An Asset-Based Approach to Advancing Latina Students in STEM

This timely volume challenges the ongoing underrepresentation of Latina women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and highlights resilience as a critical communal response to increasing their representation in degree programs and academic posts. An Asset-Based Approach to Advancing Latina Students in STEM documents the racialized and gendered experiences of Latinas studying and researching in STEM in US colleges, and centers resilience as a critical mechanism in combating deficit narratives. Adopting an asset-based approach, chapters illustrate how Latinas draw on their cultural background as a source of individual and communal strength, and indicate how this cultural wealth must be nurtured and used to inform leadership and policy to motivate, encourage, and support Latinas on the pathway to graduate degrees and successful STEM careers. By highlighting strategies to increase personal resilience and institutional retention of Latina women, the text offers key insights to bolstering diversity in STEM. This text will primarily appeal to academics, scholars, educators, and researchers in the fields of STEM education. It will also benefit those working in broader areas of higher education and multicultural education, as well as those interested in the advancement of minorities inside and outside of academia. Elsa M. Gonzalez is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Houston, USA. Frank Fernandez is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Mississippi, USA. Miranda Wilson earned a Ph.D. in Higher Education Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Houston, USA.