In this work package, we will identify concrete ways in which the reproduction of sameness and exclusion may be disrupted in a technical, STEM teaching and learning environment. Though data is difficult to access, the recruitment and retention of students of minoritized ethnic backgrounds in Dutch academia is challenging. Regarding STEM education, the situation is anecdotally even bleaker. It has been argued that this is, at least in part, because the role of the teacher has been largely overlooked. We will focus on developing ways to counter normative mechanisms in teacher-student and student-student relationships. We will center on the actual teaching and learning environments where students from underrepresented ethnic groups are discouraged from pursuing STEM, rather than underrepresented students themselves (i.e., the “other”), as has been the focus in the past.
Our interventions will center on key teacher-level factors known to determine student achievement i.e., classroom curriculum design; instructional strategies; and, classroom management/ climate, alongside how non-inclusive teaching and learning practices have been institutionalized administratively. This will allow us to make the desired impact of disrupting sameness at the individual, interpersonal, and structural levels. For instance, in the U.S. the STEM instructional landscape is dominated by “outdated” teaching methods, mainly didactic lecturing, which are known to exacerbate achievement gaps by, inter alia, creating a harsh, competitive classroom environment imbued with micro- and macro-aggressions.
We target teachers because, teacher performance has been proven to strongly influence student achievement, especially for students from minoritized ethnic backgrounds. Dutch academia is built around a liberal egalitarian educational ideal, based on the idea that talent, motivation, and effort (i.e., meritocracy) should determine student success. Few university teachers in the Netherlands both understand and use a more differentiated approach in the classroom, thereby acknowledging differences and inequities. Instead, most either repudiate the importance of diversity or resort to a uniform, content-driven approach. We will shift this trend by raising awareness among teachers and students of their role in the reproduction of sameness, and therein educational inequities. We will promote receptivity and skills to disrupt sameness among these target groups and put concrete inclusive teaching and learning tools in hands, thereby creating a pathway to increase equity for minoritized ethnic students and increase the representation of minoritized ethnic students who complete their STEM degrees and enter the STEM workforce.