars have contended with how best to apply the core tenets of common conceptualizations to contexts outside of the law (see Cole, 2009; Collins, 2015). These challenges notwithstanding, scholars from the fields of psychology, sociology, and legal studies have produced seminal syntheses of the knowledge and frameworks that consider how to conceptualize and analyze the implications and meanings of multiple social statuses (e.g., Cho et al., 2013; Cole, 2009; Collins, 2015). Collins’s (2015) discussion of intersectionality’s definitional dilemmas confronts urgent questions regarding how the concept is operationalized, including its development as a field of study, an analytic strategy, and a form of critical praxis.
We conceptually define intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological approach to understanding the meaning and consequences of holding multiple co-constructing categories of social group membership. This approach is centered on an examination of power and privilege (within and across groups) as well as attention to the personal, interpersonal, and structural significance of simultaneous social group membership. In a recent keynote speech, Crenshaw (2016) rightly clarifies that her original articulation of intersectionality was a theory not of multiple identities but of how holding certain identities makes one vulnerable to discrimination and exclusion. We define identity as a person’s internal and evolving sense of self (both as an individual and as a member of various social groups). Our present discussion is concerned with social identity (e.g., racial identity, gender identity, occupational identity) and is informed by well-established psychological research on the multidimensional nature of social identity (e.g., racial salience, racial centrality, public/private racial regard, and racial ideology in the case of racial identity; see Sellers et al., 1998). Consistent with Crenshaw, our understanding of intersectionality as it relates to identity is not simply as a matter of group membership (which we all have) but as the psychological meaning of membership in oppressed groups, for example, how important is membership in one’s racial or gender group to one’s personal sense of self? What is one’s assessment of how their racial or gender group is viewed by broader society and what consequences does this assessment have for one’s personal sense of self? These considerations include the personal, interpersonal, and structural implications associated with group membership (all of which vary by group and intersection).
The Psychology of Intersectionality in STEM Education
Within education research on student outcomes, race and gender are often analyzed simply as social categories. This approach may assume that structural dynamics of race and gender are accounted for by the very practice of examining groups. However, this approach may mask important aspects of the specific psychological experiences associated with being a member of a particular racial or gender group. For example, racial and gender identity construction are important psychological processes to understand in relation to educational outcomes. Within the field of psychology, there is research that describes and explains race and gender beyond simple categorization. This framing is important since race and gender are described as central axes and privilege within scholarship on intersectionality (e.g., Cole, 2009; Collins, 2015; Crenshaw, 1989).
We define the psychology of intersectionality as the mental processes and behavioral choices associated with the meaning and consequences of holding multiple co-constructing categories of social group membership. More specifically, theoretically, the psychology of intersectionality in education explains why some students in STEM fields may have a distinctive experience related to their social identities, particularly with respect to psychological constructs and educational outcomes such as STEM achievement and perceptions of ability (i.e., self-efficacy), belonging, and stereotype threat. Educational psychologists are increasingly concerned with the theoretical and empirical relationship of identity to educational outcomes, such as motivation and persistence (Eccles, 2009; Elmore & Oyserman, 2012; Perez, Cromley, & Kaplan, 2014). The incorporation of intersectionality adds contextual meaning and depth to this area of inquiry, particularly with respect to applications in education research.
Methodologically, the psychology of intersectionality in education considers how our sampling procedures facilitate the obfuscation or illumination of student experiences across and within social groups, how our modes of inquiry allow us to apprehend the personal and social impact or meaning of intersectionality in STEM education, and the sufficiency of our analytic approaches for addressing questions of student beliefs and behaviors in STEM education. Settles and colleagues’ (Settles, 2004, 2006; Settles, Jellison, & Pratt-Hyatt, 2009) research on identity interference among Black women and women scientists is an example of a psychometric approach to ascertaining the meaning and consequences of holding multiple co-constructing categories of social group membership—particularly when one experiences difficulty enacting particular identities simultaneously. In their discussion of the future of intersectionality studies, Cho et al. (2013) address the ways that various disciplines have approached methodological standards and practices in the study of intersectionality and Cole’s (2009) approach is noted as one of the pathways taken up in the field of psychology. In the subsequent section on the methodology we used to review the literature, we explain how we used Cole’s framework, posed as three questions for conceptualizing intersectionality in the research studies, and why this approach is a particularly useful standard for intersectional inquiry in education research.
Methodology
Our review of the literature on Black women and girls in STEM education was conducted using a three-phase data collection process: literature search, abstract screening, and full text screening. We conducted searches of the following databases: EBSCOhost, Academic Search Complete, PsycInfo, PsycArticles, ERIC, and SocINDEX with Full Text. Our search included combinations of the following keywords: Black OR African American, minority OR underrepresented, women OR girls, women of color, girls of color, STEM, science, technology, mathematics, engineering, physics, biology, chemistry, education, students, and intersectionality. These searches resulted in 1,290 unique sources, which we worked collaboratively to reduce through an iterative process of screening abstracts and full text documents.
Inclusion Criteria and Screening
We originally intended to review conceptual papers and empirical studies from 1976 (the year Malcom et al. published their seminal Double Bind report) to date. However, to fully engage with the breadth of research addressing the experiences of Black women and girls in STEM education contexts and also focus our attention on the knowledge generated from this body of work, we removed the restriction on publication date and narrowed our inclusion criteria to include only publications reporting on empirical research or original analyses of secondary data with disaggregated results for Black women or girls in STEM education. We included dissertations in the first phase of our screening process, as they included valuable references; however, dissertations were ultimately screened out in the second phase of our screening.
