The Complex STEM Identity Development of Middle School Girls in a Culturally Infused Afterschool Program

Abstract The underrepresentation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is a persistent issue. One approach to encourage girls’ entry into STEM is by fostering their identity development as STEM individuals within out-of-school learning environments. Informed by research on recognition, we examined five middle school girls’ identity development as a STEM person in an afterschool program that integrated Western STEM concepts, practices, and processes with both archaeological and Indigenous concepts, practices, and processes as grounded in STEM disciplines. The results of this study highlight the complexity and variability in how identity as a STEM learner was experienced, authored, and positioned by the five girls. The results of this study further suggest that adolescent girls may shape their STEM identity more through how their actions and behaviors reflect what it means to embody a STEM person in a given learning environment than through their engagement with STEM concepts, practices, or processes. While the results add to our current knowledge regarding girls’ identity development in STEM, it also raised questions as to how societal, cultural, and program-level norms and expectations may be shaping middle school girls’ STEM identity development as productive or less productive, which may impact girls’ persistence in a STEM field and pursuit of career in a STEM field.