“As a Hispanic-American, I have been fortunate to navigate through the clutter of the STEM world and find and pursue my passion. For many, the thought of STEM studies – and the enormity of the term – creates fear before consideration of the potential reward. We need more education and access in all communities, representing people of all ethnic backgrounds and walks of life, providing a clear understanding of the many exciting paths available in STEM so that kids can find the specific field that inspires them.”
Unfortunately, as Stukalsky and visionaries like him would tell you, “We need minorities” is not a diversity strategy. Encouraging non-white talent from all aspects of the socioeconomic spectrum to consider a technical career requires unfettered access and opportunity. In fact, lumping all our efforts behind this clunky, tired acronym of STEM only dissuades young people from trying out fields that might interest them due to false equivalencies.
Maybe there’s an economically disadvantaged student whose life was touched by cancer, who dreams passionately of going to medical school and curing cancer. She might be reluctant to participate in STEM camps and the like because she struggles with math, and to most, “STEM” equals “math.” Or she might feel that such programs only cater to teaching software programming, which doesn’t interest her. How do we open the doors for her to pursue a career in medicine when we’ve grouped what is arguably the most important field in the universe with a bunch of unrelated subjects?
I think that’s the point, the arbitrary division line over the arts and sciences is a wildly restrictive categorisation.
Most scientists I know are highly creative and very arts literate. Likewise, many professional artists are highly technical in practice.
Good thing there’s not an issue of few women in STEM, now that the new category is STEAM /s
You know, the British Science Association promotes STEAM as a way to combat that, particularly within the STEM pipeline starting at young people.
https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/news/future-forum-report-2022-published
Also
Article here
Interesting, I hope it works, then!