The following questions guided phase one of our screening process:
In the first phase of screening, we worked in pairs to review the 1,290 abstracts and determine if the source would advance to a full text review. The first phase of screening resulted in 407 sources, which were distributed among our team for a review of the full text. The second phase of our process entailed a closer review of the document to reconfirm that the source met our inclusion criteria and check that the results were disaggregated such that there were data reported on Black women or girls in STEM education. The second phase of screening resulted in N = 60 sources, which were analyzed to address our research questions. Studies that investigated an all-Black and -female sample were n = 17 (28%). In the remaining studies, Black women and girls represented a subset of the sample for which results were explicitly reported.
Analytic Process
We set out to analyze the sources by first identifying a priori codes based on theory, the goals of our review, and prior literature. We incorporated emergent codes that were identified as we reviewed content patterns across the sources. Our final codebook consisted of 33 codes, which were categorized as theory (e.g., critical race theory, feminist theory, intersectionality theory), educational level/context (e.g., elementary school, middle school, high school, etc.), STEM field (e.g., biology, chemistry, physics, math, engineering, etc.), psychological construct (e.g., identity, achievement, interest, belonging, stereotype threat, etc.), and research design (e.g., program evaluation, research study, qualitative methods, quantitative methods, etc.). Additionally, we extracted the research questions, findings, and recommendations from each source to compare and contrast their contributions to the knowledge base. Throughout our analytic coding process, we collaboratively assessed the validity of our codes and our interrater reliability to ensure the accuracy and consistency of our methods.
Cole (2009) describes the importance of interdisciplinarity for advancing our understanding of intersectionality and the benefit of broad perspectives for approaching research problems and questions concerning social categories. We based our evaluation of the way intersectionality was employed with the literature using the criteria established by Cole, which are posed as three questions for conceptualizing intersectionality in the methodology used in the research process: (1) Who is included in this category? (2) What role does inequality play? (3) Where are the similarities? Cole’s framework originated from the lens of psychological research but has been cited widely and highlighted by prominent intersectionality scholars (Cho et al., 2013). We believe these three questions provide a holistic basis for assessing the potential for intersectional inquiry through one’s methodological choices and are suitable for application among a variety of research disciplines, including education research.
As we analyzed sources using the first question, we considered, does the research attend to diversity within social categories (i.e., are within-group differences among Black women and girls addressed)? For the second question, we considered, does the research address structural inequality, not just individual- or person-level characteristics? For the third question, we considered, does the researcher identify commonalities across different groups, such that the focus of the research is not limited to differences? In our analytic coding process, we established a priori codes for the demographic attributes and psychological constructs; however, we did not break down the three questions posted by Cole (2009) as codes (e.g., types of structural inequality). Instead, for that portion of our analysis, we looked for evidence to confirm whether the authors attended to these three considerations and extracted the evidence if present.
Findings
Themes Within the Literature on Black Girls and Women in STEM Education
To demonstrate how intersectional approaches have produced new knowledge concerning the education of Black women and girls in STEM, we present themes that emerged during the review of the literature. The authors referenced in this section addressed (measured, manipulated, and/or analyzed) psychological constructs within the STEM educational context uniquely influenced by intersections of race and gender. Additionally, these works present Black women and girls as unhidden figures by sampling exclusively or disaggregating data on Black girls and women in STEM education settings to facilitate the visibility of their unique educational experience. These themes include (1) identity; (2) STEM interest, confidence, and persistence; (3) achievement, ability perceptions, and attributions; and (4) socializers and support systems. The section concludes with a presentation of themes unique to specific educational levels.
Identity
Identity, particularly the development of STEM identity, 3 was a key theme throughout the literature on Black women and girls in STEM. Learning opportunities that enhance early exposure to science can be instrumental in fostering a science identity for young girls by creating opportunities to see oneself as a “scientist” (Riedinger & Taylor, 2016). At the elementary and secondary levels, there is a greater focus on cultivating a STEM identity through conceptual understanding and exposure to STEM-related activities (e.g., Buck, Cook, Quigley, Eastwood, & Lucas, 2009; Scott & White, 2013), whereas studies at the collegiate level tend to explore barriers to maintaining STEM identity development (Carlone & Johnson, 2007). Black women in STEM have experienced sexist encounters that foster a sense of disconnection from science and threaten to disrupt their STEM identity development (Carlone & Johnson, 2007). As early as elementary school, Black girls have been shown to disaffiliate (i.e., report not sharing characteristics or behaviors) with peers identified as a “smart science student” (Carlone, Haun-Frank, & Webb, 2011). Still, STEM identity development promotes success among Black women in STEM undergraduate programs (Jackson, 2013). For Black women transferring from community college, environments at historically Black colleges or universities (HBCU) have better facilitated STEM identity development because they are less culturally shocking and composed of other women who look like them (Jackson, 2013).
