LabXchange is committed to creating equitable opportunities for success in science. In this project, we will create content that supports educators and guides learners. This new content will show how to apply critical thinking skills to identify and transform structures that sustain racial inequity in healthcare, education, and STEM fields in the US.
Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women.
(CDC, 2017)
Black STEM college majors are more likely to leave STEM than their white peers, either by switching fields (36% vs. 28%) or by leaving college without a degree (29% vs. 20%). This pattern has essentially remained for 30 years.
(Chen and Soldner 2013; Asai, 2020)
In 2018, Black residents were 12.3% of the US population, but only 8.4% of bachelor’s graduates, 8.3% of master’s graduates, and 5.5% of doctoral graduates.
(NSF/NCSES, 2018)These interdisciplinary learning materials review the history of racism in science and examine the structures that prevent racialized groups, specifically Black Americans, from having equal access to opportunities in healthcare, education, and STEM fields.
In collaboration with leading scholars and experts, we will develop two new clusters of learning pathways to raise awareness of racism. For educators, we will provide high-quality curricular materials and evidence-based antiracist and inclusive teaching tools to use in the classroom. For learners, we will provide engaging materials to learn to recognize and rectify systemic racism.
This cluster explores why and how racism is considered a public health crisis in the US. It also teaches foundational concepts needed to build critical thinking skills for understanding and rectifying structural racism. Topics include explorations into the historical formations of race, as well as the role of science, medicine, and health. It also contains case studies of various health disparities.
Across STEM fields, the legacy of racism can be seen in the disproportionate underrepresentation of racialized groups such as Black Americans. To increase diversity in science and diverse leadership in science, science teachers must be equipped with inclusive teaching strategies. This cluster contains evidence-based practices to help educators increase Black students’ sense of belonging, identity, and success in science.
An interdisciplinary team of top experts leads the project.
Associate Professor, Department of Urban Public Health at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science; Co-Director, CDU Black Maternal Health Center of Excellence; Co-Chair, UCLA/CDU COVID-19 Racism and Equity Task Force at UCLA Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice and Health. She is a social epidemiologist whose teaching, research, and practice focus on the synergies and tensions between community health, racism, politics, and power.
Faculty Assistant Director, Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership. Her interests include advocating for policies that support greater access to quality health services for racial/ethnic minorities, as well as adolescents, especially those with intellectual disabilities and those impacted by sexual violence.
Professor of Counseling Psychology, Department of Human Development and Psychoeducational Studies, Howard University; President of Quality Education for Minorities; Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Negro Education; Executive Editor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Research, published by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc. Previously, Dr. Toldson served President Barack Obama's administration as the executive director for the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Associate Director, Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), University of Pennsylvania; former Founding Director of the Teaching Assistant Program at Berea College. Her primary work at CTL focuses on programming and support for equitable and inclusive teaching practices. Her current major project traces and historicizes pedagogical practices of colonial education that persist in present-day teaching practices. This analysis of anti-colonial practices extends to work exploring linguistic equity in the classroom, especially for African-American Language (AAL), and theorizing decoloniality in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. She has an article in the 2020 second edition of Presumed Incompetent: Race, Class, Power, and Resistance of Women in Academia.
Professor of Biological Sciences, Department of Biology, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University; Science Advisor to the Chicago and New Brunswick Theological Seminaries, and the Methodist Theological Seminary of Ohio, through the AAAS Dialogues of Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) program. His research involves the genomics of adaptation and he is the author of several books on nanomaterials, and the biology of race.
Associate Professor, Schools of Public Health and Social Welfare, University at Albany, SUNY. Her research covers three thematic areas: physical and mental health disparities, welfare participation, and poverty. She is also Faculty Associate of the Center for the Elimination of Minority Health Disparities; 2019 Public Health Social Worker of the Year, PHSW Section of the American Public Health Association; NYS Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Advisory Board Member; Black Child Development Institute Board Member.
Department Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Howard University, author of more than 130 refereed journal articles, book chapters, and other academic publications. His research examines issues of access, equity, retention, persistence, and the college experience of racial and ethnic minorities, particularly within the context of historically Black colleges and universities.
Postgraduate scholars from across the US provide expert guidance on learning materials and teaching resources.
A team of postgraduate scholars from across the US research and author the learning materials and teaching guides.
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