The national imperative to increase the production of computer science and engineering professionals has garnered the attention of both public and private sectors of the economy. As such, private companies, such as Verizon have begun to fund what they call Innovation in Learning (VIL) initiatives that aim to increase participation in these fields. Initiatives such as these, also recognize the need to diversify the engineering workplace by focusing specifically on engaging, inspiring, and motivating underrepresented minority (URM) youth by exposing them to engineering and other STEM concepts. During summer 2017, a southeastern university participated in hosting one of the seventeen Verizon sponsored STEM Camps. The university hosted 144 URM middle school boys for three weeks on campus to explore engineering habits of mind, engineering design principles, and computer science application development fundamentals. The camp was primarily facilitated by fourteen student mentors. One of the principle elements of the camp was to have mentors that reflected the demographics of the student population. As such, the mentor demographics consisted of 12 URM male mentors and 2 URM female mentors. Upon conclusion of the summer camp all of the student mentors were asked to participate in an open-ended survey that inquired about their experiences as studentmentors. The research questions guiding this study were: What role does race and gender have on the development of student mentor relationships? What are the implications of those mentor relationships on STEM identity development of the student-mentors? These research questions were answered through the use of thematic analysis, yielding two main themes: 1) barriers and connections associated with race and gender and 2) development of role identity -specifically the sub-constructs of performance/competence and interest. The results of this study suggest that engaging in mentoring relationships, while motivated by altruistic desires, strengthened STEM role identity development of the student-mentors. Previous literature has demonstrated that salient STEM identity development can contribute to persistence in these fields. Promoting engagement in mentoring opportunities, like summer camps, could aid in increasing and sustaining URM STEM majors.

Like other STEM fields, computer science (CS) lacks representation of minorities, such as Black and Hispanic individuals, both in the number of bachelor’s degrees obtained and the number of individuals in the CS workforce. Out-of-school CS programs are often designed with the intent to inspire young people to pursue careers in CS. Much of this programming focuses on developing student interest in CS and CS careers. Nevertheless, it is not well understood how the stereotypes that children hold about computer scientists contribute to CS interest and career choice. In this study, we set out to examine the complex relationships between CS interest, held stereotypes, and CS career choice. We surveyed participants in an after-school CS program offered to middle school boys who identified with racial and ethnic minority groups ( N = 110). We tested three linear regression models and confirmed that CS interest and socially divergent stereotypes—those that diverged from societal norms—of computer scientists play unique and contrary roles in young boys’ career decision-making process even when controlling for home and school factors. These models suggest educational CS programs should include curriculum to dispel participants’ socially divergent stereotypes about computer scientists rather than targeting CS interest alone, particularly if a goal is to inspire diverse young people to pursue careers in CS.

While multilingual students in K-12 classrooms are steadily increasing, they are significantly underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) at the post-secondary level and workforce (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018). This paper contributes to narrowing this gap by proposing an integrated STEM, language, and visual literacy approach. The first part of the paper explains the theoretical perspectives and their connections to each other. In part two, the authors share how the integrated approach works, using concrete classroom examples such as sense-making, deepening STEM learning, developing disciplinary language and discourse, and using multimodal communication. STEM educators will be inspired to implement appropriate multilingual student support strategies to create culturally responsive instructional activities that empower students and leverage multimodal communication, motivating them to pursue advanced study and add new perspectives traditionally excluded in STEM.