Global Voices: Personal and Professional Lived Experiences of Black and Brown Women’s Culture in Science

Abstract

This chapter details personal accounts of the triumphs and challenges encountered by four very different underrepresented international women scientists of color. The varying cultural backgrounds of the scientists are rooted in the beliefs and practices of Sri Lankan, Jamaican, North American, and Colombian heritages. Aspects of each scholar’s hybridized identity are explored. This work affords an understanding of motivating factors that can facilitate and support science achievement of marginalized youth all over the world as a result of systemic oppression. In this work, one-hour semi-structured interviews explored the intersection of personal and professional identities; expectations, persistence, and enhancement of self-efficacy; and moments of inspiration and motivation. The interviews were analyzed qualitatively for patterns of emergent themes along the inclusive dimensions of the scientists’ (1) means of support, (2) culture-beliefs and practices, and (3) impactful experiences. The study also highlights some factors that play a role in promoting the global representation of underrepresented women scientists of color and their successes.

Appendices

Appendix A: Interview Questions

• Please share a bit about who you are and your racial, ethnic, and national background.

• Can you talk a bit about your career?

• What is your research focus?

• How did you come to work in your current area?

• When you consider your career right now, what aspects most excite you?

• When did you first become interested in the sciences as an area of academic study?

• Did you think at that point you might want to pursue an MA/Ph.D. (high-level academia)?

• How did you arrive at the decision to pursue a Ph.D.?

• When you consider the development of your career, what do you think were key milestones in getting you to where you are today? (Explore interactions with other scientists, academic achievements, etc.)

• Who, if anyone, was most influential in your decision to pursue academia?

• Did you have to overcome hardships in pursuit of your academic degrees? Tell me about those.

• Describe a time when your mentor was critical to your development as a scientist or science educator.

• Who are your mentors?

• What valuable advice did your mentor give you that you can share?

• Are you a mentor? What do you think your mentee has learned from you?

• Have you ever felt discriminated against in a professional setting?

• Within this urban public university, could you describe how being a faculty member of color is celebrated?

• What does “being a scientist” mean to you?

• What do you believe is the role of studying science in society?

• How did you learn to “do” science?

• Do you see a difference between being a scientist and being an educator, in your practice?

• Which identity (science educator or teacher) do you value more and why?

• Have you had setbacks in your quest to be who you are, as a science professional?

• How has being an underrepresented woman scientist of color impacted your career?

• “To be an agent means to be capable of exerting some degree of control over the social relations in which one is enmeshed, which in turn implies the ability to transform those social relations to some degree” (Sewell 1999). Would you consider yourself an agent?

Appendix B: Themes and Examples of Proposed Actions as a Result of Evidence Revealed by International Black and Brown Women Scientists

Support (People, places, and things)	Culture (Beliefs and practices)	Impactful experiences (As resources)
Code: Self-efficacy Example 1: No Limitations Give students opportunities to feel as though they have no limitations when learning and experiencing science; help to expose students to ways that they can explore science related to their lived experiences; advise students to think of themselves as inherently able to “do” science and progress at their own pace	Code: Developing New Ways of Being Example 6: Cultural (Re)production Model for students an approach that always affords questions to be answered thoughtfully and thoroughly; for example, when a question is posed and an answer is given, always follow with open-ended questions that probe deeply and require a response to, for example, “Why?” And then continue to ask, “Why?” repeatedly, until the final answer describes whatever complex phenomenon is being spoken of	Code: Failure as a Resource for Success Example 12: Making a Way Out of No Way Emphasize that experiencing failure may bring about success in new, unexpected yet related ways; teach students the skills needed to access and appropriate both human and material resources through the strengthening of their own empowerment, in both successes and failures; identify specific examples of endurance as they unfold in social life
Code: Affirmation Example 2: Mentors as Parents Reflect on the possibility that students may be looking up to teachers and wanting to make teachers proud of them; being aware that students may be looking for an important adult figure in their lives that will recognize and affirm their worthiness	Code: Transformation Example 7: Teaching as Performing Take note of the creation, reproduction, and transformation of culture within which students engage; help students to take note of positive reproductions and transformations that can and do occur in sometimes seemingly unrelated spaces – spaces that can be used to the students’ advantage	Code: Reflective Action Example 13: Valuing Difference Take interest in and pay close attention to the varied ways that students learn; when students struggle with the way material is presented to them, reflect carefully upon and take intelligent action toward creating, sharing, and modeling new ways of teaching and learning that are customized to students’ needs
Code: Encouragement/Understanding Example 3: Act of Compassion Emphasize that persistence and endurance are as important as being smart; help students to secure a pro-academic identity, especially in science, by creating and supporting close relations or connections with others	Code: Inscriptions Example 8: Building or Derailing Confidence Realize the danger that systemic racism and sexism play in science learning environments; understand that differing views may exist regarding the roles expected and the privileges given to or denied from girls and boys; reflect upon the covert and overt narrative that can build or harm efforts toward enjoying and mastering science	Code: Respect Example 14: Learning from the Other Experience teaching and learning as being dialectically linked to one another; one does not presuppose the other, but one is with or can be an addition to the other. Hence, teachers teach, as do learners, and learners learn, as do teachers
Code: Worthiness Example 4: Affirming Beliefs Remember that you may play a crucial role in a student’s desire to excel in and pursue science. Affirmation is oftentimes tantamount to one having positive emotions and energy toward science	Code: Resilience Example 9: Difference and Ambition Remind students that each life is significant and can touch many in positive ways; encourage them to strengthen their will to continue their efforts toward science, despite at times feeling defeated	Code: Bias and Inequity Example 15: Emotional Awareness Refuse demonstrations of racial and gender-biased statements and actions immediately as they unfold
Code: Communalism Example 5: Benefits of Community Support Help students to create a community of support so that immersion, interest, and both an individual and collective commitment to science and its affiliated pursuits can occur	Code: Being Human Example 10: It’s Not All About Science Be aware that students can look for and experience science classrooms as safe havens, where structure is maintained and warm feelings and affirmations are had; keep in mind that school involves more than academic conversations; being mindful to interact with students on a holistic and humane level	Code: Influences Example 16: Curiosity Keep in mind that students may have experiences that they or others do not readily recognize as potentially playing a major role in drawing out the scientist within them
	Code: Injustices Example 11: Individual Collective Dynamics Remind students that despite patriarchy being still very strong in some cultures, there may be times when they will have to summon the energy and courage to face gender and other biases directly; refuse demonstrations of racial and gender-biased statements and actions immediately as they unfold