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The American Physical Society calls on its members to improve the diversity of physics by sup- porting an inclusive culture that encourages women and people of color to become physicists. Becoming a physicist demands a set of beliefs about what it means to learn and do physics. Rather than physics courses and degree programs supporting students in developing these beliefs, evidence shows that physics education filters out students without sufficient beliefs. To better understand the role of beliefs in the lack of diversity in physics, we investigated the intersectional nature of race/racism and gender/sexism in inequities in student beliefs towards learning and doing physics using a critical quantitative intersectionality framework. The analyses used hierarchical linear models to examine students’ beliefs as measured by the Colorado learning attitudes about science survey. The data came from the LASSO database and included 1248 students in 29 calculus-based mechanics courses. Like prior studies, we found that beliefs either did not change or slightly decreased for most groups. Results identified large differences across intersecting race and gender groups. White students, particularly White men, tended to have more expert-like beliefs than any other group of students. Physics instruction must address these educational debts to move toward an inclusive culture supportive of diverse students and professionals.
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Poster Session: You say brutal, I say Thursday: Isn't it obvious?
Programmatic collaborations involving mathematicians and educators in the U.S. have been valuable but complex (e.g., Heaton & Lewis, 2011; Bass, 2005; Bass & Ball, 2014). Sultan & Artzt (2005) offer necessary conditions (p.53) including trust and helpfulness. Articles in Fried & Dreyfus (2014) and Bay-Williams (2012) describe outcomes from similarly collaborative efforts; however, there is a gap in the literature in attending to how race and gender intersect with issues of professional status, culture, and standards of practice. Arbaugh, McGraw and Peterson (2020) contend that “the fields of mathematics education and mathematics need to learn how to learn from each other - to come together to build a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts” (p. 155). Further, they posit that the two must “learn to honor and draw upon expertise related to both similarities and differences” across disciplines, or cultures. We argue that in order to do this, we must also take into account race, gender, language. For example, words like trust or helpfulness can read very differently when viewed from personal and professional culture, gender, or racial lenses. This poster shares personal vignettes from the perspective of three collaborators – one black male mathematician, one white female mathematics educator, and one white woman who was trained as a mathematician but works as a mathematics educator - illustrating some of the complexity of collaboration.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1920753
- PAR ID:
- 10285184
- Editor(s):
- Sacristán, A.; Cortés-Zavala, J. &
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Mathematics Education Across Cultures: Proceedings 42nd PME-NA
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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