Grace under Fire

Understanding why women are underrepresented in various Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields remains an important area of research. In the United States and in many industrialized nations around the world, STEM professions remain male dominated. Explanations for why women are not participating STEM professions are many and diverse. The Ecology Systems Theory (EST) presents a lens through which the causes for the continued underrepresentation of women in STEM fields may be examined. EST is widely accepted theoretical framework for exploring the influences that contribute to the development of an individual. The study presented in this chapter explored the familial, educational, economic, and social experiences of 125 female participants working in a STEM field. Findings suggest there are influences at specific levels in EST that can and do affect the educational and career aspirations of women in relationship to STEM fields.

Becoming a Trauma Surgeon

Surgery is a medical specialty that has a rich history of rigorous training, and the development of a young surgeon requires both individual study and external reinforcement to ensure competency. Although, women are entering medical school at increasing numbers, they only make up to 19% of American surgeons. Minority women represent an even smaller number. Recent studies document that minorities report challenges during surgical residency that may inhibit successful surgical training. These challenges are explored as they relate to limited mentoring and collegial isolation while training in trauma surgery.

Prestigious College Courses and Race/Skin Color

The discussion promoted in this text is part of the inquiry of PhD in Education in progress since 2012 at Fluminense Federal University (Niterói, Brazil). The above-mentioned doctoral research is dedicated to the study of educational trajectories of prestigious black professionals in Brazil. The main objective of this text is to bring up a reflection on the studies about the relation between prestigious college courses and race/skin color in Brazil carried out in the contemporaneousness. For this purpose, it is necessary to analyze the process of selection of the professional careers that demand the ownership of the bachelor's degree (higher education). This text is supported by studies about social stratification, such as Wright (1978), Goldthorpe (1987), Januzzi (2003) and Queiroz (2004). Bibliographical inquiry was the methodology elected for the development of the present text.

STEM Fields and Ethnic Women in New Zealand

A critical race theory was used to analyse policies and strategies in place to enable the participation of New Zealand ethnic women of Latin-American, Middle Eastern, and African (MELAA) origin in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields (STEM) in education and industry. The aim was to find out what policy – and other – levers are available for better participation in the STEM fields by the ethnic women's population. The process involved an analysis of publicly available official documents on STEM strategies at national and regional levels. The main findings were that gender issues are expressed in a generic way, either across all ethnic groups, or across the four ethnic groups where the MELAA stands not clearly identifiable in the classifications. Recommendations include the need to develop policies and strategies that account for race and gender equity as part of an agenda to eliminate marginalization of this group.

Fortitude

In New York City, from the 1990s to the present, covert racism is alive and well in the field of medicine and medical education. This racism largely manifested itself as inequitable treatment of illness. The most heavily impacted are African American and Caribbean American females and males. These inequities engendered results such as unwarranted criticism in residency education, forced changes of medical occupations and jobs, and false attributions of behavioral health issues. Combating these challenges requires fortified character armor, seeking percipient well positioned minorities, white and off-whites allies, and a willingness to maintain continued vigilance. With persistence and tenacity, success is possible in terms of protecting minorities both in the educational process, and subsequent medical career.

Race and Gender Inequalities in Medicine and Biomedical Research

There is a critical need to develop initiatives aimed at expanding and diversifying the healthcare workforce, beginning with medical education. This chapter addresses racial and gender disparities in academic medicine and biomedical research. Racial and ethnic minorities and women remain underrepresented in medicine, biomedical research, and healthcare leadership. These disparities are national issues and have far-reaching effects which translate into significant educational and healthcare-delivery disparities. Research has shown that health care professionals from underserved backgrounds are more likely than others to work in underserved areas which would address current shortages in health professionals for the medically underserved. The authors describe their theory for the existence and persistence of these disparities. They offer evidence of these disparities while concluding with current initiatives to address these disparities, calling for innovative approaches to training underrepresented minorities and women as physicians and biomedical research scientists.

Standing Alone in Computer Science Education

This chapter explores issues that have influenced Black women in Canada and the Caribbean in their pursuit of advanced degrees and regular academic roles in Computer Science (CS) and related fields. The concern is with the low representation of Black women in such roles and the reasons why some women have chosen the field and others have fled from it. The issues are related to gender and race and have been gathered from the scientific literature on Computer Science Education. Black women in Canada and the Caribbean who are on paths towards and in regular academic roles in CS were surveyed about how these issues have influenced them and their peers for or against CS in general and more specifically advanced education in Computer Science, since these such choices for CS are a requirement for regular academic roles in CS. This work delivers insights into an understudied locale for an underrepresented group in a field critical to economic development in Canada and the Caribbean. Based on our findings, we make recommendations to increase the number of this underrepresented group.

Overcoming the Myriad of Obstacles

This chapter documents the experiences of the ongoing journey of an African American female physicist. They correspond to those in documented studies of other African Americans and females in both the specific field of physics as well as the broader area encompassing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). While there are some anomalies, when scaled with the norm of these groups, there is a thread of consistencies in the obstructions and difficulties that seem to be unique to mostly African Americans and on a smaller scale to White females. The intent of this writing is to shine a light on the status of affairs particularly in the scientific Ph.D. community, an area that many have felt was immune to the difficulties faced by African Americans on the lower end of society. It is evident that our society is neither “post-racial” nor “post-sexist”, even on the higher intellectual turf.

Black Women and Science in Higher Education

This chapter gives an account on the experiences of a female STEM faculty member's journey from high school through graduate school, and then entering the workforce as she navigates the high and low points of being a black woman in a science field, as a science educator that will mentor other black women scientists, while also trying to sustain a viable family life. Her introduction to science, the profiles of mentors that provided her a support network, and the barriers that continue to plague black women in their preparation for a career in science, remains as blockades to access, to what is currently considered the most needed competency area to fill the workforce of the 21st century.

Are Female STEM Majors Academic Risk Takers?

The existing literature does not focus on risk-taking differences within females and how these differences may influence academic choices in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. The current project examined differences in academic risk-taking between STEM and non-STEM female students. A total of 272 undergraduates from 3 universities in the United States participated in a total of 2 studies. Results from the first and second studies indicated differences between STEM and non-STEM females in academic risk-taking. Future studies should explore these academic risk-taking differences between STEM and non-STEM female students.