2015 AAAS Annual Meeting (12-16 February 2015)

February 12 - 16, 2015

Innovations in Broadening Participation and Diversifying the Science Workforce

Efforts to diversify science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in the United States have grown exponentially over recent years. The “leaky pipeline” analogy points to the many transitional points at which fewer and fewer diverse people are retained in STEM -- from high school to college, from college to graduate school, and from graduate school to faculty researcher. How to solve this critical problem? Interventions and curriculum reforms demand integrative, theory-driven social science research. This session features social science experts who showcase innovative methodologies and cutting-edge data analyses used to examine the multifaceted ways in which social context can undermine or support efforts to diversify biomedicine and STEM fields more broadly. This session highlights how social science is rapidly changing the way scientists and educators regard intervention research; it is not an ad hoc kitchen-sink approach, but a systematic hypothesis-driven approach to applying classic and contemporary theory to the unique problem of creating a robust and diverse STEM workforce. Each presentation offers empirically supported ways to infuse gender and ethnic inclusion, diversity, and equity into various points along the STEM pipeline.