An educational intervention to improve women's academic STEM outcomes: Divergent effects on well-represented vs. underrepresented minority women.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this field experiment was to test the effect of a social psychological intervention on an ethnically diverse sample of first-year college women majoring in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). We hypothesized that grade point averages in STEM courses would be higher in the intervention condition relative to the control condition. Furthermore, we tested competing hypotheses about the moderating role of belonging to either a well-represented (WR) or underrepresented minority (URM) ethnic group in STEM. METHOD: The sample (N = 199) included 115 women from WR ethnic groups and 84 women from URM ethnic groups who were randomly assigned to condition. Women in the intervention were educated about the harmful impact of gender stereotypes in STEM and provided with effective strategies for coping with stereotype threat. At the end of their first year, we obtained participants' academic transcripts. RESULTS: At the end of their first year in college, URM women in the intervention condition had higher grade point averages in their STEM courses than URM women in the control condition. The intervention had no effect on WR women. CONCLUSIONS: The present research demonstrates the importance of intersectional approaches to studying the experiences of women in STEM. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Ethnic variation in gender-STEM stereotypes and STEM participation: an intersectional approach.

Stereotypes associating men and masculine traits with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are ubiquitous, but the relative strength of these stereotypes varies considerably across cultures. The present research applies an intersectional approach to understanding ethnic variation in gender-STEM stereotypes and STEM participation within an American university context. African American college women participated in STEM majors at higher rates than European American college women (Study 1, Study 2, and Study 4). Furthermore, African American women had weaker implicit gender-STEM stereotypes than European American women (Studies 2-4), and ethnic differences in implicit gender-STEM stereotypes partially mediated ethnic differences in STEM participation (Study 2 and Study 4). Although African American men had weaker implicit gender-STEM stereotypes than European American men (Study 4), ethnic differences between men in STEM participation were generally small (Study 1) or nonsignificant (Study 4). We discuss the implications of an intersectional approach for understanding the relationship between gender and STEM participation.