In addition to STEM identity development, personal identity (or personal definition of self) was also a prominent theme for Black girls and women in STEM. Self-definition and self-valuation (i.e., the content of self-definition) are considered a significant component of the collegiate experience for Black women (Gibson & Espino, 2016). Social perceptions of the self among Black women can be affected by gender and racial stereotypes within one’s STEM discipline (Gibson & Espino, 2016). In STEM education settings, Black women experience imposed definitions of who they are and expectations, such as being too feminine or angry (Gibson & Espino, 2016). While grappling with the conflicts between imposed identities and one’s true sense of self, Black women may find themselves in situations where they must negotiate how to represent themselves. Black women may adopt the belief that they need to become masculine in order to thrive within a STEM environment (Ong, 2005), or redefine their membership in a stigmatized group to reflect an advantage (Carlone & Johnson, 2007). Black women have also employed strategies to enhance the representation of their blackness on campus to demonstrate resistance to the stereotypical appearance of a scientist (Ong, 2005). For some Black women, personal and family identities are considered more salient than a STEM identity, and a sense of segregation in STEM education settings can potentially affect one’s racial, ethnic, and cultural identity, as well as persistence in STEM fields (Ong, 2005).
STEM Interest, Confidence, and Expectations
Prior research has found that identity development is related to students’ interest (or intrinsic motivation), competence beliefs, and expectancy for success in STEM education (Perez et al., 2014). Our analysis found patterns of STEM interest, confidence, and expectations for success within the literature on Black women and girls. Varma and Hahn (2008) found a pattern of increased interest in science over time from middle to high school for Black girls in computing majors. However, in higher education, large class sizes and difficulty in chemistry courses have been linked to declining interest in premedical studies among African American female students (Barr, Matsui, Wanat, & Gonzalez, 2010). With regard to achievement expectations, Black girls in high school, relative to boys, have reported greater expectations for success in science but lower expectations for success in mathematics (Else-Quest, Mineo, & Higgins, 2013). Still, Litzler, Samuelson, and Lorah (2014) found Black undergraduate women in engineering demonstrated similar STEM confidence levels as their White male peers after controlling for personal, environmental, and behavioral factors (e.g., student experiences and GPA). Due to divergent findings on the same analyses for African American men (higher STEM confidence than White men) and White women (lower STEM confidence than White men) after controlling for the aforementioned variables, Litzler et al. (2014) discuss the implications for understanding the differences in STEM confidence levels across different ethnic and gender groups of students as well exploring unmeasured factors that might contribute to STEM confidence. We believe that the experience of intersectionality, including its impact on students’ mental processes and subsequent behaviors, largely accounts for these differences across and within these social groups.
Achievement, Perceptions of Ability, and Attributions
In educational psychology, the expectancy-value model of achievement motivation illustrates the ways personal and collective identities inform motivational beliefs (i.e., the value students hold for STEM education and the expectations for success in these fields) and that these beliefs in turn mediate students’ achievement related choices (Eccles, 2009). Despite some evidence of low performance in secondary school and higher education STEM foundational courses (Chambers, Walpole, & Outlaw, 2016; Farinde & Lewis, 2012; Gilmartin, 1976; Russell & Russell, 2015), the literature also shows Black women have experienced an early recognition of ability in STEM education, stemming from the messages received by others (Rice & Alfred, 2014). However, scholars have found self-ratings of engineering learning outcomes among Black undergraduate women to be significantly lower than those of their White peers—a finding not evident for Black men (Ro & Loya, 2015). Although some research has found no significant difference in science self-efficacy between Black and White women undergraduates (Gwilliam & Betz, 2001), diminished academic self-efficacy is evident for some Black women in graduate programs (Alexander & Hermann, 2016). Over time, Black high school girls also experience declines in math self-efficacy (Chambers et al., 2016).
With regard to math ability, Black women at the collegiate level have reported lower self-ratings than Black boys (Hartman, 1991), but this pattern differs in secondary education. Although not explicitly reporting on perceived ability, Black girls in high school have perceived math to be less of a challenge than do Black boys but perceive greater difficulty in science (Martinez & Guzman, 2013). With regard to classroom performance, a high school study with a predominately Black sample reported that girls and boys receive similar math grades and report a similar level of math self-efficacy (M. H. Jones & Ford, 2014). On the other hand, Black girls’ perceptions of their math self-concept, as opposed to math self-efficacy, are lower in comparison to the self-perceptions of Black boys (Else-Quest et al., 2013). Additionally, when it comes to math performance, Swinton, Kurtz-Costes, Rowley, and Okeke-Adeyanju (2011) found math success and failure attributions among Black girls grow more negative over time. Furthermore, Black girls use ability attributions to explain English success more than math and science success, and Black girls are more likely than Black boys to attribute math success to effort (Swinton et al., 2011). Additionally, Swinton et al. did not find gender differences in failure ability attributions in math, but they did find girls were more likely than boys to attribute science failure to lack of effort.
Socializers and Support Systems
Socializers, or socializing agents, are interpersonal influences that provide guidance and structure for the development of STEM identity, confidence, and achievement. Socializing agents and support systems play a critical role in STEM achievement and the development of STEM identity and interest among Black women and girls. A support system consisting of family, teachers, peers, and minority networks is critical for African American women in STEM education (Rice & Alfred, 2014; Tate & Linn, 2005). The research also points to the positive influence of institutional support, particularly mentoring at the graduate level, among Black women in STEM education (Borum & Walker, 2012). Science role model characteristics are also important in STEM identity development, as Black girls have expressed the belief that science role models should be people of color (Buck, Clark, Leslie-Pelecky, Lu, & Cerda-Lizarraga, 2008), and Black female computer-based models are shown to be more effective in impacting Black undergraduate women’s engineering attitudes (Rosenberg-Kima, Plant, Doerr, & Baylor, 2010). Furthermore, Stearns et al. (2016) found schools with more female math and science teachers did not influence whether or not Black girls declared a STEM major in college or graduated from a STEM program and noted the larger percentage of White math and science teachers than Black teachers as a possible explanation. With regard to peer influence, young Black girls’ social status within a mathematics classroom is more influential in dictating participation during cooperative learning opportunities than their competence beliefs—students with a lower social status are less engaged than those with high social status (Gholson & Martin, 2014).
