Barriers to Recruitment of Racial Minorities into STEM

Abstract

Diverse populations are underserved by health care and underrepresented in STEM professions overall, specifically in communication sciences and disorders (CSD). Minorities who are members and affiliates of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) only represent 8.3% of the over 200,000 members (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, “Profile of ASHA members and affiliates, year-end 2019,” 2020, www.asha.org). N. Dadzie and N. Gurevich, (2019) “Barriers to recruitment of racial minorities into communication disorders,” 2019, surveyed undergraduate students across several Indiana campuses and found that minority students are more likely than white students to prefer having their race/ethnicity represented in their chosen jobs. Dadzie and Gurevich found that the lack of diversity in the field perpetuates itself. Minority students who are underrepresented in a field are therefore less likely to select that field.