An integrated energy and social justice perspective can support high school physics teachers in integrating equity and justice into their energy instruction. We present a pilot framework that combines scholarship on equity in science education with high school physics teachers’ actions to integrate equity into their physics teaching. Five approaches to equity are represented: access, achievement, identity, power, and justice. Considering this range of approaches can support teachers and teacher-educators to organize their efforts and stretch their thinking. We are in the process of further articulating and refining this framework based on our data of physics teachers’ equity efforts in real classrooms. 

This research focuses on the experiences of physics and astronomy graduate women of color. We conducted semi-structured, empathetic interviews to understand their experiences in their graduate program and how they navigate the physics department at large research university, which is a primarily white institution (PWI). The interviews are guided by critical race theory (CRT). We use CRT to examine how racial identities play a role in the obstacles faced by these women, including interactions between peers and faculty members.

Societal stereotypes and biases pertaining to who belongs in physics and who can excel in physics can impact motivational beliefs, e.g., of women and racial and ethnic minority students in physics courses. This study investigates how the learning environment predicts male and female students’ motivational beliefs including physics self-efficacy, interest, and identity at the end of year long (spanning two-semester) algebra-based introductory physics courses. These were courses at a large university in the US taken primarily by biological science majors many of whom are interested in health professions. Although women are not underrepresented in these physics courses, societal stereotypes and biases internalized by female students over their lifetime can still impact their motivational beliefs about physics. Our findings show gender gap in motivational beliefs favoring men. These findings can be useful to provide support and create an equitable and inclusive learning environment to help all students excel in these courses.

Research suggests that students’ self-efficacy in physics can influence their learning, performance and career decisions. Here we discuss a study on how the perception of being positively recognized or not recognized appropriately by the instructor or teaching assistant (TA) as a “physics person” predicts male and female students’ self-efficacy and performance at the end of a two-term college calculus-based introductory physics sequence. We find gender differences in students’ perceived recognition, which partially contribute to the gender differences in students’ physics self-efficacy and course grades. Our findings suggest that without explicit thought and action by instructors and TAs to appropriately recognize students as people who can excel in physics, the gender gaps in physics self-efficacy and course grades are likely to persist. We thank the National Science Foundation for support.

Studies show that a physics teacher's identity impacts how they teach. For teachers interested in pursuing diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in physics instruction, their identity likely informs how they conceptualize equitable instruction. We highlight three teacher identity cases from a data set of 25 interviews of secondary and university physics teachers to examine how they conceptualized equitable instruction through four domains: their conceptions of self, others, knowledge, and pedagogy. Selected teachers had distinct conceptualizations around enacting equitable instruction that we described across three metaphors: a tour guide, a coach, and a gardener. 

The Charles Drew Science Scholars program is a STEM program that enriches a subset of students in the College of Natural Science at Michigan State University. The ultimate goal of the program is to connect students with experiences that will support them in their development as a professional in their chosen career. In this presentation, we discuss the impressive track record that the Charles Drew Science Scholars programs holds with supporting students from minoritized backgrounds in earning a Bachelor’s degree in science. Overall, the program has demonstrated great success through an analysis lens of incoming preparation and graduation rates, especially for those who identify as African American/Black, Hispanic/Latinx, or Multi-Race. We highlight one element of the program, academic coaching, which directly supports their students through the required courses for completing a Bachelor’s  degree. Through this support structure, we see a difference in students’ overall GPA for these required courses between those who are enrolled in the Charles Drew Science Scholars program and those who are enrolled in the college more broadly. These results suggest that structures such as academic coaching may be a critical element in supporting students’ success toward earning a Bachelor’s degree in science.

All people vary in their needs and abilities; however, typical research practices do not consider these variations, which likely impacts who participates in research studies.  Additionally, few PER studies have even reported disability identity. Combined, this means that PER researchers typically do not seek out the experiences of disabled people and disabled people might not have access to participate in research studies. In this poster, we demonstrate how a research team can use principles from Universal Design for Learning and the Variation Planning Tool to anticipate ability expectations and create flexible options in a qualitative research study. We then demonstrate how different interview structures can impact disabled participants through a case study with three participants. Finally, we conclude with suggestions for researchers in planning their study designs. Through this example, we hope to encourage researchers to examine their own methods and offer alternative formats in their research design.

During the spring of 2020, concurrent with the public health crisis caused by COVID-19 and the associated economic crisis, the United States went through a period of significant civil unrest due to racialized violence against Black people. During this very challenging climate, many institutions opted to rapidly transition to courses online. Unfortunately, this change had the potential to create new inequities in education, and exacerbate preexisting inequities ones. In this presentation, we share the results of our study investigating the experiences of undergraduate learning assistants during this time. Learning assistants are in the unique position of being students, while also members of the teaching staff. As students they understand the experiences of their peers and as staff members they understand the learning goals, intended outcomes, and teaching philosophy governing the design of the course. The conceptual framework utilized in this study combines social justice and community cultural wealth.