Recognition experiences of women of color in chemistry: an intersectional study
Norda S.
Stephenson
* and
Ursula A.
Abelsen
Western Washington University, 516 High Street, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA. E-mail: stephen2@wwu.edu
First published on 15th July 2024
Abstract
Much research on women of color in STEM has treated women of color as a collective, giving little attention to the nuanced differences in the experiences of the women within this larger group. Research on women of color in STEM has also given insufficient attention to disciplinary differences, and has often applied unidimensional, rather than intersectional approaches, to examining the experiences of these women. This study takes a nuanced approach to examining the recognition experiences of four undergraduate women of color in chemistry, and how those experiences are shaped by the intersection of their multiple marginalized identities, using an intersectional lens. Interpretive phenomenological analysis is used to center the women's voices and focus on capturing both the convergences and divergences in their experiences. Our findings illustrate the value of using an intersectional approach, and provide explicit examples of how recognition, especially negative recognition, manifests itself in these women's experiences. The findings have implications for how institutions and disciplines can support women of color to persist in science disciplines, as well as implications for research.
Introduction
Many students who enter college with intentions to major in STEM do not persist to graduation (PCAST, 2012; Graham et al., 2013; Flynn, 2016; National Science Board, 2018). However, the exit rates from STEM fields for women and people of color are significantly higher than that of their white counterparts, despite the fact that they enter STEM fields with similar degrees of interest as their white counterparts (Anderson and Kim, 2006; Hurtado et al., 2009; PCAST, 2012; Graham et al. 2013; Chang et al., 2014; Estrada et al., 2016; National Science Board, 2018; Riegle-Crumb et al., 2019; Kricorian et al., 2020). This reduced participation of women and people of color in STEM is concerning when viewed from economic, academic and social justice standpoints. The economic and academic success and global competitiveness of the United States can be ensured and sustained only by incorporating diverse viewpoints and perspectives, including those of women of color. With respect to social justice, there is great disparity between the percentage of women of color in STEM and their representation in society (PCAST, 2012; Graham et al., 2013; Chang et al., 2014; Estrada et al., 2016; National Science Board, 2018; Riegle-Crumb et al., 2019). Looking more closely at chemistry where women earned just over 50 per cent of the baccalaureate degrees awarded in 2020, women of color remain underrepresented in chemistry, collectively accounting for 19.3% of baccalaureate degrees awarded in 2020 (NCSES, 2023). The mismatch between the representation of women of color in the population and their participation in chemistry is an issue of social justice.A number of explanations for the lower rate of participation and persistence among women and people of color in STEM fields have focused on perceived deficiencies associated with people of color (Arcidiacono, 2004; Griffith, 2010). Research, however, does not support these deficit explanations (Riegle-Crumb et al., 2019; Russo-Tait, 2022). Instead, structural barriers such as discrimination on the basis of class, sex, race and ethnicity; cultural barriers within STEM fields; and institutional barriers such as unwelcoming climates and racial and gender stereotypes and microaggressions, among many others, better account for the reduced participation and persistence of women and people of color in STEM (Hurtado et al., 2009; McGee and Bentley, 2017; Ong et al., 2018; Banks and Dohy, 2019; McGee, 2020; Russo-Tait, 2022).
Over the past 20 years, the role of identity in students’ participation and persistence in STEM has been receiving increased attention (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Calabrese Barton et al., 2013; Graham et al., 2013; Avraamidou, 2020a,b, 2022; Cohen et al., 2021; Dou and Cian, 2022; Hazari et al., 2022). Although research around this construct has been steadily increasing in STEM generally, there is little research examining the impact of identity, and its associated constructs, on the participation of students of color in chemistry. This study addresses this gap by focusing on the recognition experiences of four women of color in chemistry at a predominantly white institution (PWI).
Conceptual framework
This work is built on two main frameworks: (i) intersectionality, which has roots in critical race theory and feminism (Carbado et al., 2013), and (ii) science identity.Intersectionality
The term intersectionality was coined by Crenshaw (1991), who used it to describe “the various ways race and gender interact to shape the multiple dimensions of Black women's employment experiences,” but the concept and conversation date back much farther (Brunn-Bevel et al., 2015; Mitchell, 2019). From its earliest days, intersectionality has been applied to studies related to women, gender, and ethnic studies (Brunn-Bevel et al., 2015; Warner and Shields, 2018) to focus attention on, and give voice to, the experiences of the historically excluded.The literature reveals that intersectionality has been described and applied primarily as theory, praxis, framework, and methodology (Cho et al., 2013; Brunn-Bevel et al., 2015; Ruiz Alvarado and Hurtado, 2015; Warner and Shields, 2018; Mitchell, 2019). In higher education, intersectionality has been broadly used to examine how the confluence of multiple intersecting identities shape experiences, especially for people with intersecting, marginalized identities, and to interrogate systemic, structural, and programmatic practices. Increased interest in, and application of, intersectionality in contemporary studies across various disciplines continues to provide fodder for the “intersectionality wars” in which questions and arguments about nearly every aspect of intersectionality are raised (Nash, 2017; Harris and Patton, 2019). Some authors are concerned that these “wars” and debates draw attention from the transformative, justice-focused agenda at the heart of intersectionality (Bilge, 2013; Harris and Patton, 2019), and threaten to undermine the concept. Others suggest more careful use of the term “intersectional,” arguing that some uses are not consistent with the original intents of intersectionality. These “less faithful” uses of the concept could undo or neutralize intersectionality and strip it “of its radical vision for social justice” (Bilge, 2013; Harris and Patton, 2019) by treating it as ornamental and reducing it to only an “analytic tool that focuses on the confluence of multiple identities” (Mitchell et al., 2014; Harris and Patton, 2019).
In this study, we adopt Mitchell's (2019) working definition of intersectionality as “the intersection of salient, socially constructed identities and the extent to which individuals or groups are oppressed or marginalized as a result of interlocking, socially constructed systems of oppression associated with those identities.” We employ intersectionality as both a theory and analytical framework as we examine the recognition experiences of four undergraduate women of color as they navigated a chemistry department in a PWI. In using intersectionality as theory, we acknowledge the multiplicity of the identity women of color and recognize that these women experience the compounded effect of systems of oppression and privilege at the intersection of racism and sexism, that cannot be adequately captured or explained by unidimensional frameworks. Use of an intersectional lens allows us to not only capture the “messy nature of the human experience” (Guerrero-Arias et al., 2020), but also to present a more “holistic representation” of that experience, as the multiple intersecting social identities are inseparable, and cannot be studied independently (Davis, 2008; Verdín and Godwin, 2018; Warner and Shields, 2018; Avraamidou, 2020a,b).
Not only do we center intersectionality in this study, but we also give attention to the nuances in the experiences of the women, who are members of different subgroups. Much research has focused on the collective called women of color; however, the historical, cultural, and social experiences of these groups, including the ways they experience the multiplicative effects of racism and sexism are diverse and varied. Capturing these experiences necessitates attention to nuance. We also recognize that despite this nuanced treatment, and our best efforts and intentions to capture the experiences of each woman rather than treat them as a monolith, the complexity of identity limits the extent to which we are able to fully capture all intersecting identities influencing the women's experiences. We therefore focus primarily on the interaction of the salient identities of race/ethnicity and gender, and science identity. We believe using an intersectional lens to examine the experiences of our women of color participants is appropriate and facilitates the investigation of identity in ways that expose inequities and center social justice.
Science identity and disciplinary identity
Our understanding of students’ science identity and how science identity develops has increased significantly over the last 20 years. Drawing on Gee's (2000) definition of identity as “being recognized as a certain “kind of person,” in a given context,” Carlone and Johnson (2007) developed a science identity framework incorporating three intertwining and overlapping dimensions: competence, performance, and recognition. Within this framework, competence is defined as “knowledge and understanding of science content,” while performance refers to the demonstrations or social performances of relevant scientific practices (Carlone and Johnson, 2007). The authors describe recognition as “recognizing oneself and getting recognized by others as a ‘science person,’” and identify it as the linchpin of science identity.In their groundbreaking study, Carlone and Johnson (2007) sought to understand the experiences of 15 women of color from undergraduate studies through graduate school, and then on to careers in science. The authors found that the women could be described in three categories based on their science experiences: research scientist, altruistic scientist and disrupted scientist. They described the research scientist as the quintessential “science person” or “scientist” who enthusiastically pursues science and is recognized by others. The altruistic scientist, like the research scientist, is very excited about science, creates her own definition of science, is interested in leveraging science in the service of others, and chooses whose recognition matters to her. The disrupted scientist is also fascinated by science, however, discriminatory practices by “meaningful others” cause them to experience conflict because their view of self as scientist is not supported by recognition from those “meaningful others.”
Building on the work of Carlone and Johnson (2007), Hazari et al. (2010) took a quantitative approach to investigating the physics identity of high school students. In addition to the three dimensions identified by Carlone and Johnson (2007), Hazari et al. (2010, 2013) added a fourth dimension – interest. The authors reasoned that while the more mature participants in Carlone and Johnson's (2007) study already had established interests in science such that it was unlikely to explain any differences in their science identity, the interest of high school students was critical to the development of their science identity (Hazari et al., 2010; Potvin and Hazari, 2013). Following up on their four-dimensions identity model, Potvin and Hazari (2013) later combined the dimensions of competence and performance, having found that high school students conflated performance and competence, rather than perceiving them as two distinct ideas (Hazari et al., 2010; Godwin et al., 2016; Hazari et al., 2020).
