Black queer undergraduates experience invisibility at the juncture of anti-Black racism and cisheteropatriarchy in their campus environments. With the absence of research on queer students of color in undergraduate STEM, it has been unexplored how Black queer invisibility is reinforced and disrupted in uniquely racialized and cisheteronormative STEM spaces. Drawing on Black queer studies and a proposed framework of STEM education as a White, cisheteropatriarchal space, our study addresses this research gap by exploring four Black queer students’ experiences of oppression and agency in navigating invisibility as STEM majors. A counter-storytelling analysis reveals how curricular erasure and within-group peer tensions shaped variation in undergraduate Black queer students’ STEM experiences of invisibility. Findings inform implications for education research, practice, and policy.

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College students can be sedentary for a majority of the day, which may exacerbate mental health issues or lead to declines in cognitive task performance; however, interventions to address sedentary behaviors may not positively influence everyone. Therefore, the present study sought to identify inter-individual cognitive performance and mood changes of college students during the performance of a cognitive task battery, while seated, standing and with intermittent bouts of walking. Participants (n = 31, age = 25.80 ± 3.61 yrs, 7 male) completed a series of baseline questionnaires including the Trait Mental and Physical Energy and Fatigue survey. Using a randomized controlled cross-over design, participants completed 3 separate testing sessions. At each session, they performed a series of three rounds of cognitive tasks for 27 min and self-reporting mood states for 1 min in the seated position. Each round of cognitive testing was followed by a 2 min break. Each testing day had participants spend the 2 min break in a different condition: sitting, standing, or walking. A series of mixed ANOVAs were used for the primary analysis and a combination of machine learning regressors and classifiers were used for the secondary analysis. Our results suggest that there are unique inter-individual responses to each of the interventions used during the 2 min break. Participants who were low-trait mental and low-trait physical energy benefited the most from the standing desk intervention, while also reporting significant benefits of intermittent walking. However, participants who were low-trait mental fatigue had significant negative consequences of using both standing desks and walking intermittently, while those who were high-trait mental fatigue saw no change in cognitive responses or moods in those conditions. Post hoc machine learning analyses had modest accuracy rates (MAEs < 0.7 for regressors and accuracy rates >60% for classifiers), suggesting that trait mental and physical energy and fatigue may predict inter-individual responses to these interventions. Incorporating standing desks into college classroom settings may result in some students receiving cognitive benefits when inter-individual variability in mood and cognitive responses are accounted for.

Background: Traditional mathematics logics lead to inequities that reproduce narratives such as the myths of racialized and gendered hierarchies of mathematical ability (Hottinger, 2016; Martin, 2009). Black girls sit at the bottom of both racialized and gendered hierarchies; however, research over the past decade has provided evidence that Black teachers challenge these hierarchies for their Black students. Therefore, we show how two teachers work against these logics to create space for their Black girl students to flourish as learners and producers of mathematics. Focus of Study: This research documents the logics that lead to supportive spaces for Black girls in two Black mathematics teachers’ classrooms: What are the supportive logics of successful mathematics teachers who support Black girls’ achievement in middle school classrooms? Setting: This research was a secondary analysis of videos collected as part of the Gates-funded Understanding Teaching Quality (UTQ) project. Case Study Selection: The study used MANOVA to quantitatively select teachers based on change in mathematics achievement. Two teachers were selected based on number and percentage of Black girls in the top 5% of change in achievement across the dataset. Although not part of the selection criteria, both mathematics teachers identified as Black. Research Design: The study used a case study design to describe the mathematics practices and the logics that they supported for the two successful Black mathematics teachers. Data Collection and Analysis: The dataset included four lessons per teacher with two cameras for each lesson. Open coding was used to identify the practices used by teachers drawing on logics as an orienting concept. Findings: Interestingly, both classrooms were fairly procedural in their mathematics focus; however, the classrooms challenged logics of individualism, racialized and gendered hierarchies of mathematics ability, and carceral pedagogy. Teachers supported Black student autonomy in terms of both behavior and intellectual contribution, and specifically positioned Black girls as experts and highlighted collective responsibility for peers’ mathematics learning. Conclusions: Although the classrooms did not display the cultural competence or sociopolitical consciousness foundational to culturally relevant pedagogy, the Black teachers did challenge traditional logics found in mathematics classrooms. Through a focus on collectivity, autonomy, and competence, the relational ways in which teachers positioned Black girls ran counter to logics that too often frame them as incapable mathematically.