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Show Notes

• This is episode 254 of IDRA Classnotes. [music]
  DR. GARCIA:
  Confidence is big. It’s students’ self-perception of what I can do, right? And a lot of that perception declines between 5th and 12th grade. So this work starts earlier and earlier for us. It’s not that they can’t do STEM. They’re opting out because the system is kind of quietly telling them, or loudly telling them, it’s not for them. And so we’ve got to give students leadership opportunities that will help build confidence and help them see themselves in these roles.

• LIZ PIÑÓN:
  Welcome to the IDRA podcast, where we talk about equity, opportunity, and what it really takes to transform education systems. I’m Liz Piñón, and today I’m so honored to be joined by Dr. Garcia, also known as the STEM Queen, an incredible educator and advocate.

  Today, we’re going to take a deep dive into her recent piece on the state of women and girls in STEM, and what it really tells us about systems, access, and opportunity. Dr. Garcia, I want to start with your why. In your latest article, you reflect on writing about this issue back in 2019. And here we are seven years later, and you say not much has changed. That really stayed with me. As a first-generation Latina STEM educator, you’ve seen this across time. So what keeps you committed to this work?

• DR. GARCIA:
  Thank you so much. And I’m just so grateful to be here too with you and to talk about the state of women and girls in STEM. And yeah, unfortunately, when I started writing about it in 2019, seven years later now, nothing has changed enough like it should have been.

  And the big thing that I think, the big takeaway, is not about ability. It’s about systems, right? And my why, really, is to continue to drive this work forward because talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity isn’t. And that’s one of the things that I really want to change.

  And my why is really seeing students’ lives transformed, seeing access for the first time to new opportunities and a bright future. And so that’s definitely my why. And there’s a lot of work to be done. So I’m grateful to be in community with others who are also aligned to this work.

• LIZ PIÑÓN:
  Thank you for that. As I have to say, this is deeply personal for me too, right? As a bilingual educator, as a mom of children with disabilities, I’ve seen firsthand how access can completely change a child’s trajectory or limit it, right? And it keeps bringing me back to what you’re naming in your article. Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. That really resonated with me.

  You ground this on data in a really powerful way. You share that women make up 35% of the STEM workforce despite being nearly half of the overall workforce. Tell me more about this. When you look at the snapshot, what concerns you most right now?

• DR. GARCIA:
  I really look forward each year to this report that I reference in the article. The National Girls Collaborative Project, they’ve been a great partner since I started at IDRA. That’s when I learned about them back in 2019. And the work that they’re doing is even more critical now than ever. And I love that they publish this report each year. And I feel like it would really support organizations like IDRA and others that are doing STEM education work and really STEM workforce and pathway development.

  I think there was a lot to be concerned about in that report, which isn’t new. Every year, there’s jaw-dropping data that they share. A lot of it, you would be really surprised by. The one that you mentioned is surprising. And that number hasn’t changed. Over the past few years, we see that women are still underrepresented in STEM. And especially women of color, under 10% are represented. And that’s shocking, that that hasn’t changed much over the past seven years. And that’s still work that’s crucial for us to focus on.

  And some other data that they shared — there’s so much to cover — but one of the stats that they shared was that 57% of girls don’t believe they’re smart enough for their dream career. And we’re going to talk about confidence, and we’re going to talk about all of that. But I think the driving kind of reflection that I got from that report and some others that I reviewed is that we don’t have a pipeline problem. We have a participation and persistence problem. That’s a really big issue that we need to focus on.

• LIZ PIÑÓN:
  And you centered this so clearly in your article. When I was doing a little bit of research, I heard that, how about a Latina in the STEM workforce with a disability? I heard it’s less than 1%, and a fraction in some of those workforce professions. And that’s disheartening, right?

  So you said this so clearly in your article that the issue isn’t necessarily ability, that it’s access, culture, and confidence. Starting with access, talk to me a little bit, Dr. Garcia, about how anti-DEI policies and the dismantling of programs are directly impacting participation.

• DR. GARCIA:
  It’s been crushing. All of the anti-diversity, equity, inclusion laws and policies, everything has just dismantled, defunded high-quality programming. It’s our support systems that have just been completely crushed. And those support systems are critical to STEM persistence for women and girls. And it’s under attack. And it’s frustrating to see that.

  There were so many gains. There were so many programs and bridging programs that supported girls and women in STEM that are no longer in existence. And so now with fewer opportunities to engage, interest could decline, participation and persistence could decline even more. And it’s just a significant, massive loss of potential talent, ideas, and perspectives. And this really hits home for me.

  And then that leads to culture. We know that cultural stereotypes often frame STEM careers as being unsuitable or incompatible for women. And we see there’s a lot of barriers in workplaces. And so that culture in the workplaces definitely needs to change. And role models are a key, key approach, and really emphasis that we need to turn our attention to because it changes things.

  Girls often have limited exposure to relatable women in STEM roles. And so we definitely need to increase those opportunities for students, even through guidance counseling, through different mentorship experiences. We need to invest in all of that in our efforts even more.

  And lastly, confidence, like you said, confidence is big. Student self-perception of what I can do, right? And a lot of that perception declines between 5th and 12th grade. So this work starts earlier and earlier for us so that girls aren’t self-selecting out. Because again, it’s not that they can’t do STEM. They’re opting out because the system is quietly telling them or loudly telling them it’s not for them.