In addition to teachers, peers, and role models outside the home, parents play a role in promoting STEM achievement and interest. One’s home environment, in addition to museums and science fairs, typically provide opportunities for younger children to learn science (McPherson, 2014). In high school, however, these learning opportunities in the home tend to decline for Black girls (McPherson, 2014). Parents’ math expectations are also shown to have a positive relationship with math self-concept among Black girls (Entwisle, Alexander, Pallas, & Cadigan, 1987). Furthermore, the correlation between standardized math test performance and high school GPA among students whose parents earned a college degree was relatively low for African American girls (compared to African American and White boys); this correlation among students whose parents earned a high school diploma was as high among African American girls as White girls (Bridgeman, McCamley-Jenkins, & Ervin, 2000). Additionally, through practice with mathematical concepts at home or culturally responsive pedagogy in the classroom, socializing agents, such as parents and teachers, respectively, can enhance Black girls’ identity construction and learning outcomes in mathematics (Young, Young, & Capraro, 2017). Self-valuation construction in STEM among Black girls is also fostered by family and community (Gibson & Espino, 2016).
Gendered socialization may also influence STEM attitudes and beliefs. Gilmartin (1976) found 22% of Black high school girls believed that not very often or never could women do the same work as men, an attitude that was most frequently held by Black and Hispanic students. However, O’Brien, Blodorn, Adams, Garcia, and Hammer (2015) found that Black undergraduate women hold weaker beliefs regarding the masculinity of STEM fields than White women. Additionally, when interacting with Black computer-based models, Rosenberg-Kima et al. (2010) found Black women are less likely to endorse gender stereotypes than those interacting with White models. The aforementioned themes were evident across educational levels; however, there are developmental differences between Black girls and women and themes that are particular to their experiences across the STEM education pipeline. The following section will highlight themes unique to levels of education.
Elementary and Secondary Education
STEM interventions and instructional practices
Among the sources reviewed, with the exception of one higher education research-based instructional intervention (Goertzen, Brewe, Kramer, Wells, & Jones, 2011), interventions and instructional practices designed to enhance STEM interest and scientific understanding were more dominant in elementary and secondary schools than higher education contexts (e.g., Buck et al., 2009; Scott & White, 2013). In addition to culturally responsive instructional approaches (e.g., Scott & White, 2013), active learning and hands-on activities enhance STEM identity development and/or increase STEM interest for Black girls in middle school STEM environments (Ferreira, 2002; Riedinger & Taylor, 2016). In addition to instructional practices, structural changes such as single-sex groups and classrooms in elementary and middle school promote a greater understanding of technology concepts (Seay, 2004), as well as increase math achievement (Bowe et al., 2017), for Black girls. Affirmation writing interventions have also been implemented in attempts to minimize stereotype threat for Black girls during mathematics assessments, though the effects were not found to be statistically significant (Bancroft, Bratter, & Rowley, 2017).
College preparedness and STEM major intent
STEM interventions and programming targeted at Black girls are also evident in high schools, but an additional and more dominant theme for high school is college preparedness and STEM major intent. With respect to academic preparedness, studies found that some Black women had inadequate high school preparation for STEM college courses and that students felt underprepared academically while in STEM programs at predominantly White institutions (PWIs; Joseph, 2012; Russell & Russell, 2015). In addition to academic preparedness, high school factors are often measured to determine one’s intent to enroll in college and declare a STEM major. Black girls’ selected field of study in college is associated with their desired college major as a sophomore in high school, math attitudes, and the number of math and science courses completed during high school (Maple & Stage, 1991). Additionally, achievement test scores and mother’s education are positively associated with Black girls’ choice of major as high school sophomores (Maple & Stage, 1991).
Undergraduate and Graduate Education
College enrollment and graduation rates
As researchers shift their focus from Black girls in primary and secondary education to Black women in STEM collegiate programs, a theme associated with college preparedness is still evident. There is much in the literature on Black women in STEM regarding enrollment and graduation rates (e.g., Smyth & McArdle, 2004), as well as findings on STEM persistence (Espinosa, 2011). With regard to college enrollment, Espinosa (2011) sampled a racially diverse group of women in STEM majors across varying higher education institutions to compare characteristics and factors influencing persistence for women of color versus their White peers. This analysis found that a greater proportion of African American women were enrolled in private institutions and 4-year colleges than White and Chicana/Latina women but a smaller proportion of African American women were enrolled in highly selective institutions. Additionally, O’Brien et al. (2015) report that Black women at HBCUs are more likely to declare STEM majors than Black women at non-HBCUs and White women overall. Black women have also been shown to declare a computer engineering major at the same rate as Black men (Lord, Layton, & Ohland, 2011) but outnumber White women in electrical engineering programs (Lord et al., 2011). Math anxiety has been found to be a barrier to entering nontraditional careers (Bernstein, Reilly, & Coté-Bonanno, 1992), and Black women have reported technical anxiety as reasons for low enrollment in computing majors (Varma, 2010). Yet, even with the known challenges, Rice and Alfred (2014) found a particular attitude of perseverance among Black women in STEM, as if to say quitting is not an option.
