University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

“It’s like a Rhetorical Groundhogs Day”: Microaggressions, Marginality, and the Graduate Student Experience in STEM

Congleton, Randi

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/45097

Description

Title
“It’s like a Rhetorical Groundhogs Day”: Microaggressions, Marginality, and the Graduate Student Experience in STEM
Author(s)
Congleton, Randi
Issue Date
2013-06
Keyword(s)
  • Graduate Students
  • STEM
  • Microaggressions
  • Graduate students of color
  • Race and Gender
  • Qualitative Inquiry
  • EOL 574
  • UIUC
Abstract
This study explores graduate students of color in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign experiences with race and gender based microaggressions. To maintain global standing and provide support for a growing workforce, strengthening the STEM pipeline for underrepresented minorities is integral. Advance training such as graduate education is an important component of this effort. Graduate education, for many, represents years of hard work and a show of strength, a path that few are able to travel and complete. Devoted to training the next generation of scholars for the professional role, the academic department sits at the apex of the graduate student experience, an environment, in STEM, that is not culturally diverse. Graduate students of color who persist have endured a variety of race and gender related barriers. In this qualitative inquiry, it was found that graduate student experiences were consistent with previous research on racial and gender based microaggressions. Of all microaggressions perceived, microinvalidations were communicated as most prevalent.
Series/Report Name or Number
EOL 574, Lorenzo Baber, Instructor, Spring 2013
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/45097

Owning Collections

Diversity on Campus/Equity and Access PRIMARY
This collection examines ways in which the U.S. university and the American college experience are affected by diversity, and difference. In particular, these student projects examine experiences of diversity on campus, including important contemporary social, cultural, and political debates on equity and access to university resources.