SPRING WISRD MAGAZINE, VOL 6, ISSUE 2

out after the first year of their program. Students cite course factors including their percept ions of classroom climate and faculty behavior as reasons to leave STEM majors. Weed-out classes also disproport ionately affect histor ically underserved groups such as women and Black, Nat ive Amer ican, and Hispanic people, pushing them out of the STEM field. Doing well in these introductory courses has more to do with social relat ionships, connect ions to teachers, tutors, collaborat ion, rather than the r igor. Weed-out classes are part of systemic racism which contr ibutes to the diversity challenges the STEM field faces, and they can be traced back to ear ly educat ion. Students from marginalized groups are more likely to have at tended high schools where advanced math and science classes aren?t offered. A study by the Gardner Inst itute of introductory chemistry courses at 31 inst itut ions, including community colleges and public and pr ivate 4-year colleges and universit ies, found an average DFWI (including incompletes) rate of 29.4%. The DFWI rates for Black and Lat inx students in introductory chemistry at the 31 inst itut ions were above 40% (Arnaud, 2020,). Angela Kelly, a physics educat ion researcher at Stony Brook University says, ?If students hadn?t taken chemistry and physics in high school, they really

access at the precollege level is a part icular issue that is just not get t ing the at tent ion that it needs.?Research on the rates of part icipat ion and persistence of underrepresented groups in higher educat ion in general, and women of color in STEM in part icular, demonstrate the histor ical prevalence of white males in STEM and underrepresentat ion of women of color. This is especially noted in physics, astronomy, engineer ing, and computer science. Nat ional data consistent ly illustrate that women who self-ident ify as Asian Amer ican, Black, Lat ina, Nat ive Amer ican, or mixed race/ethnicity are severely underrepresented in receiving science and engineer ing (S&E) degrees relat ive to their populat ion in the United States. In a 2014 dataset from the Nat ional Science Foundat ion, at the bachelor 's level, women of color collect ively represented 13.3% of S&E degree recipients, while their representat ion (age 18?24) in the U.S. populat ion was 21.9%. Similar ly, at the doctoral level, women of color represented 10.0% of S&Edegree recipients, while their representat ion (age 25?64) in the U.S. populat ion was 18.8%. Research is cont inuously demonstrat ing that women of color and other underrepresented groups do not persist in STEM at the same rates as their white male counterparts due to social or interpersonal factors. They often struggle and leave because they do not exper ience a sense of social belonging. Even if students survive a weed out

come to the university with a disadvantage in terms of their

likelihood to choose a STEM major and to persist in STEM majors. The lack of

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