Students’ sense of belonging has been emerging as another dimension to consider with respect to science identity, especially for women and students of color (Strayhorn, 2012; Trujillo and Tanner, 2014; Lewis et al., 2017; Ong et al., 2018; Rainey et al., 2018; Fink et al., 2020; Huffmyer et al., 2022; Lunn et al., 2022). Sense of belonging refers to “students’ sense of being accepted, valued, included, and encouraged by others (teachers and peers) in the academic classroom setting and of feeling oneself to be an important part of the life and activity of the class” (Goodenow 1993). Sense of belonging therefore captures the feeling of membership in a group and acceptance and valuation by its members (Good et al., 2012) and is considered a basic human need (Baumeister and Leary, 1995). Schinske et al. (2015) found that a lack of harmony between conventional images of scientists and personal images led to feelings of not belonging and not being a scientist, for women of color. Sense of belonging has also been linked to persistence, especially for students from marginalized groups (Strayhorn, 2012; Smith et al., 2013; Thoman et al., 2014; Ladewig et al., 2020), and career choice (Hazari et al., 2010; Estrada et al., 2011). Discipline-specific belonging has been found to be a better predictor of persistence in STEM than general belonging (Hansen et al., 2023). Persistence in science is strongly associated with science identity.
As research into students’ identity in STEM continues to grow, the need to explore not only general science identity, but also disciplinary identity has surfaced. Disciplinary identity (such as chemistry identity, biology identity, geology identity) is socially constructed (Kane, 2012), and refers to students’ perceptions of themselves with respect to a particular discipline as they navigate experiences in that discipline (Enyedy et al., 2006). Examination of disciplinary identity may explain differences in participation and persistence patterns across fields, and allows for more fine-grained exploration and analysis of identity (Kane, 2012; Hazari et al., 2013; Carlone, 2017; Hughes et al., 2021).
Examining disciplinary identity work across disciplines, research in physics has investigated the experiences of students from underrepresented groups, including women, people of color, and queer and trans persons (Hazari et al., 2010; Hyater-Adams et al., 2018, 2019; Bottomley et al., 2021; Eren, 2021; Leyva et al., 2022). Other research on identity in physics has also explored the relationship between physics identity and informal science (Hazari et al., 2022), and the context dependence of physics identity (Hazari et al., 2020). Studies of identity in mathematics have explored students’ mathematics-learning identities in a remedial course (Larnell, 2016), development of a mathematics identity (Cobb et al., 2009), and mathematics identity of Black students (Martin, 2007, 2012). In biology, studies have centered around the impact of experiences on students’ identity production and development (Gunter, 2019; Le et al., 2019) and how engagement with career development resources affect the development of undergraduate biology students’ identities (McCartney et al., 2022), as well as the relationship between identity development and retention (Lucas and Spina, 2022), among others. Mogos et al. (2021) have explored the development of a computer science identity for computer science majors and minors, while Mahadeo et al. (2020) developed a framework for computing identity. Other identity work in computer science has focused on the impact of race/ethnicity, gender and experiences (Lopez et al., 2022; Lunn et al., 2022), as well as the role of recognition in girls’ development of coding identity (Hughes et al., 2021). Studies in engineering and geology have also explored issues related to students’ identity development (Capobianco et al., 2012; Ross et al., 2017; Paul et al., 2020). Generally, these studies support the position that students of color do not feel welcome in STEM for a myriad of reasons. However, they also highlight the need for more research that examines the identity experiences of all students, including students of color, at the level of the discipline. Such nuance can provide insight that can lead to more specifically tailored, intentional, and effective actions in responding to the needs of students, especially students of color.
More recently, a few studies using an intersectional approach to examining students’ experiences in chemistry linked to identity, have emerged. Younge et al. (2022) used an intersectional lens to explore the identity experiences of Black, female students in an organic chemistry lab course at Spelman College, a Historically Black College/University (HBCU). The authors found that engaging Black women students in culturally relevant lab activities strengthened their science identities. In examining the experiences of chemistry graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) at a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) using an intersectional approach, Corrales and Komperda (2022) used a multiple case study research design to explore the impact of participation in a training course on the development of the participants’ researcher and teacher identities. The authors suggested that the GTAs could benefit from greater support in the development of their teacher and researcher identities. Nardo (2022) also explored the experiences of a historically minoritized, female graduate student in chemistry, and used narrative inquiry to share how her experiences were shaped by class, race and gender. The author demonstrated how methodological approaches which are infrequently used in chemistry education research, could be used to explore the experiences of historically minoritized students in chemistry.
While not explicitly focused on student identity, Fink et al. (2020) investigated the relationship between sense of belonging, a construct linked to science identity, and student success in general chemistry. The authors concluded that sense of belonging was a predictor of student success and attrition, and that women, especially women from underrepresented groups, had lower sense of belonging than their male counterparts. In the next two sections, we look briefly at recognition and research on the identity experiences of women of color in STEM (by subgroups).
Recognition
Recognition involves perceiving oneself, and being perceived by others, as a “certain kind of person,” and is the central dimension in identity development (Gee, 2000; Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Matias, 2013; Lock et al., 2019). The recognition that a girl or woman receives within a science discipline can strengthen or weaken her sense of belonging, success in the discipline, and her science identity (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Calabrese Barton et al., 2013; Hughes et al., 2021). Negative recognition, including lack of recognition, not only weakens the disciplinary identity of women and girls (Hughes et al., 2021), but can also be harmful and oppressive, depending on the extent to which it is internalized (Taylor, 1992; Avraamidou, 2020b).Recognition is particularly important for persons with multiple marginalized identities, as individuals who present in ways that are seen as other in science are less likely to be recognized, or more likely to receive negative recognition, than individuals who present in ways that align with traditional views of science and scientists (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Smith, 2016). Women and girls of color, because of their multiple intersecting marginalized identities, are at high risk of experiencing tightened interlocking oppression as a result of negative recognition.
Recognition may manifest itself in various forms, ranging from explicit recognition to no recognition, may have various sources, and is culture dependent, and can therefore vary significantly from one individual to the next (Hazari and Cass, 2018; Avraamidou, 2022). Recognition by high school science teachers, community members, family members and peers has been valued differently by different groups and individuals (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Kane, 2012; Hazari et al., 2013, 2017; Lock et al., 2019). This supports the position that nuance is needed in examining people's experiences of recognition and identity in science.
Women of color in STEM
Women of color experience the multiplicative effects of racism and sexism which results in them being disadvantaged in ways that impact their science identity and persistence in STEM. Therefore, studies that employ intersectional, rather than unidimensional, approaches to exploring the identity experiences of these women are needed to capture the complexity of these experiences, and avoid obfuscation. Although the number of studies that take an intersectional approach to examining the experiences of women of color in STEM are increasing, there is still need for more, especially when the intersectional work adopts a nuanced approach.Research into the experiences of women of color in STEM has found that they encounter a plethora of systemic barriers which manifest as microaggressions, feelings of isolation and exclusion, chilly climate, being assigned undesired identities, and invisibility (Espinosa, 2011; McGee and Bentley, 2017; Avraamidou, 2020b, 2022). This othering or stigmatization and mistreatment of women of color in racialized spaces, including STEM, is grounded in historical narratives of women of color as inferior others, aberrant, and undeserving (Mutegi, 2013; Grier-Reed et al., 2018; Ash et al., 2020). Research experiences, participation in extracurricular STEM-related activities, professional development, and departmental support are reported to have positive impact on the persistence, belonging and identity experiences for women of color in STEM (Auchincloss et al., 2014; Rodenbusch et al., 2016; Cooper et al., 2019). The four women of color in this study identify as members of Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA), Black and African American, and Hispanic/Latinas/Chicanas, subgroups. Below we briefly summarize some of the identity experiences of each subgroup, to better understand their nuanced experiences at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, and other identities.
Summary of the literature and rationale
Our review of the literature revealed four dimensions that are closely associated with science identity for undergraduate college students – recognition (by self and others), performance/competence, interest, and sense of belonging. Recognition has been identified as the central dimension in identity development and is particularly important for women and girls. For women of color, who have been historically excluded in STEM, recognition may be critical to their persistence in STEM. Moreover, our survey revealed that examining science identity broadly, without attention to disciplinary identity, may be insufficient to provide insight into students’ experiences within a discipline. While significant identity research is taking place within some STEM disciplines, research focused on chemistry identity, especially research focused on the experiences of undergraduate women of color, is very limited. This work seeks to address this gap. The historical reputation of chemistry as being white and male-dominated has long excluded students from marginalized groups, especially women of color, who have not reaped the social and economic benefits associated with having social identities consistent with normative views of science. Unlike students whose social identities allow them to more easily perceive themselves (and be perceived by others) as science persons, women of color tend to have lower rates of participation and success in science, poorer quality classroom experiences, and less (positive) recognition in science (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Hazari et al., 2010; Estrada et al., 2011; PCAST, 2012; Anderson and Ward, 2014; Eddy et al., 2015; Shedlosky-Shoemaker and Fautch, 2015; Le et al., 2019; Avraamidou, 2020a,b). Moreover, because of their generally smaller numbers in STEM fields, the voices and experiences of women of color have been lost through aggregation with the voices and experiences of women in science, and so the needs of women of color in science have largely gone unmet. In addition, apart from a few exceptions, the narratives and experiences of women of color in chemistry are absent or invisible, assimilated into the collective of women of color in science or STEM. There is need for more nuanced understanding of the experiences of women of color from the various subgroups within chemistry. Our research aims to begin to remedy this social injustice by centering the voices and experiences of women of color and placing women of color in chemistry in the spotlight. Moreover, this study examines the experiences of these women using an intersectional, rather than unidimensional lens, and gives attention to nuance in the women's experiences, given their multiple intersecting identities, through the following research questions:i. How do undergraduate women of color in chemistry experience recognition?
ii. In what ways are the women's recognition experiences influenced by the intersections of their identities?
