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International faculty have a strong presence in STEM university educational programming. They represent the second largest demographic, after White faculty, among STEM faculty in US universities, the majority of which are from Asian countries such as China, South Korea, and India, surpassing by large margins racially minoritized domestic faculty including Black Americans, Latine, Native Americans, Native Pacific Islanders, and Native Alaskans (NSF, 2022). These demographics mirror that of STEM doctoral students with White students occupying the largest share, followed by Asian students (international and domestic). Because of this, the National Science Foundation determined that Black Americans, Latine, Native Americans, Native Pacific Islanders, and Native Alaskans were underrepresented in STEM education and occupations. It should come as no surprise that the majority of these racially minoritized students engage in cross-cultural mentoring. While much attention has been devoted to cross-cultural mentoring with White faculty, less has been paid to cross-cultural mentoring with international faculty. International faculty, especially Asian, often occupy a peculiar space as they are often viewed through the model minority lens while also being cast as sufficiently different based on white hegemonic norms (Author, 2021). They are subjected to acceptance for their presumed STEM gifts and talents on one hand, while on the other hand being subjected to marginalization emanating from their home language, accents, and culture (Herget, 2016). International faculty may face isolation and bias in ways similar to their racially minoritized students. Literature is relatively silent on international faculty's doctoral mentoring perceptions and if shared experiences of marginalization are leveraged to enhance the quality of cross-cultural doctoral mentorships between international faculty and Black and Brown students and This paper explores the perceptions of mentoring of international STEM doctoral faculty at three US universities in the southeast. Data were extracted from a larger multiple embedded qualitative case study (Yin, 2018) utilizing interviews with 18 international faculty from three US institutions in the southeast and a survey. Constant comparative inductive analysis was employed to develop findings. The findings suggest that international faculty often share cultural attitudes not much different than their White faculty counterparts, attitudes that reflect anti-Black racism (Gordon, 1995; Dumas & ross, 2016). The findings also reveal an assumption of science neutrality, lacking criticality in understanding science from broader epistemological foundations. Finally, the findings indicate that pragmatic concerns are prioritized over sociocultural and sociopolitical ones that may impact US racially minoritized doctoral students, resulting in international faculty failing to appreciate how their experiences of marginalization can result in empathic connections to their marginalized students. The implications implore STEM education to reimagine STEM doctoral education and mentoring as "holistic and embedded in and accountable to cultural imperatives" (Author, 2022). International faculty should become more aware of ways in which implicit bias fueled by anti-Black racism negatively impacts their Black and Brown doctoral mentees. STEM faculty development education should consider ways to assist international faculty with better connecting with racially minoritized and marginalized students to improve the cross-cultural doctoral mentoring experience.
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International Collaboration: Experiences of Indian Scientists and Engineers after Returning from the United States
This article presents findings on international research collaboration from a National Science Foundation-funded study with 83 faculty in science and engineering (S&E) who returned to India after studying and working in the United States. These faculty members were brought up in the Indian socio-cultural context, but they were professionalized in the scientific culture of Western academia. When they returned to India to take a faculty position, they knew collaborators in the US with desired skills, including their advisors. Yet, returned Indian migrant faculty face significant challenges in establishing successful international research collaboration with their American peers. Interestingly, this is not the case with collaborators from Europe and other parts of the world with whom they had little connection before moving to India. Findings show some inequities that exist between scientists and engineers in the US and India that pertain to resources and attitudes towards collaboration.
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- PAR ID:
- 10082679
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Perspectives on global development and technology
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 5-6
- ISSN:
- 1569-1500
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 593-613
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1163/15691497-12341498