  And so we’ve got to give students more opportunities to lean into leadership opportunities that will help build confidence for students and help them see themselves in these roles that are innovative, that are problem-solving, that have real-world applications.

• LIZ PIÑÓN:
  So can I go back a little bit and ask you, you mentioned a couple of examples, but how do we begin shifting that culture in a real way?

• DR. GARCIA:
  Yeah. There’s a lot of different recommendations for sure. And I know this is kind of where IDRA shines. We’ve got a lot of cross-sector partnership work and alignment that’s taking place, especially here in San Antonio as we co-lead the Alamo STEM ecosystem.

  This has to be community-rooted. So educators, industry, higher education, we’re all carving out and architecting different pathways so that students have a chance, not just so they see opportunity, but actually have tangible access to those opportunities.

  And so we’ve got to invest in teachers. We’ve got to invest in teachers as multipliers. A lot of folks don’t see the value in that, and they should, because our teachers are reaching so many students in their classrooms, in their school communities, and the programs that they run.
  And so we’ve got to definitely work with our teachers and work with our counselors and all of those folks that play such a pivotal role in students as they’re navigating and persisting through the STEM pathway.

• LIZ PIÑÓN:
  And Dr. Garcia, I have a lived experience. I went to a parent meeting the other day, and I have one son and two daughters. And when I went to speak with the science teacher for my son, she was like, “Oh, he needs to be in STEM. He would be wonderful.” And my other daughter actually has higher scores than him, and that was never mentioned in the conversation, right?

  When we look at, in many cases, they’re not even talking about all girls, right? Because when we talk about girls in STEM, much less when you look at a Latina girl with disabilities.

  So how do we build these systems that really support students that aren’t even being measured? How do we make sure that we’re looking at the data closely?

• DR. GARCIA:
  Yeah. This work requires change at multiple levels, right? When we think about policy, when we think about culture in the STEM workplace, and also in our classrooms and school culture, and then leadership accountability.

  There’s tons of entry points to tackle this. Some of the recommendations that really supported growth in this area was mentorship, having mentors that are relevant, that can connect to students, that look like them, that maybe are from the same school or similar schools.
  Mentorship came up time and time again through all of the reporting because it’s just that important. It matters.

  Also, hands-on experiences, internships, job shadowing. I know here in San Antonio, there are paid internships for girls in middle school that a lot of girls just don’t know about, and they can get summer experiences that can really be pivotal and change their trajectory and help them see their skills and their value.

  And then outreach and those bridging programs from elementary to middle, middle to high school, and high school to college. Those programs help with retention and attainment, especially for students of color and first-generation students like myself.

• LIZ PIÑÓN:
  Dr. Garcia, one thing I really appreciated about your article is that you didn’t just name the problems. You pointed to some clear solutions. You talked about mentorship, hands-on experience, that cross-sector collaboration that you’re knee-deep in.

  And in my work at IDRA, we talk a lot about that ecosystem alignment, because this isn’t something schools can solve alone. We need educators, higher ed, industry, everyone working together.

  One last question. What does that ecosystem look like when it’s actually working well?

• DR. GARCIA:
  A lot of people show a graphic of a “leaky STEM pipeline,” where as students are progressing, we’re losing them. I don’t see it that way. I think that’s a deficit way of looking at it.

  A healthy ecosystem looks more like a river or a highway system with multiple entry and exit points, where students, no matter what grade they’re in or what age they are, can jump back on.

  There are entrepreneurs we’ve interviewed before. Even our keynote speaker at the Alamo STEM Ecosystem Educator Conference this year talked about how he wasn’t in STEM programming at first. He started to tinker because he was curious.

  Later in life, he went back and got his degree in engineering. From there, he started his own company building bionic hands for people in need at a more affordable cost.

  He shared that he was just a student who loved gaming, and eventually that curiosity turned into building and exploring, and then into going back for an engineering degree. It was a very untraditional path.

  And I feel like there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach with STEM education. We need to build pathways that allow students to explore and come back to it.

• LIZ PIÑÓN:
  What I’m hearing is that this work happens at these multiple levels, policy, culture, leadership accountability. We can’t keep asking students to navigate systems that weren’t really designed for them. It’s our responsibility to fix them because the impact of this work, as you’ve seen, is life-changing.

  So Dr. Garcia, thank you for your leadership, your voice, and for continuing to push this conversation forward. Do you have any last message to our listeners?

• DR. GARCIA:
  Let’s do this work together. Everybody, especially from different sectors, we all have a unique lens and a unique approach to this work. And there’s no right or wrong way of doing it.

  I think it’s about identifying a solution, starting small, starting somewhere, and making sure that students are at the center of those conversations, and families and teachers, so that you stay anchored and grounded in that work.

  And yeah, again, it’s life-changing work. So we’re excited about it. And definitely work with us. Reach out to IDRA if you’re interested, if you have new ideas, to really move this needle forward so that we’re not having this same conversation seven years down the road.

  Let’s try to work together because we all have brilliance and expertise in our own areas, and there’s a lot of work to be done together.

• LIZ PIÑÓN:
  Thank you for listening. Let’s keep building systems that truly recognize the brilliance of all our students. Gracias.
  NARRATOR:

  Thank you for listening to IDRA Classnotes. For more information, go to www.idra.org or email podcast@idra.org.