Methodology
This paper reports on the recognition experiences of four undergraduate women of color in chemistry, using interpretive phenomenological analysis (Smith et al., 2009) to explore the unique experiences and perspectives of each woman. Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) is a contemporary qualitative research method with roots in phenomenology, hermeneutics and idiography. While traditional phenomenology is focused on capturing a single essence of the phenomenon experienced by all participants, IPA is a more flexible approach that centers the voices of participants and focuses on their individual experiences (Smith et al., 2009; Pietkiewicz and Smith, 2014; Miller et al., 2018). IPA's flexibility facilitates the researcher's input in making meaning from the participants’ experiences, and situating these accounts against social, historical, and cultural factors (Smith et al., 2009; Miller et al., 2018). These reasons, along with the fact that IPA allowed us to capture both the convergences and divergences in our participants’ experiences (as women of color from different subgroups), rather than assimilating them into a collective, made IPA well-suited for this study.Participants
The participants were four women of color (one African American, one Black, one Hispanic and one Asian), whose experiences were selected for inclusion in this study based on their differing racial/ethnic identities, because we wanted to understand how women of color from different subgroups experienced recognition in chemistry. We also selected the stories of these four women because we wanted to include women of color who experienced recognition in diverse ways, and whose stories provided thick, rich descriptions for analysis. While we recognize that providing more specific descriptions of our participants is one way of disrupting and challenging systems that have historically treated women of color as a monolith, stifled their voices, and therefore served to perpetuate injustices, we are also aware that increased specificity could increase the risk of exposing the identity of our participants, who are already at risk given their very small numbers in predominantly white institutions (Frehill and Ivie, 2013; McGee et al., 2021; Miles et al., 2022). We have therefore attempted a somewhat balanced description that provides some specificity, while protecting the identities of our participants.Data collection
We invited students who identified as women of color to participate in interviews through a poster advertisement electronically sent to all students within the department of chemistry. We conducted one in-depth interview, 45–75 minutes long, with each participant. Interviews were semi-structured in nature and focused on the participants’ identities, interests in science/chemistry, perceptions of science/chemistry, and participation in science/chemistry, including past and current experiences in science/chemistry. The first author conducted and audio-recorded all interviews. Verbatim transcription of interviews was shared between the authors. Each participant was offered a $15 Amazon gift card after completion of the interview. All aspects of this study complied with the ethical procedures approved by the Institutional Review Board.Data analysis
The first author was primarily responsible for the analysis of the interview data. Analysis of the interview data was an iterative process that generally followed the guidelines for interpretive phenomenological analysis set forth by Smith and Osborn (2008). The process started with multiple, independent readings of a chosen interview transcript and listening to the corresponding audio to gain familiarity with the participant's account of her experiences. During listening/reading, initial ideas were noted, using open coding rather than pre-figured ideas from the literature. However, given the first author's familiarity with the literature in this area, it is likely that the literature had an influence on this process. The transcript and notes were revisited, and emerging themes identified. Connections between emerging themes were identified and similar themes were clustered together, after revisiting the transcript to ensure the connections remained faithful to the participant's account, and through discussions between the authors. These now sub-themes were further clustered into superordinate themes that captured the participant's experience of recognition in chemistry. This process was repeated for each participant, being careful to remain alert to new themes, noting patterns of convergence and divergence in the participants’ accounts, and discussions between the authors. A final set of superordinate themes was produced. The final set of superordinate themes identified in this study surrounded issues that were recognized as pertinent and discussed in detail by all four women of color in the study. During the analysis process, the authors provided critical feedback for each other, ensuring that we were consistently critical of our interpretations of the participants’ experiences and remaining faithful to the participant's accounts, meeting regularly over the course of several weeks. The second author was critical to helping to reduce the bias of the first author, who was primarily responsible for the analysis of the data. Where differences arose, we revisited the transcript and ensured that the final interpretation aligned with the transcript. The study's focus on centering the participants’ voices and experiences by remaining faithful to their accounts was an important consideration for ensuring trustworthiness. We also ensured trustworthiness by giving attention to Lincoln and Guba's (1985) trustworthiness criteria for qualitative research, as well as adhering closely to the guidelines for IPA (Smith and Osborn, 2008). Therefore, deliberate actions to ensure the trustworthiness of the data analysis included: (i) using “thick descriptions” in reporting our findings, including providing details about the study itself and our participants, and generous use of quotes to relate our participants’ experiences in their own voices; (ii) the use of memos during the analytical process to keep track of research decisions and the rationale for these decisions; (iii) following up with participants, where necessary, to clarify aspects of interview; and (iv) being explicit about our roles in the research, as well as our prior experiences, beliefs and identities. By providing detailed descriptions of the participants’ contexts and our process, we hope to help readers determine transferability of our findings to their own contexts. Peer-debriefing sessions with a colleague outside of the research team also helped to establish trustworthiness of interpretations. Because we used IPA for the analysis of our data in this study, we acknowledge our active role in the hermeneutic process of “trying to make sense of the participants trying to make sense of their world” (Smith and Osborn, 2008).Positionality
Both authors are women. The first author (NS) identifies as a Black, Afro-Caribbean woman who completed undergraduate studies in chemistry in a predominantly Black space outside of the United States, but currently lives and works in the United States and identifies as an academic in chemistry at a predominantly white institution (PWI). Given her interest in this research as an advocate for improving the experiences of people of color generally, as well as her racial and gender identities and experiences, the first author situates herself as an insider in this study. However, because the first author's undergraduate chemistry experiences took place in a Black space, and is decades removed from the experiences of the participants, she acknowledges that she cannot fully understand the experience of the participants. NS also recognizes her privilege and power arising from her professional identity, as well as age differences. The second author (UA) is a White woman who recently completed a baccalaureate degree in biology and anthropology, with minors in chemistry and psychology. She has had experiences as a woman in chemistry at the same predominantly white institution as our participants, but positions herself as an outsider in this study because of her racial identity. UA is supportive of efforts and initiatives focused on disrupting inequities and seeking social justice for people with marginalized identities.The authors recognize that, regardless of similarities between our experiences and identities, and those of our participants, because we (the researchers) and our participants have our own multiple intersecting identities, the experiences of researchers and participants will differ. Given the intersectional focus of the study, as well as the attention to nuance emphasized in this study, we view the complex identities that we bring to this work as an asset, rather than a hindrance.
Findings
This section presents the recognition experiences of four women of color in chemistry. The women's recognition experiences are presented using the following themes: becoming a chemistry person, positive recognition, and negative recognition. Becoming a chemistry person focuses on the women's paths to identifying as chemistry persons, their recognition of themselves as chemistry persons, and the ways they describe themselves as chemistry persons. All four women associated becoming and being a chemistry person with interest in, enthusiasm for, and/or fascination with chemistry; as well as competence/performance in chemistry. In their descriptions of chemistry persons, the women identified three categories of chemistry persons: students doing chemistry, chemistry persons and chemists. To remain faithful to the women's experiences, we retain these descriptions in this study. Positive recognition captures all forms of recognition from external sources, which are regarded as affirming by the participants, whether implicit or explicit, while negative recognition captures all non-positive recognition and includes stereotypes, microaggressions, explicit negative recognition, unwanted or unsolicited recognition, and lack of recognition, from an external source. Although there are convergences in the women's experiences, each woman's experience of recognition is unique. To capture the uniqueness of each woman's experience, and to ensure that each voice is heard, we present their individual experiences within each theme.Maria – first-generation, Hispanic woman: becoming a chemistry person
Maria's interest in chemistry started first as an interest in science. She was a “little kid” who thought “science was really cool.” However, having nothing in common with the “older, White man” images of scientists she saw around her, and because she never thought of herself as “someone smart enough to do it,” she admired scientists from afar, convinced “that could never be me.”Although Maria felt there was no future for her in science, she was still really interested, and took her first chemistry class, a general elective, in high school – it did not go well. She “failed the class so bad[ly] that it was just removed from [her] record.” Because of this bad experience, Maria concluded that she was not good at science. Despite this failure, an administrative error led Maria to an Advanced Placement (AP) chemistry class, where a petite, female, Hispanic teacher who was passionate about chemistry, wore high heels and makeup, well-dressed every day, and “someone you wouldn’t normally see in this field,” allowed her to take the class after a one-week trial, in spite of significant gaps in her chemistry knowledge. Maria found her Hispanic chemistry teacher “just fascinating” and “wish[ed] [she] could do something like that.”
In spite of this positive experience, Maria was not fully confident in her chemistry ability, and felt that her strengths were more in humanities. She therefore started community college as a history major, with a career as a high school history teacher in mind, but she “really missed the challenge of STEM classes.” Maria changed her major from history to chemistry, although she was not completely convinced she could be successful at it.
