"It Was Changing [My] Embedded Inner Culture": Culturally Informed Training in STEMM.

Abstract

While scholars have written about programs that support community college (CC) students in STEMM and their transition to four-year institutions, less attention has been paid to culturally informed approaches addressing cultural mismatch and leveraging community cultural wealth (CCW). This paper presents results from qualitative research conducted through five focus groups with 43 CC students who attended a summer program over three summers. Grounded in strategies that address cultural mismatch by drawing on CCW and ancestral strengths to foster STEMM success, the summer program provides CC students with professional tools and skills for their educational trajectories and supports them as they pursue a STEMM pathway. The findings revealed that learning about multiple pathways through faculty members' academic journeys, bonding with peers, and gaining the language to describe home-school mismatch experiences allowed students to reduce intimidation and self-blame, increase self-efficacy, develop a stronger science identity invested in social justice, and demonstrate greater willingness to engage with institutional actors. In sum, humanizing STEMM not only portrays a holistic picture of the field but also demystifies the notion of STEMM as a "cold" career, enabling students to more readily see themselves in role models and envision themselves on a viable career path.