Equity for Black Americans in precollege science

“You Would Not Believe What I Have to Go Through to Prove My Intellectual Value!” Stereotype Management Among Academically Successful Black Mathematics and Engineering Students

“…In addition, maintaining strong disciplinary identities helped to foster high academic achievement. We believe that additional studies of how Black students simultaneously construct their disciplinary (i.e., math, engineering, and science) and racial identities are needed (Martin, 2007(Martin, , 2009bMcGee, under review;Stinson, 2009;Atwater, 2000;Ellington, 2006;etc.). Moreover, we believe the approach in this study can be extended to examine the multiple identities (race, gender, class, etc.)…”

Community‐Based Service‐Learning as a Source of Personal Self‐Efficacy: Preparing Preservice Elementary Teachers to Teach Science for Diversity

“…Nonmainstream students in lower track science classes were rarely given opportunities to construct arguments and explanations. Similarly, Atwater (2000) delineated a picture in which students of color had been prevented from achieving academic excellence due to obstinate barriers that remain in place. One of those barriers included ineffective instructional practices such as those still exhibited by teachers in charge of educating today's diverse youth.…”

“…Science teachers remain the most powerful influence on learning science in urban classrooms (Atwater, 2000). Given the research findings that self‐efficacy beliefs are often translated into action (Bandura, 1997; Pajares, 1992), if non‐mainstream students are placed in an environment where teachers have low PSTE and expect little to nothing of them, these students are more likely to receive a less rigorous curriculum, be held to low standards, and be placed in special education classes (Harris, Brown, Ford, & Richardson, 2004).…”

“life's first need is for us to be realistic” and other reasons for examining the sociocultural construction of race in the science performance of African American students

“…This statistic has changed little since it was first reported by the National Science Board in 1977 (National Science Board, 2012). The emphasis that the science education community has put on equity in science education (e.g., Atwater, 2000; Bianchini & Brenner, 2010; Carlone, Haun‐Frank, & Webb, 2011; Nelson, 2008; Ramnarain, 2011; Wilson, Taylor, Kowalski, & Carlson, 2010; Yerrick & Beatty‐Adler, 2011) suggests that there is a shared interest in addressing this long‐standing disparity in particular and other forms of disparity in general. In my own work I have found that although extant research has identified numerous factors, which correlate with students' career decisions, such as the number of mathematics and science courses taken (Thomas, 1984), and the influence of mathematics and science teachers (Griffin, 1990), this body of research has failed to explain how these factors are tied to race.…”