Once Black women declare STEM majors on entry into college, concerns of whether or not they persist and matriculate through their programs become evident in the literature. Depending on the institutional context, 6-year graduation rates in engineering are generally either higher for Black women than Black men, lower, or nearly the same (Ohland et al., 2011). More specifically, in computer engineering, women of all ethnicities have lower graduation rates (Lord, Layton, & Ohland, 2015), but researchers have found Black women to enter the field of chemical engineering at a higher rate than Black men (Lord, Layton, Ohland, Brawner, & Long, 2014). Still, scholars find that, among Black women, the probability of attaining a degree in life science is much higher than of attaining an engineering science degree (Perez-Felkner, McDonald, Schneider, & Grogan, 2012).
Graduation rates among Black women in STEM programs are ultimately the outcome of their persistence. With regard to STEM persistence, Espinosa (2011) reported a 54% persistence rate for Black undergraduate women, compared to 57 for White women and 52% for Latinas. Studies show that Black women understand and acknowledge that academic, psychological, and financial barriers affect their persistence and achievement in STEM, but they are also aware of how STEM learning environments characterized, for instance, by a cooperative rather than competitive peer culture and faculty encouragement can mitigate the effects of such barriers (Perna et al., 2009). As such, most of the literature on Black women in STEM seeks to illuminate their experiences within collegiate STEM learning environments.
STEM learning environments
Scholars interested in the STEM achievement of Black women acknowledge how the learning environment contributes to academic outcomes (e.g., Charleston, George, Jackson, Berhanu, & Amechi, 2014). In elementary and secondary education, a focus is placed on interventions and instructional practices within the learning environment (e.g., Ferreira, 2002), whereas at the collegiate level, our review of the literature shows a shift to examining the negative educational environments in institutions and STEM departments (e.g., Rincón & George-Jackson, 2016). At the undergraduate and graduate levels, Black women have experienced learning environments characterized by experiences of racial microaggressions (Alexander & Hermann, 2016; Martin, Green, & Dean, 2016), exclusion from study groups (Reyes, 2011; Rosa & Mensah, 2016), encounters with gendered stereotypes (Carlone et al., 2011; Martin et al., 2016), alienation and discrimination (Borum & Walker, 2012; Herzig, 2010), and feelings of isolation (Rosa & Mensah, 2016; Charleston et al., 2014)—acknowledged as a result of being a woman in male-dominated fields and Black in predominantly White fields (Herzig, 2010). In addition to feelings of isolation, Black women have expressed a sense of discouragement in STEM programs fostered by unfulfilled promises regarding academic opportunities, independence, and opportunities to be involved (Callahan et al., 1996).
Black women have also reported feeling invisible at times in STEM learning environments, while other times, due to their otherness, their presence seems highly visible within their STEM program (Herzig, 2010). Though at times, Black women lack the desire to “fit in” with mainstream notions of STEM culture, there is a recognized sense that they do not fit into the culture of their discipline and even within their academic department (Herzig, 2010). This sense of belonging in one’s STEM academic department varies by institution; some Black women intentionally seek HBCUs for the well-known success in promoting the achievement of Black women in STEM (Perna et al., 2009). Even for Black women transferring from HBCUs to PWIs, HBCU faculty members are viewed as more hands-on and personal than faculty at PWIs (Joseph, 2012). However, if faced with negative STEM climates cultivated by faculty and/or peers, Black women have been shown to possess more navigational capital than Latinas, which is characterized as a greater ability to navigate educational institutions despite negative contextual factors (Samuelson & Litzler, 2016).
These findings highlight the nuanced nature of racial and gender dynamics in the educational experiences of Black women and girls in STEM fields. Although some findings may not appear unique to Black women in STEM, and possibly common to all women or women of color in STEM, it is important to determine how the intersection of race and gender for specific subgroups of women of color is uniquely or commonly manifested in STEM educational environments. Without attending to the intersections of race and gender or disaggregating data to illuminate trends in specific subgroups, we would not observe that Black girls (not White girls or Latinas) prefer that science role models be persons of color (Buck et al., 2008), or that Black women assess their engineering learning outcomes significantly lower than their White peers—a finding not evident for Black men (Ro & Loya, 2015), or that all girls across ethnic groups, with the exception of Black girls, report higher levels of challenge in math class in comparison to their male counterparts (Martinez & Guzman, 2013). Researchers risk overlooking these psychological manifestations of intersectionality in education without adopting the appropriate lens to explore the experiences of Black women and girls in STEM learning environments.