Maria did not fail her first chemistry class at community college. In fact, she went on to do very well in chemistry, and even opted to take chemistry courses that were not required – “just for fun!” As Maria's success and confidence in chemistry grew, she began to dream of a career in chemistry, and began considering pursuing a doctoral degree after earning her bachelor's degree.
After completing her studies at community college, Maria decided to transfer to a four-year institution, and was accepted into her first-choice college, but financial constraints prevented her from taking up that opportunity. She chose to study at her current institution because of its strong biology program, and because it offered her greater financial aid. Ideally, Maria wanted to pursue a double major in chemistry and biology, but she was again constrained by finances. She decided to pursue a biology major with a chemistry minor, as she felt that this combination would best allow her to pursue her two passions – doing chemistry and serving the health needs of her community.
At the time of our interview, Maria was a junior student who had completed two quarters in chemistry at her four-year college and was still very excited about chemistry. She confidently identified herself as a chemistry person because of her passion and enthusiasm for the subject, but did not consider herself a chemist, because she associated being a chemist with doing research or higher education.
I would definitely consider myself a chemistry person just because I am very enthusiastic about chemistry, and I still have a very strong passion for it.
In addition to her passion and enthusiasm for chemistry, Maria also described herself as having a “pretty decent” understanding of the chemistry concepts she was learning at the time and considered herself “intelligent and hardworking enough to get through [any challenge]” that came along with her study of chemistry. As part of her own recognition of her performance/competence in chemistry, Maria revealed that her current job as a math tutor sometimes provided opportunities for her to assist chemistry students with their chemistry homework, which boosted her confidence as a chemistry person.
Maria – first-generation, Hispanic woman: positive recognition
Prior to attending her four-year college, Maria had a number of experiences of positive recognition experiences in chemistry. Her high school teacher (Hispanic female) was one of a number of persons who expressed confidence in her ability to succeed in chemistry, allowing her to continue in AP chemistry, even though she had failed the prerequisite course. After just one week, Maria's Hispanic teacher recognized her potential to do well in chemistry, and she was not wrong.At community college, Maria had male, Nigerian and Asian organic chemistry professors who recognized her competence in chemistry, and encouraged and supported her in this pursuit. In addition, Maria's participation in chemistry research, and her attendance at two science conferences also provide evidence that Maria was positively recognized as a chemistry person by others in chemistry. Maria also landed a job as a quality analyst while still pursuing her AA degree – further recognition of her ability as a chemistry person. Maria recalled:
I actually had this really amazing opportunity to work in, in a chemistry lab doing quality analysis for hops and so both of my co-workers, like my boss and my co-worker both had Bachelor's in chemistry already at least. Um, I didn’t have my Associate degree yet but I was given the job.
Although Maria's family and community did not initially recognize her as a chemistry person, they later came to recognize her, even though they do not understand her work. Maria shared:
As they [family] saw me succeed and actually achieve different things and do undergraduate research and attend the scientific conferences and watched me work on homework until 2, 3 in the morning… to get the grades I needed, they definitely became a lot more serious and have become very supportive of me. They make it clear like oh, we have no idea what you’re doing, like what your homework is about, we don’t know anything about it, but we know that you can do it. And so that has been very sweet and a very nice change.
My community … they have shown up to support in ways that I never expected. And so, for older Hispanic men that used to talk down to me, to now treat me with respect and speak highly of me, and tell me that I am more intelligent than they are. To be given this respect through academics, um, I think shows that there is a shift…
Maria did not relate any chemistry-specific experiences of positive recognition since starting at her four-year college. However, she revealed that she was a math tutor, a position which sometimes provided opportunities for her to assist chemistry students with their chemistry homework. Maria would have received positive recognition as a chemistry person, from the students she assisted with their chemistry homework.
Maria – first-generation, Hispanic woman: negative recognition
Maria related multiple instances of negative recognition from various sources. Sharing about her family's early expectations for her, Maria disclosed that even before she decided on chemistry as a study choice, her family members believed she would “become a teen mom that dropped out of high school.” When she started community college, Maria decided to switch her major from history to chemistry. Her family members were amused by the idea that she wanted to pursue chemistry.My family, at first, were just entertained by the idea because they knew I was not a good student in high school… And so, I think at first, they were very entertained by it like oh, she's funny, she’ll switch back.
In addition to her family, Maria's Hispanic community members also did not support her desire to study chemistry as this conflicted with cultural norms and social expectations for women within the community.
Women belong in the kitchen, and your focus should be on finding a man to support you.
You should be learning how to cook and clean, not how to work in a lab.
At her four-year college, Maria experienced negative recognition from instructors and classmates. Maria presents as ethnically ambiguous and was often mistaken as Asian by her classmates. Before her identity as a Hispanic woman was known to her classmates, Maria was positively recognized by her chemistry classmates, treated with respect, and included. However, when her identity was known, Maria was shunned, and the respect withdrawn. We consider this behavior negative recognition masquerading as positive recognition, or “pseudo-positive recognition.” Maria talked about how she was treated by a classmate after learning of her Hispanic identity:
This student in particular went from being very friendly and very talkative to basically completely shunning me, even though we sat at the same lab table and we are supposed to work together.
Negative recognition from her classmates also manifested as questioning of her competence or intelligence, and a constant need for White validation. Maria stated:
In terms of the classroom setting, it's a lot of hesitation to be even near me, because I look different and apart from that, it's almost as if anytime I say something it is questioned. The validity of it has to be always reaffirmed by someone else who is White. And until that happens, there is a question mark.
Maria also discussed unwanted recognition that she received from classmates – recognition that had nothing to do with her competence or performance as a chemistry student, and made her feel othered, rather than included.
You’ll get the side-eye glances every time you raise your hand to say something… where people are surprised that you passed on to the next class in the sequence, and there is genuine shock when they see you… to initial reactions, for example, when paired up for lab partners and people are hesitant to be partnered up with you because you are a person of color.
Sharing about her instructors at her four-year college, Maria related that she frequently felt othered. She believed her instructors viewed her involvement in chemistry as a Hispanic woman as “something novel and interesting…but not treated as something expected to stay or expand … or last.” Maria felt like a curiosity to be gazed upon and pondered over, rather than someone to be embraced and included. This made for a very paradoxical situation in which she felt othered, excluded, and invisible, and yet hypervisible at the same time. Maria shared her thoughts about her instructors’ perceptions of her, and how this perception did not align with her reality. This left her feeling unrecognized and invisible to her instructors.
Just in general, the kinda consensus that I have gotten from professors overall has been this expectation that you know how to maneuver the academic field, you know how the institution runs, and you understand how to exist in academia. [For] someone like myself who is a first generation immigrant, a person of color, going into a very competitive field, that expectation that you have these privileges, that you have this background knowledge, that you have this even financial support from your family, it is expected that like, you have those things. And… what unfortunately the professors here at this school don’t understand is that they have students that don’t.
As a student of color within the institution, Maria often received unwanted recognition. She mentioned participating in a program intended to improve diversity, equity, inclusion and respect, as well as promote success for students from marginalized groups.
It was not very diverse. And it made it really rough to kinda have those conversations but then also be one of the only people of color in the room, and is kinda expected to be the voice for people of color. Like… being here, kinda feels like, like my way to put it, being tokenized while at the same time, being ostracized.
Maria's story poignantly illustrates how her multiple intersecting identities shaped her recognition experiences. Maria's experience has been shaped by traditional stereotypes about Hispanics (some of which may have been internalized), various types of microaggressions related to her race/ethnicity and gender, cultural factors linked to her Hispanic heritage, and more. In retelling her experiences, Maria underwent a range of emotional responses: from mournful sighs, to shock, to sadness and resignation, and stubbornness. Despite the fact that Maria recognizes herself as a competent chemistry person who is doing well in chemistry, the negative recognition she has experienced is used to drive her persistence in chemistry.
I’ve made it a goal of mine to become a statistic of the smaller percent of well-educated, Hispanic people.
Clara – African American woman: becoming a chemistry person
Clara's interest in chemistry was sparked in a middle school science class:We did this experiment where we were testing different wells to see whether or not they were contaminated. And throughout that, I was just like, “I like this. I like doing this.” I liked seeing if you add a certain compound to each well to see what color it changed to and being able to determine whether it was contaminated or not, I liked that aspect. And so, after that, I was just like, chemistry, just chemistry.
Clara shared that she was so excited about this experiment, (and having learned that this was chemistry), she went home that day and told her family that she was going to study chemistry.
My family's known that I’ve loved chemistry since the time I started liking chemistry ‘cause I went home and was like, “I love chemistry!” and they were like, “good for you!” And then I’ve just stuck by it the whole time and they were like, “ohhh, she likes chemistry; you can major in chemistry!” and I was like, “great!”
Clara continued along her chemistry trajectory in high school and entered college with very clear intentions to pursue chemistry. At the time of our interview, Clara was a senior in her final quarter of college, was even more fascinated by chemistry now than when she first started, and identified herself as a chemistry person.
[I am] definitely a chemistry person, a hundred percent chemistry person! Not a chemist yet, I hope to be… but definitely a chemistry person for sure.
