Publications
Representative publications from the PRISM Research Lab are organized below by project. You can access each publication by clicking on the title appearing with a colored border.
AERA Open (2025)
Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) advance servingness (i.e., racially-affirming support for Latin* students through campus programs and services) to promote academic success. However, the role of mathematics instruction in servingness is underexamined. Given how gateway mathematics courses filter out racial diversity in STEM majors, insights about Latin* students’ experiences of instruction in these courses can enhance servingness. This study analyzed 27 undergraduate Latin* students’ experiences of servingness through classroom participation in gateway mathematics courses at an HSI. We focused on classroom participation due to its well-documented influence on Latin* students’ mathematics identities and STEM persistence. Latin* students largely reported supportive instruction that reduced risks of participation. However, cultivating a racially-affirming community (a key aspect of servingness on the broader HSI campus) was also necessary to disrupt racialized influences and ensure Latin* students’ equitable access to participation. We conclude with implications for research and practice to advance servingness through STEM education across HSIs.
Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (2024)
Undergraduate mathematics classrooms are racialized spaces for Latin* students, even at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) with educational missions of cultural affirmation. Instruction plays an important role in reinforcing and disrupting racial oppression in mathematics, which has significant implications for gateway courses (e.g., calculus) that impact STEM persistence. Groupwork is a widely-adopted practice in gateway mathematics courses with intentions to promote equitable access to content and participation; however, research has shown that groupwork can perpetuate inequitable experiences for historically marginalized groups in STEM, including Latin* students attending HSIs. The present study addresses these concerns of racial equity in undergraduate mathematics by exploring Latin* students’ groupwork experiences in gateway courses at a HSI. Our findings capture how groupwork facilitated or removed access to a sense of racially-affirming community, which was central in Latin* students’ visions of equitable support as mathematics learners at a HSI.
Theory Into Practice (2024)
STEM is an exclusionary space for queer and trans* students of color (QTSOCs). A critical site of justice-oriented transformation to enhance support for QTSOCs is mathematics education, which has significant impacts on access to STEM majors and positive identities in the sciences. This article proposes a set of rights for QTSOCs as STEM learners to guide pedagogy that affirms intersectionality of their experiences in and beyond mathematics classrooms. QTSOCs in STEM have the rights to: (i) feel confused and receive support; (ii) take risks in participation and identity expression; and (iii) have affirming representation of identity in knowledge production. To illustrate how these rights are denied and embraced through STEM pedagogy, I present 2 narrative cases from my research study about QTSOCs’ intersectionality of STEM experiences where mathematics played a central role. I conclude with implications for practice to cultivate rehumanizing STEM educational opportunities that QTSOCs deserve.
American Educational Research Journal (2022)
Black queer undergraduates experience invisibility at the juncture of antiBlack racism and cisheteropatriarchy in their campus environments. With the absence of research on queer students of color in undergraduate STEM, it has been unexplored how Black queer invisibility is reinforced and disrupted in uniquely racialized and cisheteronormative STEM spaces. Drawing on Black queer studies and a proposed framework of STEM education as a White, cisheteropatriarchal space, our study addresses this research gap by exploring four Black queer students’ experiences of oppression and agency in navigating invisibility as STEM majors. A counter-storytelling analysis reveals how curricular erasure and within-group peer tensions shaped variation in undergraduate Black queer students’ STEM experiences of invisibility. Findings inform implications for education research, practice, and policy.
Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (2022)
The cisheteropatriarchal climate of STEM education shapes oppressive experiences for queer and trans* (QT) students majoring in the sciences. Intersectionality of STEM experiences for QT students of color is missing in the literature. Thus, it has been unexplored how undergraduate STEM as a racialized space shapes variation in experiences among QT students. Such intersectional analyses are especially necessary in mathematics-a discipline socially constructed as ‘neutral’ despite being a gatekeeper to STEM degrees for historically marginalized groups. To address this area of needed research, this paper presents findings from an analysis of undergraduate Latin* QT students’ intersectionality of mathematics experiences as STEM majors with a focus on peer relationships. I conclude with implications for research and practice to disrupt mathematics education as white, cisheteropatriarchal space.