Evaluating Intersectional Approaches
Although all of the studies included in our review reported on Black women and girls in STEM education, not all employed intersectionality as both a theoretical and a methodological approach. From a methodological standpoint, there was variance among the sources with respect to whether they addressed the aforementioned three questions for conceptualizing intersectionality in the research process established by Cole (2009): (1) Who is included in this category? (2) What role does inequality play? (3) Where are the similarities? Among the sources we reviewed, 22 studies (31%) addressed all three of the aforementioned questions concerning intersectionality. Of those 22, nine studies also stated an intersectional, critical race, or feminist theoretical framework as guiding their inquiry and used an intersectional approach that is aligned with the criteria Cole (2009) established. We proceed to highlight the ways those studies examined the experiences of Black women and girls in STEM education
Buck et al. (2008) used feminist, inclusive, and critical perspectives to investigate cognitive processes involved in girls selecting a science role model. They conducted focus groups with 13 eighth-grade girls that were organized by ethnic group. This method allowed for an examination of similarity and differences across the groups. For example, Caucasian and Hispanic girls agreed that race-matched science role models were not important; however, African American girls strongly expressed that science role models should be persons of color, suggesting race was more salient among Black girls. Additionally, through their interactions with science role models over the course of the study, across all ethnic groups, participants’ perceptions of who a science role model is and what scientists do changed and became less gender stereotypical. Through mixed methods, Buck et al. (2009) also explored profiles of African American girls’ attitudes toward science. Their investigation found four personality orientations that linked success in school and experiences with science to confidence and importance of science and definitions of science to value/desire. This research also uncovered commonalities among Black girls with respect to the way they define science (the majority defined science according to specific scientific content) and experience science (the majority referenced out of class experiences with science concepts).
Gholson and Martin (2014) used an intersectional frame to examine the mediating role of African American girls’ social networks in the mathematics learning environment. Their investigation explored an all-Black elementary school as a context for Black girlhood as well as identity development and interpersonal relationships among these girls in the math classroom. Two third-grade students were studied, and results indicated that throughout the academic year both girls exhibited moments of serving as a “bully” and a “model student,” depending on the circumstances. Both girls’ experiences were also contrasted by their racial socialization, their physical features (the light-skinned model student versus the dark-skinned bully), and the ways that classroom actors (other girls and the teacher) respond to them. Using a variety of data collection methods (e.g., classroom observations, field notes, audio records, interviews, classroom artifacts, formative and standardized assessment results, etc.), Gholson and Martin (2014) examine the phenomena associated with Black girls learning math, as well as the way these girls navigate their privilege, power, and social relationships in the math classroom setting.
McPherson (2014) conducted individual interviews and reviewed journal entries to examine the P–12 science learning experiences of African American women in science, mathematics, and engineering undergraduate programs. Their critical framing of the study highlighted the importance of a strengths-based approach to examining African American girls’ experiences with science, and acknowledged the cultural capital that African American girls acquire both in and outside of the classroom. Results showed that African American girls acquire cultural capital and access to free-choice learning of science through traditional and informal opportunities (e.g., family role models, field trips to museums, science fairs, student organizations and clubs in primary and secondary school). However, in high school, African American female teens had fewer opportunities to engage in everyday science experiences at home than in earlier grades. Similarly, Rosa and Mensah (2016) conducted individual interviews to investigate the educational trajectories of six Black women physicists use a critical race theory framework. Despite their common professional identity, these women had very different family backgrounds, educational timelines, and personal characteristics. However, they traced their start in science to early exposure to science-related school programs and acknowledged the importance of their participation in summer research programs at the undergraduate level, which affected their career choices and provided exposure to the culture of physics. Yet these women also reported experiences of isolation in their graduate programs due to their race, particularly in study groups with peers.
Alexander and Hermann (2016) conducted individual interviews to examine the experiences of eight African American women in graduate programs in biology, chemical engineering, and agriculture. Sampling across a variety of STEM fields allowed the authors to explore within-group differences as well as commonalities shared by these African American women. Borum and Walker (2012) and Charleston et al. (2014) both used focus groups to explore the experiences of Black women in mathematics and computer science graduate programs, respectively. Borum and Walker (2012) addressed within-group differences among Black women in math PhD programs, such as varying experiences between the women who attended an HBCU versus those who attended a non-HBCU for their undergraduate degree.
These interviews revealed the range of challenging experiences each of the women faced through their intersectional lenses, including microaggressions from peers (both White women and White men) in their department, perceived inferiority of their HBCU undergraduate experience by their peers, lack of mentors, and inadequate responses from counseling services or department representatives (Alexander & Hermann, 2016). Conversely, Borum and Walker (2012) found that participants who attended an HBCU noted their positive experiences and the support they received from both faculty and peers, which encouraged them to pursue graduate study in mathematics, while those who had not attended an HBCU reported feelings of isolation, poor advising, and feeling targeted due to race or gender.
Charleston et al. (2014) explored the unique challenges that African American women experience in their respective graduate computing science environments, and how these spaces are navigated among this demographic group. In both studies, the authors’ analysis of power and privilege includes a discussion of mathematics and computer sciences as a “White male–dominated” and the reality that non-White, nonmale students have to conform to the norms or face exclusion and isolation. Charleston et al. (2014) noted that for some, racial identity was most salient and they believed they were perceived as Black first and foremost. For others, racial and gender identity were inextricably linked, and thus stereotypes of Black women were unique to those about Black people and women more broadly—a classic demonstration of intersectionality at play.
