Search

This article builds upon prior work by suggesting how public, K-12 education systems across the United States can address longstanding opportunity gaps in STEM education. More specifically, we bring together the work of critical perspectives in education, STEM pathway research, as well as best practices from teaching and learning scholarship. We suggest that through critical, interconnected, and aligned approaches to pedagogy, curricula, and instruction, educators can effectively advance the holistic success of Black youth. We begin by summarizing some of the systemic barriers to STEM pathways for Black students. We then highlight how extant studies have pointed to 3 essential teaching and learning strategies that empower Black youth toward academic, social, and civic engagement. We suggest that through: (1) culturally responsive, relevant, and sustaining pedagogies, (2) problem- and project-based, participatory curricula, and (3) a commitment to civic action and civic engagement, we can reduce and one day remove STEM opportunity gaps. When this collection of practices is offered to students in holistic ways through in and out-ofschool opportunities, studies have shown the positive impact that these teaching and learning approaches can have on Black students' experiences, engagement, and academic success outcomes throughout the K-12 pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black cultural centers (BCCs) have served students on college campuses across the country for over 50 years, but empirical research about the benefits they offer Black students, beyond examples referenced in the conceptual and historical literature, remains limited. As the relevance of BCCs has come into question given financial constraints, more diverse student bodies, and a shift to discontinuing race-specific cultural centers in favor of multicultural centers, rigorous studies about their contributions are needed. Through an ethnographic approach, this investigation explores how a BCC site and its staff act as institutional, cultural, and entrepreneurial agents by facilitating the development of social capital among Black undergraduate students. They do this by (a) serving as conduits for campus services that struggle to reach Black undergraduate students, (b) strategically coordinating resources and relationships among Black organizations to meet the needs of the Black community, and (c) collaborating with peer cultural/identity centers to streamline efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]