The Journal of Higher Education (2021)
Introductory mathematics courses, including precalculus and calculus, largely influence Black and Latin* students’ persistence and sense of belonging in STEM. However, prior research on instruction in these courses for advancing more equitable outcomes is limited. This paper presents findings from a study of 18 Black and Latina/o students’ perceptions of introductory mathematics instruction as a racialized and gendered experience at a large, public, and historically white research university. Sociological perspectives of logics and mechanisms of inequality guided an analysis of Black and Latina/o students’ group interview responses on how instruction perpetuates racial and gendered oppression. Two logics were identified: (i) Instructors hold more mathematical authority than students in classrooms; and (ii) Calculus coursework is used to weed out students ‘not cut out’ for STEM. These logics, coupled with the influence of broader sociohistorical forces (e.g., cultural scripts of behavior, stereotypes), gave rise to mechanisms of inequality through seemingly neutral instructional practices that reinforce racial-gendered distribution of classroom participation and STEM persistence. Our findings inform implications for STEM higher education researchers and mathematics faculty to foster socially affirming STEM instruction, especially in introductory courses.
Cognition & Instruction (2021)
Undergraduate mathematics education can be experienced in discouraging and marginalizing ways among Black students, Latin* students, and white women. Precalculus and calculus courses, in particular, operate as gatekeepers that contribute to racialized and/or gendered attrition in persistence with mathematics coursework and pursuits in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). However, student perceptions of instruction in these introductory mathematics courses have yet to be systematically examined as a contributor to such attrition. This paper presents findings from a study of 20 historically marginalized students’ perceptions of precalculus and calculus instruction to document features that they found discouraging and marginalizing. Our analysis revealed how students across different race-gender identities reported stereotyping as well as issues of representation in introductory mathematics classrooms and STEM fields shaping their perceptions of instruction. These perceptions pointed to the operation of three racialized and gendered mechanisms in instruction: (i) creating differential opportunities for participation and support, (ii) limiting support from same-race, same-gender peers to manage negativity in instruction, and (iii) activating exclusionary ideas about who belongs in STEM fields. We draw on findings to raise implications for research and practice in undergraduate mathematics education.
The Learning Sciences in Conversation: Theories, Methodologies, and Boundary Spaces (2023)
Research on Latina women’s undergraduate STEM experiences details how interlocking systems of racism and patriarchy shape microaggressions of ability and limit opportunities for academic recognition. Considering the gatekeeping influence of mathematics in higher education and constructions of a racial-gendered hierarchy of mathematical ability, it is critical to examine the role of undergraduate mathematics in Latina women’s STEM persistence and identity constructions. This chapter presents findings from a counter-storytelling of two undergraduate Latina women’s mathematics experiences of oppression and agency as aspiring engineers. Our findings capture how Latina women varyingly negotiated their identities with racialized-gendered forces that limit opportunities for classroom participation and reinforce underrepresentation in STEM fields like engineering. We raise implications for practice in mathematics classrooms and engineering departments that account for Latina women’s critical race-gendered epistemologies and disrupt intersectional oppression embedded in normative structures of undergraduate STEM.
Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (2018)
While Latinxs complete undergraduate engineering degrees at lower rates than Whites and Asians, Latinx men trail behind Latinx women who recently earned over half of engineering and science degrees conferred to Latinxs. With multiple semesters of mathematics required in engineering majors, qualitative analyses of undergraduate Latinx men’s strategies of persistence and success in engineering can illuminate ways to inform more socially-affirming postsecondary educational opportunities and thus increase retention in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). This report presents findings from a phenomenological study that characterized variation in two undergraduate Latinx men’s negotiations of their masculinities with pursuits of mathematical success as engineering majors at a large, predominantly White four-year university. Findings illuminate the Latinx men’s strategies of managing risks of mathematics classroom participation, building academically and socially supportive relationships with faculty members, and negotiating pursuits of STEM higher education with their gendered sense of commitment to family.
Journal of Urban Mathematics Education (2016)
In this article, the author discusses the intersectionality of mathematics experiences for two Latin@ college women pursuing mathematics-intensive STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) majors at a large, predominantly White university. The author employs intersectionality and poststructural theories to explore and make meaning of their experiences in relation to discourses of mathematics ability and pursuits of STEM higher education. A cross-case analysis of two Latin@ college women’s counter-stories details the development of success-oriented beliefs and strategies in navigating the discourses that they encountered institutionally and interpersonally in their mathematics experiences. Implications are raised for P–16 mathematics and STEM education to broaden equitable learning opportunities for Latin@ women and other marginalized groups’ construction of positive mathematics identities at intersections of gender and other social identities.