Clara did not yet identify as a chemist, because she felt she had not yet used her chemistry knowledge outside of class. Interestingly, while Clara did not consider that she had applied her chemistry knowledge outside of her classes, she was actively involved in a research group. While Clara worked hard at chemistry, and was the first to admit that she found some concepts difficult to understand, she recognized herself as a knowledgeable and skilled (i.e. competent) chemistry person, whose fascination with the subject had not waned.
Clara – African American woman: positive recognition
Clara's family embraced and supported her study of chemistry and her identity as a chemistry person since the day she went home from middle school and told them she loved chemistry. In additional to her general family support and recognition, Clara and her sister were pursuing STEM degrees at different institutions at the same time, and they frequently talked about science, especially at the intersection of their fields, affirming each other's science identity.Clara also received implicit positive recognition from a chemistry instructor and grudging positive recognition from some classmates. This happened in one of her chemistry classes where her instructor was asked repeatedly, over the course of a quarter, to act as arbitrator in her group, because her usually White, male peers kept insisting that her answers were incorrect and theirs were correct. Upon disclosing the correct response (which was the same as Clara's), to the group, Clara's instructor did not single her out for public recognition, hence, the recognition was implicit, although positive. Clara's peers were forced to acknowledge that she was right and in fact, knew what she was talking about (grudging positive recognition).
Clara also shared that she felt that her experience in chemistry would have been much richer, and she would have experienced more positive recognition, if she had had an opportunity to have instructors and more peers who shared her racial/ethnic, gender, and other marginalized identities. Clara bemoaned the fact that for the last two years of her studies, she had not had another Black student in her classes, and during the times she had another Black student, it was usually a Black male.
Clara – African American woman: negative recognition
Clara consistently received negative recognition regarding her performance/competence from peers in her chemistry classes, especially through questioning of her competence/performance. She related how her responses had to be consistently validated by her instructors, but in spite of the fact that the instructors proved her correct, the cycle of questioning and instructor validation would need to take place again in the next class session.I noticed that people were not willing to accept the fact that I knew what I was talking about… and wouldn’t accept my answer every single time and so then they would call the professor … to check what the answer was and every single time, the professor said the answer that I gave and the person also was like, oh yeah, I guess she was right. We had class three times a week the whole quarter, you would think after week two, they would trust my judgment but no, they kept on doing the same stuff…
In another classroom incident with her peers, Clara recounted how a White, male classmate “talked over” her and ignored her responses (which were correct), and inserted his own, while her other two White, male group members didn’t even seem to notice.
Clara also felt negatively recognized in STEM because she didn’t fit the traditional stereotype for a chemistry person.
When people think of STEM, they usually think of White men, White, cis men and I’m not… any of those. Um…that um… they don’t really picture me belonging to that community.
Clara's study choices also resulted in her standing out among her chemistry and STEM peers, and receiving negative recognition. In addition to majoring in chemistry, Clara pursued minors in anthropology, psychology and Spanish.
Psychology, anthropology and all that stuff … most people consider that to be soft science… I’ve been told that people get more of a soft science vibe from me…because of that, people don’t believe that I am in chemistry or STEM.
Interestingly, while Clara's peers conveyed messages that her minors made her less of a chemistry person, Clara was of the view that her minors strengthened her science and chemistry identities, because she was able to use the science she learned in those classes in a way that she was unable to apply her chemistry knowledge at the time.
Kristina – black woman: becoming a chemistry person
Kristina had a strong interest in science from her early years. When she was introduced to chemistry as a separate area of science in high school, she “found it really interesting”:I was always more interested in the science aspect of school. I always found math classes to be more interesting than the English classes and that just progressed. I preferred the chemistry and biology over geography and history. So, I kinda kept going down that track.
After high school, Kristina entered college with intentions to pursue biochemistry – an option that allowed her to combine her two favorite subjects – chemistry and biology. At the time of our interview, Kristina was a senior in her final quarter of college and identified herself as a chemist. She explained that she previously identified herself as a chemistry person only because of her interest in, and enjoyment of, chemistry. However, since joining a research group, Kristina had begun to recognize herself as a chemist.
I don’t want to sound conceited, but I feel like a chemist now. Just getting the experiences in the actual research lab has made me more, made me feel more like I am contributing and actually putting my own brain power into actually solving problems, instead of just following a lab manual.
Kristina enjoyed the twists, turns and challenges of chemistry. In fact, these are the things that keep her hooked on chemistry. Kristina also recognized her own performance/competence in chemistry, pointing to her “pretty good GPA and grades in classes.”
Kristina – black woman: positive recognition
Kristina's first positive recognition experience linked to chemistry was in high school when she was first introduced to the subject. Her Black, female, chemistry teacher had a profoundly positive impact on her, which set her down the path of chemistry.Kristina also received positive recognition from her instructors at her college. She remarked that her instructors “see the effort and work that [she] puts into classes” and “are confident [she] will do well in their classes and academia.” Kristina's faculty research mentors and the graduate students she worked alongside also provided positive recognition of her performance/competence in chemistry.
I feel like the graduate students I work with and the research professor … put a lot of confidence on doing things on my own and so that really helps me feel more like a chemist. Being able to go into lab early in the morning and there is no one else there and they… they’re confident that I won’t blow up the lab, so, that makes me feel better as a chemist.
Kristina was also frequently positively recognized by her classmates. They “often work[ed] together to get through problems…stay[ing] on campus pretty late.” Kristina was invited to come along and work with them for exams, and they all helped each other. Kristina's recognition by her classmates and inclusion in their activities led to the formation of friendships. They would hang out together outside of class, and after late night study sessions, Kristina's classmates/friends made sure she had a ride to go home. It is clear that Kristina's performance/competence in chemistry was valued by her classmates.
In addition to her classmates, Kristina also received positive recognition from her family and non-chemistry friends, even though they did not really understand chemistry.
They are very impressed by what I am doing because chemistry… they see it as rocket science, essentially. So everything I tell them about is impressive. But they do understand the difficulty and that I am trying very hard to get places and do the work that's needed. So they are very supportive of what I do.
Kristina – black woman: negative recognition
In sharing her experiences as a chemistry person, Kristina did not relate any explicit incidents of negative recognition that she felt were directly related to being a student in chemistry. However, she recounted a number of experiences of negative recognition within her institution. Kristina shared one of her earliest experiences where she was negatively recognized by a roommate who held stereotypical views about her and where she was from:I did have like one roommate and when she found out that I was coming from where I was coming from, she watched some videos … and she had a very skewed sense of what my living situation was, like she thought we lived in mud huts.
Kristina also referenced an incident that happened a few years ago that made her feel called out or negatively recognized as a person of color, where hateful messages targeting members of a marginalized group were painted on the campus. As a person of color, Kristina also had a fear each time she met a new person, that she would be recognized for her race or some other marginalized identity, rather than her performance/competence – something she finds exhausting.
Despite her own recognition of her competence/performance in chemistry, as well as much positive recognition from many sources, Kristina oftentimes wondered if she was “recognized” by the “institution” as a chance to check off DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) boxes, and she expressed feeling pressured to work extra hard to prove that she had earned her spot at the institution and in chemistry.
Kristina expressed awareness of the toll associated with understanding that she could face negative recognition at any point. She talked about her thick, protective skin, the exhaustion of being consistently on the alert, and the pressure that hung over her head. To work against even the hint that she had not earned her spot at the institution, Kristina, an already high-achieving and hardworking student, worked even harder to try to prove herself.
Millie – Asian/Pacific Islander woman: becoming a chemistry person
Millie's introduction to chemistry in high school was a less than fulfilling experience, and she did not do well – a situation she attributed to ineptitude on the part of her teacher.I would say that definitely throughout high school, my chemistry teacher was not great. I didn’t understand chemistry at all – like the basics of just like electrons…I was like “what is this?” I was really bad at it.
Millie transitioned to community college after high school to pursue an Associates of Arts (AA) degree in pre-nursing, consistent with her mom's plan for her to become a nurse. As her pre-nursing program required her to take chemistry courses, Millie met chemistry once again. This time around, Millie had very pleasant and positive experiences with chemistry, and had a great organic chemistry professor. She found herself “intrigued” and “interested” in chemistry.
I had to take OChem for classes, because it was required, and I found myself really enjoying those.
After completing her AA degree, Millie was no longer interested in continuing toward a nursing degree, and transitioned to her current four-year institution, switching her major to chemistry. At the time of our interview, Millie was a junior student who had completed two quarters of chemistry at her four-year college, and described herself as “a student learning chemistry,” or “just someone asking questions about chemistry.” Millie recognized her performance/competence in chemistry, describing her understanding of chemistry ideas and concepts as “good,” and noting that although she sometimes had difficulty with some concepts, she had a “good grasp on chemistry.”
Millie – Asian/Pacific Islander woman: positive recognition
Millie's first experience of positive recognition as a chemistry person (before she even decided to pursue chemistry) was from her organic chemistry professor at community college. Millie found that she not only understood the material, but she was able to do well at it, and this kept her “intrigued” and “interested” in chemistry.Having enjoyed the chemistry courses she had taken at community college, when she moved to her four-year institution, Millie announced her desire to change to chemistry to her family. Millie's mom, who had dreams of her becoming a nurse, responded “chemistry is fine.” This response, while not effusive, can be considered positive recognition, as her mom did not oppose her desire and insist that she pursued nursing instead. This can be considered grudging positive recognition.
