The research was conducted by Indiana University, written by India Johnson, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Elon University and Eva Pietri, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at IUPUI and published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly journal. New research has now proven that role models can make a huge difference to the aspirations of young black women, which is a big step forward to us working towards a more inclusive and balanced STEM workforce. Of course, this doesn’t mean that black women don’t follow these career paths, but it can lead to a sense of disillusionment. If the colleagues and people in positions of influence and power in STEM are mostly middle-class white men, it’s easy to see why black women may feel like they don’t belong in these spheres or find it difficult to picture themselves in these positions. The phrase ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’ comes up time and time again, with evidence showing that there is a grain of truth to this cliché. Many have argued that one of the key reasons why black women are not choosing to enter into STEM fields is due to a lack of role models, which leads to them feeling like they do not belong in these industries. Within the top tech firms in the UK, over 70% of boards and senior executive teams do not have a BAME member in fact, women of BAME backgrounds only make up around 2% of boards and senior executive teams. According to BBSTEM, just 6.2% of UK domicile students enrolled onto STEM-related subjects at UK universities are black (4.8% Black African, 1.2% Black Caribbean, 0.2% Black Other). New research has shown that black women are more likely to feel like they belong in STEM if they have access to black female role models.īAME Women, and especially black women are still vastly underrepresented in the UK STEM workforce and in STEM education.
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