STEM Education Hour • Dr. Jessica Good • Impacts of Colorblind and Multicultural Messages

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) instructors who desire to create an inclusive classroom environment for women and underrepresented minority students must decide how to talk about diversity in their classroom. Two primary diversity philosophies (colorblindness and multiculturalism) have been investigated within the social psychological research literature.  In this talk,Dr. Jessica Good  will present evidence from her NSF-funded research program showing the positive impact of multiculturalism, relative to colorblindness, on expectations about performance in STEM as well as actual performance on tests of newly learned STEM content, among women and underrepresented minority students. Time permitting, the floor will open for discussion of how to implement a multicultural philosophy in the classroom.