At her four-year institution, Millie often shared what she was learning in her chemistry classes with her friends. Although they did not understand the content, they affirmed Millie's identity as a chemistry student, providing positive recognition of her performance/competence in chemistry.
My friends, even though they don’t know what's going on in chemistry, they’re still like “You’re doing great! I don’t get it, but you seem like you are doing your best, and you are a chemistry undergrad who is doing like literally one of the hardest … not an easy… degree.
Millie also made bids for recognition to other chemistry students who were not in her classes (having not received any positive response from her own classmates), and was positively recognized for her performance/competence in chemistry by two chemistry peers. Millie talks about the outcome of one of her bids:
I asked like one…he's not even really in my class – he's in OChem 3 right now and I’m in OChem 2. So, I’ll go to him and a few other people who are also taking OChem 3. So, we'll get together and help each other.
Millie – Asian/Pacific Islander woman: negative recognition
Millie's experiences of negative recognition arose primarily out of interactions with her chemistry classmates and instructors. Millie consistently made bids for recognition to her classmates that went unrecognized or were rejected. Millie commented on her classmates’ response to her repeated invitations to join her in studying chemistry:I put in the time and effort to ask them again and they're just like, “Oh yeah, we can definitely do this.” But then, obviously, something comes up, and they’re like they just don’t want to study anymore.
Millie's statement below summarizes her thoughts around feeling unrecognized by her classmates.
I don’t think people [classmates] care [about my participation in chemistry]. I think they are just there to learn for their own sake and try to pass the class. And I'm there, too. But I also make an effort to make classmate friends and to study with them. I'm usually the one who is like, “Hey, I think you're a good student and I would like to study with you.” But usually they are too busy or something like that; they don’t reciprocate it.
Although Millie tried to excuse her classmates’ consistent refusals of her bids for recognition by attributing them to busyness, she eventually concluded:
I guess it's like I seem like a second priority. I just feel like…I don’t know if it is because of my race or my gender, but it just seems like they just don’t want to interact with me.
Millie considered herself a competent chemistry student. She understood the concepts that were presented in class, and although she didn’t volunteer to respond to questions publicly in class, she knew the answers. Instead of public recognition, Millie devised a strategy to seek recognition from her instructors by attending office hours. Millie reasoned that:
They [Instructors] are overloaded with students and they have a bunch of tests and exams and stuff like this, so they just try to do their best to grade everything. I don’t really answer their questions when they ask in class. I’ll whisper it or I’ll mouth it. I know the answers, but I just don't like raise my hand to show that I know the answer. But I do go to their office hours…
By frequently attending office hours, Millie actively made bids for recognition from her instructors, in a setting where she could be more easily recognized than in a classroom setting. Millie's office hour attendance was not primarily to seek clarity on what was done in class (because she already understood the content covered in class). Rather, Millie attended office hours to dig more deeply into concepts she already understood – questions such as: why does a reaction proceeds in a particular way when another path appeared equally viable? However, during office hours, Millie often felt intimidated and pressured to not appear dumb to her professor, because while she did not lack understanding of the chemistry content, she didn’t know how to formulate her questions well. We view these efforts on Millie's part as bids to her instructor for recognition of her competence/performance, but these bids seem to have gone largely unrecognized.
In Millie's experiences with recognition, we see her persisting in making bids for recognition, even though these bids are generally unsuccessful. This persistence may stem from the fact that Millie believes that she is just not working hard enough at this – “it's just me having to make room” – and it is this deficit on her part that accounts for the negative responses from her classmates and instructors.
In Millie's story, multiple identities intersect to shape her recognition experiences. She questions whether her race or gender (or the intersection of both) are responsible for her chemistry classmates’ negative responses to her. Millie also experiences discomfort at the intersection of race and gender in her interactions with her White, male chemistry instructor, noting that her White peers, especially White males, do not suffer from the same affliction.
I notice that a lot of White students are more comfortable going to the professor after class or during office hours. They're just more comfortable and confident to going to the professor after class, and have questions or stuff like that… when students ask questions in class it's usually like White students that do it and it's usually like a male student or something like that.
Discussion
This study was guided by two research questions:i. How do undergraduate women of color in chemistry experience recognition?
ii. In what ways are the women's recognition experiences influenced by the intersections of their identities?
The findings reveal that the four women of color in our study – Maria, Clara, Kristina and Millie – had different recognition experiences shaped by the unique ways in which their marginalized identities intersected, and while there were parallels in their experiences, there were also many points of divergence. In the ensuing discussion, we share how the women's experiences of discrimination and othering are similar, yet different. we also theorize about how these experiences could be better understood by a consideration of the broader sociocultural (social, historical and cultural) contexts.
Positive recognition
All four women experienced varying levels of positive recognition. For Maria, while positive recognition from many sources at her community college was very strong, recognition from her family and community only followed initial negative recognition. Millie's positive recognition from her family was given grudgingly, and the positive recognition she received from two chemistry peers only came after her bids for recognition from her own classmates were ignored. While Millie also received and valued positive recognition from her friends, this recognition was not as valued as recognition from her peers and classmates, because her friends lacked deep understanding of her experiences as a chemistry student. Positive recognition from multiple sources – instructors, research mentors, graduate students, peers and classmates, family and friends – acted as multiple points of affirmation for Kristina. For Clara, positive recognition by her family was steady and dependable. However, positive recognition from her instructor was implicit, and recognition from her peers was given grudgingly.A common (actual or potential) source of positive recognition identified by the women in this study was relatable role models. Relatable role models are role models of similar racial and/or gender backgrounds. Maria's female, Hispanic, high school chemistry teacher made her “wish she could do something like that,” while her two instructors at community college – Nigerian and Asian males – fanned the flames of her interest. Kristina also referenced her female, Black, high school chemistry teacher as a major influence on her study choice. While neither Clara nor Millie mentioned having had relatable role models in chemistry, they both reflected on the impact of the absence of such role models. Millie yearned to have a chemistry instructor to whom she could relate culturally, or even an instructor of color, while Clara bemoaned not having Black professors or other Black women in her classes, to whom she could relate. Hess et al. (2013) found that owing to their smaller numbers in STEM spaces, it is not uncommon for women of color to lack relatable role models and peers in STEM. Black and Hispanic women in STEM express a preference for role models of the same race/ethnicity and gender (Johnson et al., 2019; Rodriguez et al., 2019). However, for Black women, in the absence of Black, female role models, mentors who signal allyship with Black women could be perceived as role models (Johnson et al., 2019). Other research also suggests that mentors with sufficient cultural competence and relatability could be effective mentors to women of color, despite having a different race/ethnicity or gender (Justin-Johnson, 2004; MacLachlan, 2006; Blake-Beard et al., 2011; Ong et al., 2011; Aish et al., 2018). In our study, we found that all the women desired or had, at some point in their trajectories, relatable role models of the same gender and race/ethnic identities in chemistry. It was important to these women to see scientists that looked like them. As women of color, there are few images of scientists that are both female and a person of color that these women could identify with. Chemistry instructors who are also women of color can help women students of color feel more recognized, a greater sense of belonging, and strengthen their chemistry identity (Ong, 2005; Hughes et al., 2021), by acting as “social vaccines” (Dasgupta, 2011). For Maria, her Nigerian and Asian male professors were also able to serve as effective relatable role models, although they were of different racial/ethnic and gender identity from Maria, but still men of color. As men of color, they possessed a degree of relatability and cultural competence that caused Maria to feel recognized by these male instructors, and experience a stronger sense of belonging. For Clara and Millie, the absence of relatable role models represented lost opportunities for more belonging and greater recognition in chemistry. Examining the yearning of these women for role models who shared their gender and racial/ethnic identities by considering their otherness may help us better understand this need. Characterized as inferior others by the dominant racial group and singled out for mistreatment because of their intersecting identities, these women seek role models who would be understanding of their experiences as women of color in chemistry, because they too would likely have endured similar (mis)treatment. In this way, our participants feel greater kinship with relatable role models because they feel connected through their shared discrimination and oppression (Törngren and Suyemoto, 2022). Othering and discrimination are entrenched in systems of power and control that can be linked to historical experiences of enslavement and colonization, where mistrust of the oppressing group and drawing strength from each other are forms of resistance to their othering.
Research shows that recognition experiences are important in identity development across STEM disciplines, with positive recognition experiences leading to the strengthening of disciplinary identity (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Godwin, 2016; Hughes et al., 2021; Gray et al., 2021). One of the mechanisms by which positive recognition leads to stronger disciplinary identity, such as chemistry identity, is through development of sense of belonging (Hughes et al., 2021). Sense of belonging is especially important for marginalized students, such as students of color, and is linked to persistence in STEM (Strayhorn, 2012; Smith et al., 2013; Thoman et al., 2014; Ladewig et al., 2020). Positive recognition from meaningful others (e.g. high school teachers, instructors, peers, friends, and community members) has been found to be important in the development of science identity in this and other studies (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Hanson, 2009; Hazari et al., 2017; Hughes et al., 2021). The intersection of race/ethnicity and gender leading to the strengthening of positive recognition experiences between the women and their relatable role models is fairly straightforward. However, the exact impact of intersecting identities on positive recognition by the other sources of positive recognition in this study is not clear. More studies are needed to better understand the impact of intersecting marginalized identities on positive recognition experiences of women of color in chemistry.
