Contextual Research-Large Empirical: Racial & Gender Identity in Context: A Multi-Method Study of Risk and Resilience Processes among African American College Students in STEM Areas

The project is a multi-method examination of African-American college students from four universities as they transition to college and their adjustment during their college years as they deal with demands and opportunities related to their academic contexts and their racial and gender group memberships. Of primary focus are contextual and individual influences on students' academic identification in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas and its subsequent impact on achievement and persistence in those domains. In addition, the project seeks to identify contextual and person-level attributes that serve as resilience factors, e.g., those that buffer the negative impact of risk factors related to students' race and gender groups (e.g., racial and gender stigma) on their STEM academic identification. The project is a collaboration with the Michigan-Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (MI-LSAMP), an NSF-funded, multi-university initiative dedicated to promoting persistence in STEM areas among underrepresented minority college students.