Ro and Loya (2015) measured quantitative differences in the learning outcomes (three core engineering competencies and three professional skills) of racial-ethnic–minority women and men, compared to those of White women and men in undergraduate engineering programs. Controlling for factors such as institution type (e.g., HBCU vs. PWI), their analysis explored intersectionality as interpreted by a statistical interaction between gender and race effects on learning outcomes. However, their study was framed and results were interpreted by an examination of privilege in engineering education. They found that generally, women in engineering education tended to rate their engineering learning outcomes lower than men but their professional learning outcomes higher than men. The results of their analysis also conclude that the intersection, or statistical interaction, of race and gender had more negative effects for Black women than Black men in engineering education with respect to learning outcomes. The authors note that future research is needed to explain why Black women assess their engineering abilities lower than their White peers. Our analysis of the psychological constructs associated with intersectionality in the prior literature suggests that despite their cultural assets, abilities, and motivations, there are many documented factors, on both the individual and institutional levels, which can undermine Black women’s sense of competence and belonging in STEM fields.
Who Is Included in This Category?
In the context of our assertion regarding the importance of identity to the study of intersectionality in the literature, the question of “who” is being researched is key. One of the most useful characteristics of the aforementioned studies is that they each attend to diversity within social categories and explore the particular perspectives of Black women and girls. Through studies on this particular student demographic, we learn about differences in Black girls’ socialization in the mathematics learning environment (Gholson & Martin, 2014), their unique preference for science role models of color compared to White and Latina peers (Buck et al., 2008), the distinct personality orientations related to their experiences and values in STEM education (Buck et al., 2009), and the importance of exposure to science education both in and outside of the classroom for Black women from diverse backgrounds (McPherson, 2014; Rosa & Mensah, 2016). In STEM higher education settings, we also glean insights into the particular challenges (e.g., gendered racism) faced by Black women in pursuit of biology, mathematics, and engineering degrees (Alexander & Hermann, 2016; Borum & Walker, 2012; Charleston et al., 2014), as well as the implications for how Black female engineers assess their abilities as compared to the self-assessments of their (non-Black and nonfemale) peers (Ro & Loya, 2015).
What Role Does Inequality Play?
A common critique of the emphasis on identity in intersectionality discourse is that the focus on the individual can obscure the structural and systemic factors associated with power, privilege, and systemic oppression. Though these studies address person-level characteristics among Black women and girls in STEM, they also attend to issues of structural inequality, which affect their educational experience such as stereotypes (Buck et al., 2008), privilege (Gholson & Martin, 2014; Ro & Loya, 2015), overt gender and racial discrimination (Alexander & Hermann, 2016; Borum & Walker, 2012; Charleston et al., 2014; Rosa & Mensah, 2016), as well as issues of educational access (Buck et al., 2009; McPherson, 2014).
Where Are the Similarities?
The illumination of power and privilege through the lens of intersectionality has the potential to focus on difference at the expense of opportunities for building connections and coalition among groups. However, in the aforementioned examinations of similarities across groups we learn of common ways Black girls (and their White and Latina peers) come to understand what science is and what scientists do (Buck et al., 2008; Buck et al., 2009) as well as commonalities among different experiences of Black girlhood within the social hierarchy of the mathematics classroom (Gholson & Martin, 2014). We also learn about common cultural assets and STEM learning opportunities in the retrospective accounts of Black women as they reflect on their educational trajectories in various STEM fields (McPherson, 2014; Rosa & Mensah, 2016). Additionally, we come to understand shared challenges among Black women in undergraduate and graduate programs across a variety of STEM disciplines (Alexander & Hermann, 2016; Borum & Walker, 2012; Charleston et al., 2014), as well as similarities between Black women and Asian men in their assessment of their undergraduate engineering skills (Ro & Loya, 2015).
Advancing Knowledge About the Psychology of Intersectionality Among Black Women and Girls in STEM Education
Our review of the literature uncovered four key thematic areas of note with respect to the experiences of Black women and girls in STEM education and highlighted the ways researchers have employed intersectionality theoretically and methodologically. Understanding the nature of identity in STEM education, the importance of STEM interest, confidence, and persistence; patterns of achievement, attributions, and perceptions of ability; and the influence of socializers and support systems for Black women and girls can help illustrate the psychological meaning of intersectionality in STEM education. We found that research samples including a substantial number of Black women and girls or sampling them exclusively allowed for analyses that uncovered common experiences as well as within-group differences among this demographic group. Additionally, statistical methods such as tests of race and gender interaction explored ways to measure intersectionality quantitatively. Furthermore, the results of the studies reviewed point to the necessary consideration of structural factors such as power, privilege, and institutional barriers, which affect the mental processes and educational choices of Black women and girls in STEM education, beyond their individual characteristics. By examining the sampling choices, analytic approaches, and interpretive framing of these studies, we identified examples of how, methodologically, intersectionality has been employed in the research process. We will now share research and practice implications of this review for advancing knowledge about intersectionality among Black women and girls in STEM education.
Research Implication 1: Reframing the “Double Bind”
The multiplicative experiences of racism and sexism that Black women in STEM have endured have been described as “double bind,” “double disadvantage,” and “double jeopardy” (Malcom et al., 1976; O’Brien et al., 2015); however, the double bind has not been examined sufficiently in terms of the interplay of personal and structural forces acted on Black women versus their response to these forces, including cultural tools and resources that must be deployed in order to survive and thrive. In addition, there are situations and settings in which, because of their gender, or race, or ability, or social class, Black women are advantaged. There are also scenarios in which power and privilege are not limited to the duality of race and gender and in which both race and gender may modulate the effects of other factors. Self-perceptions of identity are not the same among individuals within the same social identity group; there is no one universal Black identity nor is there a universal woman identity. Future research and theorizing in these areas are warranted. Researchers interested in developing such an agenda might look to the guidance Cole (2009) establishes for conceptualizing intersectionality throughout the various stages of the research process and even consider examples such as the Settles (2006) intersectional framework for the measurement of Black female identity.
