Exploring How Culture Matters in Building Responsive and Humanizing Contexts for Community College Students Pursuing STEM

While the vertical transfer process and culturally responsive approaches to education have been studied extensively, few scholars have addressed these two areas of concern simultaneously, particularly within higher education contexts. This study explores what cultural responsiveness means and how it matters for low-income community college (CC) students aspiring toward STEM careers and transferring to STEM majors at a local university. As part of a bridge program, students received two STEM faculty mentors, one faculty mentor from the community college and the other from the local university, beginning in their last year of enrollment at the community college. Each STEM mentor was trained in culturally responsive mentoring, and their mentorship extended post-transfer. Students participated in focus groups to share their experiences. The findings reveal that specific aspects of the community college students’ identities, primarily their race and language, were relevant as aspects of culture that mattered for their STEM aspirations. The findings also show that cultural responsiveness in mentoring and support outside the classroom are important steps toward humanizing STEM spaces, but they are wholly insufficient when not paired with extensive culturally responsive efforts in STEM teaching and within the curriculum to improve the internal classroom climate for those with racialized identities.