Project Profile

Conceptualizing a community-based model that enhances the recruitment, engagement, and transition to STEM teaching roles for Black male students while retaining and advancing Black male teachers is critical to addressing their significant and historically disproportionate representation in teaching careers. The project explores systemic barriers that dissuade Black male students from pursuing STEM majors and takes a strength-focused approach to fostering a critical mass of Black male STEM teachers. This project will advance foundational knowledge by developing conceptual and methodological frameworks that interrogate the systemic barriers in the STEM teacher staffing challenge, while expanding the possibilities of motivating Black boys and men in STEM fields. This project leverages the work of authentic partnerships between academic institutions (Prince George's County Public Schools, Prince George?s County Community College and Bowie State University) and their various industry and community partners to increase the number of Black boys and men in postsecondary schools and professional settings. This applied study has the potential to impact how school systems, community colleges, and four-year universities work together to develop tiered approaches to recruiting and retain Black boys and men in STEM education. Through mixed methods designs, this project investigates Black male students? STEM pathways from middle school to the STEM teaching profession through various programmatic efforts. Efforts include community-centered outreach, early clinical teaching experiences for undergraduate students, and professional development for participating STEM teachers and mentors. This multi-institutional engages Black boys and men in STEM from across the career path continuum, attends to many gaps in the research literature pertaining to racialized experiences of Black boys and men in STEM education, specifically: 1) how systemic racism impacts their recruitment, development, attrition, retention and advancement; and 2) how Black male students? individual and collective racialized experiences in a STEM education program should inform evidence-based strategies for recruiting Black middle school boys to become STEM teachers. Further, it sheds light on the impact of Black men mentors of Black male students on STEM education and career pathways.

This project is funded through the Racial Equity in STEM Education program (EHR Racial Equity). The program supports research and practice projects that investigate how considerations of racial equity factor into the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce. Awarded projects seek to center the voices, knowledge, and experiences of the individuals, communities, and institutions most impacted by systemic inequities within the STEM enterprise. This program aligns with NSF?s core value of supporting outstanding researchers and innovative thinkers from across the Nation's diversity of demographic groups, regions, and types of organizations. Funds for EHR Racial Equity are pooled from programs across EHR in recognition of the alignment of its projects with the collective research and development thrusts of the four divisions of the directorate.