Negative recognition
Maria, Millie, Kristina and Clara experienced multiple manifestations of negative recognition, including explicit negative recognition experiences, such as being “talked over” and peers questioning their competence/performance. More subtle forms of negative recognition such as microaggressions, negative recognition masquerading as positive recognition, withholding of recognition, and ignoring or refusing bids for recognition were also identified in the women's experiences. Othering is even more pronounced as we examine the women's experiences of negative recognition. Arising from the confluence of their intersecting identities (including gender, racial/ethnic, geographical, economic, immigration status), these women are labeled as different, undeserving and threats. As a result of their status as inferior others, they are targeted for stigmatization and exclusion.Maria's experience is an illustration of the compounding of negative recognition from multiple sources. Traditional stereotypes about her ethnicity and cultural beliefs within her family and community, along with negative messages from her classmates, instructors, and other sources, worked against Maria's efforts to form a strong chemistry identity. For Millie, experiences with her instructors and classmates left her feeling unrecognized and despondent that her bids for recognition were largely unsuccessful. This produced feelings of not belonging. Negative recognition caused Kristina to be fearful of meeting new people and to be exhausted by the constant vigilance she needed to maintain as a person of color. Additionally, despite being a high achiever, Kristina felt pressured to continuously push herself to work harder to avoid being labeled as not having earned her spot at her institution. Despite having many sources of positive recognition, these negative recognition experiences undoubtedly impacted Kristina's chemistry identity. Clara's negative recognition experiences came about primarily through interactions with her peers.
The accounts of negative recognition provided by these women of color in chemistry mirror many of the experiences reported in the literature for women of color in STEM. Negative recognition experiences manifesting as microaggressions, isolation, otherness, chilly climate, and invisibility, experienced by the women of color in this study, have also been reported in other studies of women of color in STEM disciplines (Espinosa, 2011; McGee, 2016; McGee and Bentley, 2017; Avraamidou, 2020b; Castro and Collins, 2021). As also found in previous studies, gender and family expectations in APIDA and Hispanic communities (Hazari et al., 2013; Castro and Collins, 2021; Puente et al., 2021) impacted the recognition experiences of Maria and Millie, and left them feeling negatively recognized. Similarly, racial battle fatigue, which is commonly reported by Black and African American women in predominantly white institutions (McGee, 2016) was identified in both Clara's and Kristina's experiences. The experiences of Maria, Millie, Kristina and Clara provide us with explicit examples of some of the ways that negative recognition shows up in chemistry spaces. By using an intersectional lens to reveal these experiences, this study adds nuance to the findings of previous studies which examined experiences unidimensionally, and through the women's narratives, provides resources which would have been otherwise lost to us.
Other harmful effects of negative recognition on our participants were highlighted by our findings. Emotional responses such as sad and mournful sighs, exhaustion, and even laughter, accompanied our participants’ accounts of negative recognition. Taylor (1992) notes that internalized experiences of negative recognition can have harmful and oppressive effects. We further believe that the convergence of multiple forms of negative recognition arising from intersecting marginalized identities, as experienced by our participants, magnified the harm and oppression by tightening interlocking systems of oppression. Moreover, we view the unwarranted withholding and doling out of recognition to the women of color in this study by their non-people of color classmates and/or instructors as modern expressions of whiteness as property and social capital (Harris, 1993; McDonald and Day, 2010; Thompson Dorsey and Venzant Chambers, 2023), where recognition is used as interest or currency, and is given or withheld (e.g. by Millie's and Clara's classmates), to serve the interests of the dominant group. Recognition was also given or withheld based on perceived closeness of our women of color to traditional stereotypes of science and scientists, not related to gender or race/ethnicity. To illustrate, when Maria, a Hispanic woman, was perceived as Asian (and so stereotyped to be smart in chemistry), she was positively recognized. However, when it was known that she was Hispanic (stereotyped as “lowest educated”), she was negatively recognized. Negative recognition experiences weaken disciplinary identity (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Hughes et al., 2021) by decreasing belonging, strengthening otherness, and creating a climate that is unwelcoming to women of color. Negative recognition experiences, which are associated with lower persistence in STEM especially for women of color (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Rodriguez et al., 2019) account, at least partially, for the higher exit rate for women of color from STEM fields.
While othering is a strong common thread in these women's narratives, their individual experiences of differential discrimination make each unique. As a woman of color in chemistry, Maria experienced tensions and challenges that compounded her negative recognition experiences at the intersections of her gender + ethnic/culture + immigration status + science identities. As a Hispanic woman seeking to be highly educated in the sciences, Maria came up against traditional stereotypes of science as the domain of the white male, Hispanics as uneducated, Hispanic women as homemakers and dependent on men, among others. While Maria received negative messages and othering from multiple sources, much of this came from family and community members who bought into stereotypical and deficit-laden narratives. Maria's experiences may be understood as present day manifestations of othering linked to a history of colonialism, where people from Latin American regions are viewed as inferior others (Mutegi, 2013; Lacayo, 2017). Machismo – a desire for men to exert dominance over women – is evident in Maria's story, and can be seen as an outcome of the emasculation of men from Latin American regions, to colonization.
Like Maria, Millie's experiences of othering also revealed unique aspects. As an Asian woman, the general expectation is that Millie would be viewed as a model minority and therefore not a threat to the dominant group, resulting in acceptance as honorary white. However, the intersection of Millie's gender and racial/ethnic identities resulted in a distinct departure from these expectations. Millie was repeatedly shunned/excluded/othered by her peers. Millie's treatment is particularly interesting when juxtaposed against the respect and inclusion that was given to Maria when her peers thought (incorrectly) that she was an Asian woman. Millie's experiences can also be viewed as a present-day consequence of colonization.
Interestingly, while Clara and Kristina share a common racial identity, their experiences are very different. Clara experienced tension as a result of clashes between the stereotypical “science person” profile and her African American + gender identities. Clara pushed back on narratives that because she pursued subjects in both the physical and social sciences she was not a real chemistry person, resisting traditional views about what counts as science and who does science. Clara's experiences of being excluded and othered at the intersection of race and gender can be understood as a byproduct of the enslavement and colonization of African Americans. As people viewed as inferior others and in the very lowest caste, African Americans have been subjected to various kinds of mistreatment and exclusion. Unlike Kristina, Clara also displays a high level of awareness of how her gender and race identities could potentially impact her as a woman of color in chemistry. Clara's heightened awareness may come from having prior discrimination experiences herself, or having knowledge of more people who have experienced discrimination. In addition, as an African American, Clara is likely to have a greater sensitivity to noticing, as African American children are socialized at a young age, to prepare them for life as othered and excluded (Seaton et al., 2010). This could also explain why Clara did not have as many relationships with her peers as Kristina did – Clara's greater sensitivity to noticing may have made her more cautious and less trusting of her peers than Kristina.
While Kristina also encountered othering and discrimination, she recounted only a few experiences. In fact, Kristina was not aware of any negative recognition at the intersection of her race and gender identities. While it is possible that there were no negative recognition experiences to note, Kristina's relative lack of experience with discrimination in the United States, having grown up in a majority black country where there was no obvious need for socialization for a life of being othered (like Clara would have had), may have made her less sensitive to noticing incidents of discrimination (Seaton et al., 2010). However, unlike Clara, Kristina experienced negative recognition at the intersection of her race/ethnic and geographical identities. As a Black foreigner, Kristina was othered by her white room mate who thought that she and her people lived in mud huts.
