Understanding STEM

How much do you know about STEM?

Watch a brief overview of the STEM-OPS program.

Welcome to STEM-OPS! We are excited to engage in discussions with you around the accessibility of STEM education and careers for all those who are impacted by the carceral system. Many people impacted by this system have been repeatedly underserved in most other systems (school, health, socio-economic, career, social, etc.). The work presented here aims to change access to STEM for a group of exceptionally talented, insightful and resilient people whose contributions would enhance and further humanize the STEM disciplines.

Why is diversity in STEM important?

Diversity in STEM is certainly an equity issue. The culture of STEM education and careers has been historically exclusionary despite efforts to change this. However, the lack of diversity hurts STEM as well. In particular, many brilliant individuals are excluded from its practice who could contribute significantly to STEM progress as well as change the culture. These brilliant people bring different experiences, values, and understandings in STEM that could lead to new questions being asked and new solutions being developed to profound challenges we face as a society and world. By excluding access to STEM, we are not only inflicting harm on many invaluable individuals in our society, but we are also limiting the potential of STEM disciplines.

STEM for Nerds

STEM is for everyone. We need to stop using the word “Nerd”! The Future of science may depend on it.

The Greeks gave the world mathematics!

Greek cultures appropriated the knowledge of other cultures, like the Egyptians, as the foundation of their mathematical work. The oldest known mathematical artifacts are from Africa and pre-date Greek civilization by almost 40,000 years!

Western cultures have contributed the most to STEM.

Not only has every culture contributed substantially to the growth in STEM knowledge, but non-Indigenous Western European cultures were very late to making contributions historically. Eastern, African, Middle Eastern, and Indigenous cultures have contributed to STEM, particularly mathematics, for tens of thousands of years. Western European mathematics is significantly younger.

There is a genetic marker for STEM ability, and different races have different STEM abilities.

While science knowledge differs by race, the source of this difference is not genetic; rather it rests in a set of complex interconnected socio-cultural factors including limited educational opportunity and exclusion of minority populations from STEM,

Source; https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/15/the-race-gap-in-science-knowledge/

DOMINANT NARRATIVE

COUNTER NARRATIVE

Facts About STEM

While women constitute almost 50% of the labor market, there are only 28% of women in STEM fields as opposed to 72% of men

https://www.builtbyme.com/statistics-facts-women-in-stem/

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, STEM occupations are growing at a rate of 17%, while other occupations are growing at 9.8%.

https://www.makeblock.com/official-blog/245847.html

Out of all female doctorate graduates in the fields of science and engineering, 86% are White or Asian. Fewer than 4% are Latinas, and fewer than 3% are Black. The same can be observed in the job market as well. Only 1 out of 20 employed scientists and engineers are Black women or Latinas.

https://www.builtbyme.com/statistics-facts-women-in-stem/

Women have made significant gains in life and physical sciences, but in other areas their shares have been stable and in computer jobs it has declined. In engineering, the job cluster in which women have the lowest levels of representation on average, women’s shares have inched up only slightly, from 12% in 1990 to 14% today.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/09/7-facts-about-the-stem-workforce/

As of 2021, it's estimated that 3.5 million jobs will need to be filled by 2025.

https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/summer2019/pages/the-u.s.-needs-to-prepare-workers-for-stem-jobs.aspx

Women make up only about 18% of computer science undergrads.

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/cracking-the-code:-why-aren-t-more-women-majoring-in-computer-science

It's stated that for the 2016-17 academic year women earned roughly 57% of all bachelor’s degrees. But when it comes to computer science specifically, in 2015, women earned only 18% of such degrees in the nation.

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/women-earn-57-us-bachelors-degrees-18th-straight-year

STEM workers tend to earn more than Similarly educated non-STEM workers.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/09/7-facts-about-the-stem-workforce/

Resources on Broadening Participation in STEM

The following resources on incarceration have been recommended by STEM-OPS partners.

Podcasts

Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (HMC) podcast: Conversations with some of the most interesting people in the world of science and technology
STEM Fatale

Videos

Dream Big: Engineering Our World
Hidden Figures
Spare Parts

Organizations

SCANAS: Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science
AAAS: American Association for the Advancement of Science
AWIS: Association for Women in Science.

Blogs

Northeastern University Center for STEM Education Blog

View All Resources

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