Empowering and Liberating: Supporting Historically Marginalized STEM Students through Engagement with Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Program Abstract: We will report on a qualitative exploratory study of the knowledge and attitudes that diverse STEM students carried forward from a STEM-themed course in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies (WGSS). Participants in the study are undergraduate STEM majors at a primarily undergraduate institution who completed a WGSS course focused on critiques of scientific objectivity and the gendered and racialized history of scientific knowledge across STEM disciplines. Using focus group interviews to expand on coded student survey responses, we found that diverse STEM students who participated in this STEM-critical WGSS course generally considered that experience to be empowering, liberating, and enhancing of their STEM confidence and preparedness. Preliminary results suggest great potential in leveraging the wider feminist, anti-racist academic curriculum to support STEM identity development and advance the involvement, agency, and flourishing of diverse students in STEM. We will discuss how to foster curricular bridges that connect STEM students to critical STEM studies experiences.