Recognition and chemistry identity
Despite the mix of positive and negative recognition, all four women strongly identified as chemistry persons, given their strong interest in, and enthusiasm for chemistry, as well as their competence/performance in chemistry. However, there were differences in the strength of the women's chemistry identities. The fact that Kristina used to identify as a chemistry person, but now identifies as a chemist since she became a part of a research group is evidence of an extremely strong chemistry identity. For Kristina, joining a research group was associated with a greater sense of belonging. Multiple sources of positive recognition (research mentors, graduate students, research group members, classmates, peers, instructors, family and friends); and few othering experiences and tensions at the intersections of her identities, also contributed to a strong sense of belonging for Kristina. While both Clara and Maria also had research experiences, neither identified as a chemist. They both felt that they had not really had opportunities to apply what they had learned in the chemistry classroom, and needed to apply their chemistry more before viewing themselves as chemists. This perception may have stemmed from the fact that both Clara and Maria did research in areas of chemistry that they considered to involve ‘less chemistry’ because they had strong computer science components. Clara and Maria also did not have as many positive recognition experiences as Kristina, and encountered more tensions and racialized experiences at the intersections of their marginalized identities. While Millie was enthusiastic about chemistry, and described herself as competent, her level of enthusiasm was much more tempered than the other women. Millie had not participated in research, but was looking forward to doing so; her positive recognition experiences were not very strong, and her negative recognition was marked. Millie also experienced contradictions between her identity as an Asian woman and the treatment she received from her peers. Although research shows that involvement in research can help students feel a greater sense of belonging (Auchincloss et al., 2014; Rodenbusch et al., 2016; Cooper et al., 2019; Hanauer et al., 2022), our findings suggest that the effect of research experiences on chemistry identity may be impacted by students’ perceptions about the utility of the research and how close those experiences are to their own interests. Additionally, where students are unaware of how their work helps to meet project goals, they may view their contribution as insignificant.That the women of color in our study were able to author and maintain strong chemistry identities, despite the confluence of their multiple marginalized identities and the resulting compounding discrimination, is testament to their resilience and commitment to persist in chemistry. We found that all forms of recognition (self, positive and negative) were associated with persistence in chemistry. All four women discussed how their recognition of themselves as chemistry persons, and positive recognition from others pushed them to persist in chemistry. Persistence arising from positive recognition is associated with greater belonging and stronger chemistry identity, and should lead to more women of color completing degrees in chemistry. However, in addition to positive recognition, Kristina, Maria, and Clara also identified negative recognition as one of the reasons for their persistence in chemistry. While this persistence arising from negative recognition may at first appear to be positive, we view it as a form of internalized oppression and therefore problematic (McGee et al., 2017; Corbin et al., 2018). We believe that ideas around persistence, resilience and grit can act as a double-edged sword for women of color, and must be carefully interrogated to understand whether these are healthy and helpful. For women of color in chemistry who are already working hard to succeed, additional pressure from negative recognition and messages that they are not good enough, but can get better if they just work a little harder, are harmful. The suggestion that if women of color only push a little harder they will be accepted, are not only false, but also perpetuate deficit views about women of color. The fraudulence in messages such as these was evident in the narratives of Maria, Kristina, Clara and Millie. On many occasions, even before they had a chance to perform or demonstrate their competence in chemistry, they were deemed outsiders and othered because their visible identities did not match traditional stereotypes of chemistry persons (Ong, 2005; Avraamidou and Schwartz, 2021). No matter how hard they worked, they would not be accepted because their racial/ethnic, gender and other identities conflicted with stereotypical images of science and scientists held by meaningful others. Promotion of “superwoman” performance has been found to result in psychosocial trauma, specifically for Black women (Harris-Perry, 2011). The negative recognition experiences shared by our participants in chemistry, arising from the intersection of their multiple marginalized identities, acted to destabilize their perceptions of themselves and weaken their chemistry identities (Le et al., 2019; Robinson et al., 2018). It is reasonable to assume that without these barriers each woman would have authored even stronger chemistry identities.
Conclusion
In this study we examined the recognition experiences of four undergraduate women of color in chemistry. We also sought to understand how these experiences were shaped by the intersection of their multiple marginalized identities, especially race/ethnicity and gender. Our findings indicate that women of color in chemistry have positive, negative, and self-recognition experiences, and their negative recognition experiences parallel many of those reported in the literature for women of color in STEM, strengthening these previous findings. Othering and discrimination resulting from the ways their marginalized identities intersected was a strong common thread in the women's experiences. The women's experiences of recognition in chemistry, particularly negative recognition, help us better understand these women's lived experiences by shedding light on some of the ways in which negative recognition manifests for women of color in chemistry. Moreover, our findings illustrate how women of color may experience recognition differently, based on the intersections of their multiple marginalized identities; and how these experiences may shape their chemistry identities.This work makes a number of important contributions. By centering the voices and experiences of undergraduate women of color in chemistry, it adds to the literature about the lived experiences of undergraduate women of color in STEM broadly, but more specifically, it begins to fill the significant knowledge gap about the experiences of undergraduate women of color in chemistry. Centering the voices and experiences of these women of color in chemistry is an act of social justice for the authors, but even more so for the women themselves, as this provides them with a way of challenging and disrupting oppressive social, historical, cultural and political systems which have served to silence them and cloak them with invisibility. This work also reveals how women of color experience multiplicative disadvantage and oppression from the accumulation of multiple negative messages.
Intersectional approaches have not been widely used in chemistry for examining the experiences of people with marginalized identities, including women of color, and so this work adds to a small, but growing body of work that has applied an intersectional lens. The use of an intersectional lens is especially important for examining the experiences of people with multiple marginalized identities, as unidimensional frameworks are inappropriate and inadequate for capturing the complexity of multiple intersecting identities. Moreover, this work attends to nuance in the women's accounts, and acknowledges that attempts to address women of color as a collective are inadequate, given the diversity in their experiences based on proximity to whiteness, as well as the unique ways in which their multiple marginalized identities intersect.
Our findings show that gender, race/ethnicity and other marginalized identities interacted differently for each woman of color and impacted their recognition experiences in chemistry, as well as the authoring of their chemistry identities. The findings indicate that initiatives aimed at supporting undergraduate women of color in chemistry and fostering their healthy persistence, must be discipline-specific, and must give attention to the intersection of their multiple identities.
Limitations and future research
This study did not set out to create generalizable findings for all undergraduate women of color in science. Rather, we sought to center the unique experiences of Maria, Kristina, Clara and Millie – four undergraduate women of color from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds, in chemistry, at a predominantly white institution. While we do not aim at generalizability, we believe our findings may have transferability to similar contexts. To help the reader determine the extent to which the findings of this study are applicable to their contexts, we have provided details of our methods, analysis and findings.Our study focused predominantly on the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender identities of four undergraduate women of color in chemistry. However, we recognize that other differences in the identities of our participants (such as student status – junior vs. senior, transfer vs. nontransfer student, or economic status) may also have impacted their experiences and helped to shape their chemistry identities. Since these were not the focus of this study, further research investigating the impact of students’ other identities on their recognition experiences will help us better understand and respond to the needs of undergraduate women of color in chemistry.
Our study was exploratory in nature, and therefore did not capture student experiences over time to determine how recognition experiences may have differed with time, and any impact that might have on chemistry identity. We plan to examine the recognition experiences of women of color in chemistry over a more extended period in upcoming studies.
Our work has raised some interesting questions. These include: does strong positive recognition eliminate or reduce the impact of strong negative recognition? Does having multiple sources of positive and negative recognition influence chemistry identity in the same way as a single source? Does self-recognition carry more weight than positive/negative recognition for women of color from various racial/ethnic groups in chemistry? Does public positive recognition of women of color in chemistry by instructors impact peer recognition of these women? Further studies are also needed to examine the effect on physical and mental health of persistence arising from negative recognition on women of color in chemistry, and how this effect can be attenuated.
Implications for teaching, learning and research
The four undergraduate women of color in this study authored strong chemistry identities despite difficult recognition experiences related to the intersection of their multiple marginalized identities. We suggest the following for making these experiences less hazardous and harmful for women of color from different racial/ethnic groups.1. Faculty and instructors must be more aware of and alert to possible bids for recognition being made by all students. In this study, students shared explicitly about some of their recognition experiences. These may be resources for instructors, to help them more quickly identify different manifestations of recognition.
2. Instructors should use both implicit and explicit forms of positive recognition, with an emphasis on being explicit as far as is possible. Related to this is a suggestion for research mentors to communicate to undergraduate students involved in research the importance of what they do and explicitly explain how their smaller projects help to achieve larger, more visible project goals. This is important for women of color and could help students feel more connected to their projects, a greater sense of belonging, and a stronger chemistry identity.
3. Instructors should be intentional about including images and examples in their course materials that reflect the diversity of identities within their classes. Special attention should be paid to providing images of women of color from different racial/ethnic groups in dominant roles in chemistry. This will help more women of color in these subgroups to “see” themselves in chemistry, and feel a greater sense of belonging, which will strengthen chemistry identity.
4. As much as is possible, women of color from different racial/ethnic groups should have role models in chemistry who are relatable (same race/ethnicity and gender). Where this may not be possible, for example in PWIs, faculty should be willing to act as advocates and active supports for women of color. These advocates must be trained so that they have enough cultural competence and relatability to earn the trust of women of color in chemistry.
5. Faculty and instructors should take responsibility for engaging students in their classes in conversations about racism, sexism, the history of science, traditional views of science and scientists, and unaccepted oppressive behaviors meted out to women of color in chemistry (and people of color, generally) in order to promote a more inclusive climate for all students. Instructors and faculty can use the experiences shared by the women in this paper as conversation starters and cases. During the first few class sessions is an opportune time to start these discussions so that the more desired behaviors can be adopted as norms of behavior for the class. These discussions should address peer–peer interactions in an intentional way.
6. Instructors and faculty should recognize that there are power dynamics at work in spaces such as instructors’ offices. Consideration should be given to how office spaces can be made more inviting and less intimidating to women of color. Having office hours in counterspaces which provide safe spaces for women of color might be helpful. The need for counterspaces within the institution should also be a priority.
7. Periodic institutional bias training for faculty, instructors, students, and staff could help keep everyone more aware of unacceptable behaviors, including microaggressions, frequently experienced by women of color.
8. Mental health and general counselling resources should be readily accessible to women of color in chemistry, and taking advantage of these resources should be normalized among women of color.
9. Other research on the experiences of undergraduate women of color in chemistry should continue to attend to nuance in the experiences of women of color in different subgroups to better understand their experiences.
10. More research is also needed to understand how multiple intersecting marginalized identities shape recognition experiences, and by extension chemistry identity.
11. More emphasis should be placed on exploring individual experiences and giving attention to nuance in these experiences. Nuance should be an important consideration when seeking to respond to the needs of undergraduate women of color in chemistry.
Data availability
Data collected from human participants, described in this paper, are not available for confidentiality reasons.Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts to declare.Acknowledgements
We thank the women who shared their experiences with us; without them this work would not have been possible. We acknowledge and thank Prof. Emily Borda for her feedback on multiple versions of this manuscript. This work was supported by grant funding from the Social Justice and Equity Committee (SJEC) at Western Washington University.References
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