Research Implication 2: Increased Integration of Intersectional Scholarship
A greater diversity of researchers and research approaches are needed to operationalize intersectional experiences of Black girls and women in STEM. Beyond the structural constructs and social categories of race and gender, psychological theories of racial identity and gender identity help explicate the meaning students derive from their membership in these social groups, including associated norms, values, collective histories, and positioning within learning contexts. This understanding has been particularly beneficial to research on issues concerning Black students and female students.
In future research, we propose the integration of three bodies of scholarship that to our knowledge have not been integrated: (1) intersectionality scholarship generated in the field of STEM education and workforce development (e.g., McGee & Martin, 2011; Ong et al., 2011; Rincón & George-Jackson, 2016; Samuelson & Litzler, 2016; Settles, 2004, 2006; Smith et al., 2014; Tate & Linn, 2005), (2) gender psychology scholarship produced in the field of psychology (e.g., Cole & Stewart, 2001; Rice, 2008; Stewart & McDermott, 2004), and (3) psychological significance of race scholarship produced in the field of psychology (e.g., Boykin, 1986; Cross, 1971, 1991; Franklin, 1999; Goff, Eberhardt, Williams, & Jackson, 2008; Harrell, 1999; J. M. Jones, 2003; Nobles, 1991; Sellers et al., 1998; Steele, 1997; Sue et al., 2007; C. E. Winston et al., 2004; C. E. Winston & Winston, 2012).
Research Implication 3: Diverse and Complex Research Methods
Examining intersectional experiences is extremely complex, and thus requires research methods that can capture the complexity. Often, that includes the use of multiple and mixed methods, which together can provide more robust information than singular approaches. In addition, qualitative research is particularly suited to examine intersectional experiences given the nuanced and phenomenological nature of intersectionality. The Society of Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology (2017), a section of Division 5 of the American Psychological Association, emphasizes that qualitative inquiry includes “topics such as philosophies of science (e.g., ontology and epistemology), methodologies, methods of data collection/generation, methods of data analysis, criteria for evaluating quality, ethics, reflexivity, and forms of knowledge mobilization and dissemination.” Greater development and use of qualitative research (worldviews and methods of inquiry) would benefit the knowledge base as well as exploring ways to implement quantitative methods with the lens of intersectionality.
Practice Implication 1: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Curriculum
The thematic focus in the literature on STEM learning environment suggests that pedagogical approaches and teacher education program training are important areas of intervention. There is an encouragement for educators to incorporate more culturally relevant strategies and innovative pedagogical approaches into STEM education (Barr et al., 2010; Chambers et al., 2016; Rankin & Thomas, 2016). Chambers et al. (2016) recommend placing greater attention on racial and gendered aspects of culturally relevant pedagogical techniques in teacher and counselor education programs, as well as teacher professional development. In addition to exposure to new pedagogical techniques, Alexander and Hermann (2016) noted that educators, particularly at the higher education level, should receive training on cultural responsiveness and effective mentoring processes. We believe that attending to these areas of curriculum and instruction will ensure that learning environments are shaped in a way that leverage identity as a cultural asset with cultural integrity (see Boykin, 2010) in STEM education.
Practice Implication 2: Attending to the Psychological Needs
In addition to mentoring opportunities and academic support, resources must be provided to address the psychosocial and emotional needs of Black women and girls in STEM (Alexander & Hermann, 2016). Black women in higher education STEM settings have reported experiencing negative social climates in their STEM departments (Rincón & George-Jackson, 2016). To mitigate these experiences, educational institutions should make efforts to minimize feelings of isolation, promote inclusive learning environments, offer student support groups, as well as foster connections within STEM programs and departments (Borum & Walker, 2012; Charleston et al., 2014; Herzig, 2010; Joseph, 2012; Rosa & Mensah, 2016). Throughout the educational pipeline, counseling resources should be available to students who are having difficulty navigating the social aspects of their educational environments. Additionally, professional staff and educational leadership must prioritize the well-being of their students, which can facilitate more positive educational outcomes.
Conclusion
Our review of the literature demonstrated the importance and utility of intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological approach to understanding the educational experiences of Black women and girls in STEM and discussed the psychology of intersectionality in STEM education. In addition, our chapter highlighted research that uncovered insights about the education of Black women and girls in STEM and identified common themes throughout this body of work with a focus on psychological processes and educational outcomes. This chapter also evaluated the various ways in which researchers of Black women and girls in STEM education have employed intersectionality as both a theoretical and a methodological framework, including opportunities for intersectionality to advance education research in this area. Intersectionality provides the opportunity to illuminate nuanced experiences and shades of meaning both within and across different social groups that are otherwise obscured in aggregate results of research that include Black women and girls or one-dimensional analyses of the Black female student demographic.
Our analysis of this body of literature encourages researchers and professionals in STEM education to consider how an understanding of intersectional experiences can advance their scholarship and practice toward a future where Black women and girls are unhidden figures and all students feel encouraged to fulfill their highest academic potential.