Getting out the gates: Underrepresented minority students' search for success in introductory chemistry courses to continue on the STEM path

Seeking to explore why minorities continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (hereafter STEM), even with significant advances, this study examined the experiences of minority students in introductory chemistry at State University, a public, research I institution. Using a critical and dialectical approach, explanations for the success, or lack of success, among minority students in chemistry were explored. Chemistry is often students' first required university science class. It is notorious on campus for being a "gatekeeper" course, a common dropout point for would be STEM students. Employing mixed methods, similarities and differences between individual, institutional and state perspectives were examined to better understand minority students' efforts to succeed in chemistry, and thus continue through the STEM pipeline.;What was spoken and written about minority success in STEM from all vantages, including those of the students did not quite match up to the students' experiences. There was far more consonance between the different perspectives than was originally anticipated while the research study was being conceived. It became apparent that very particular definitions existed regarding what STEM was, who the STEM participant was as well as what success and support in STEM should look like. It would seem that introductory chemistry courses, at the start of the higher education STEM pipeline, could serve as the means through which appropriate and inappropriate STEM participants could be separated based on their ability to "fit" through a STEM template of sorts. The apparent objectivity of science became questionable in that success was possible only as students conformed themselves to this template. Further, the STEM template seemed to be shaped along racial/ethnic lines. Findings suggested that minorities have to conform themselves to the STEM template in a way that non-minorities do not need to. And without such compliance, passing through the STEM pipeline would be difficult and even unlikely.