Abstracts Keynote Speakers

Educators, scientists, and policymakers continue to debate the future of STEM education, participation, and innovation, too often constrained by disciplinary commitments and the essentialization of social categories. A throughline across these debates is the intersectionality imperative, a call to connect micro-, meso-, and macro- levels of analysis and attend to the ways that power and inequality are embedded within multiple social categories and perpetuated by social structures. Drawing on transdisciplinary theory and evidence, I will explore three questions to clarify why the future of STEM is intersectional: How is intersectionality—a lens or approach rooted in 19th century Black feminist thought—informative to the science of gender and STEM? How do we apply intersectionality in the science and implementation of interventions in STEM education? How do we realize intersectionality’s transformative potential to make STEM more useful, innovative, and equitable?  I will also share my recent and ongoing projects to demonstrate diverse strategies to apply intersectionality to our research goals, scientific cultures, and hopes for the future of STEM.

Human behavior is guided by a few fundamental social motives whose influence is evident in a wide range of social contexts. I am interested in how three motives—the need to belong, to feel competent, and to pursue a life of meaning—influence young people’s educational and career trajectories. By leveraging theory-driven insights about these social motives, my collaborators and I design interventions and test their efficacy in attracting and nurturing the success of young people who have been historically marginalized in STEM. In my presentation I will share a series of longitudinal and cross-sectional field and lab experiments testing the impacts of various interventions on minoritized students in STEM including women and girls, Black and Hispanic, working class, and LGBTQ students. Together, the work shows that learning environments that satisfy these three fundamental motives act as “social vaccines” to inoculate young people against negative stereotypes. They demonstrate that low-cost interventions inserted for a short period during periods of life transition yield enduring dividends for years to come.

Female students are underrepresented in (most) STEM subjects, and there tends to be a similar underrepresentation in giftedness programs. This keynote address provides in-depth insights into existing gender disparities and compensatory developments in the Hector Children’s Academy Program. Founded in 2010 and located in one of the largest states in Germany, Baden-Württemberg, this statewide program encompasses 68 local sites, offering enrichment courses for talented primary school students with a focus on STEM topics. The presentation will cover (a) gender differences in nomination and course-taking patterns, (b) early differences in educational trajectories among girls and boys, and (c) gender differences in the effects of taking the core courses of the program on achievement outcomes and motivation.