Searle Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States of America.
Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Aug 7;15(8):e0236983. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236983. eCollection 2020.
National efforts to address the diversity dilemma in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) often emphasize increasing numbers of historically underrepresented (HU) students and faculty, but fall short in instituting concrete changes for inclusion and belonging. Therefore, increasing the pool of senior faculty who wish to become guides and advocates for emerging scientists from HU populations is an essential step toward creating new pathways for their career advancement. As a step toward achieving this goal, we created a novel eight-hour intervention on Culturally Aware Mentoring (CAM), a program of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) targeted to faculty and administrators. A previous report of surveys at the end of the CAM sessions revealed substantial awareness and knowledge gains, with participants expressing intentions to use and implement new skills they had learned. In this paper, we provide the results of our thematic analysis of qualitative interviews with academic administrators and faculty, 18-24 months after participation in CAM. Interviews were designed to determine: 1) What changes in self-perceptions and interactions occurred as a result of participation in CAM? 2) What specific components of CAM are associated with changes in individual beliefs and practices? 3) How did participants actively make changes after the CAM workshop? 4) What barriers or challenges do participants encounter after the CAM intervention? The results demonstrate the lasting influences of CAM on participants' awareness of cultural differences, their assumptions about and approaches toward interactions with colleagues and students, and their efforts to change their behaviors to promote inclusive practices in their mentoring and teaching of HU students in STEM. Our findings provide evidence that CAM can be incorporated into existing mentor training programs designed to improve the confidence and capacity of senior research faculty mentors to make culturally-informed, scholar-centered decisions to more deliberately recognize and respond to cultural differences within their mentoring and collegial relationships.
国家努力解决科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域的多样性困境，通常强调增加历史上代表性不足（HU）的学生和教师人数，但在实施包容和归属感的具体变革方面做得不够。因此，增加希望成为 HU 群体新兴科学家的指导者和倡导者的资深教师人数，是为他们的职业发展创造新途径的重要步骤。作为实现这一目标的一步，我们创建了一个关于文化意识指导（CAM）的八小时干预措施，这是国家研究指导网络（NRMN）的一个项目，针对教师和管理人员。CAM 课程结束时的调查结果报告显示，参与者的意识和知识有了实质性的提高，他们表示有意使用和实施他们所学的新技能。在本文中，我们提供了对参与 CAM 后 18-24 个月的学术管理人员和教师进行的定性访谈的主题分析结果。访谈旨在确定：1）参与 CAM 后自我认知和互动发生了哪些变化？2）CAM 的哪些具体组成部分与个人信念和实践的变化有关？3）参与者如何在 CAM 研讨会后积极做出改变？4）参与者在 CAM 干预后遇到哪些障碍或挑战？研究结果表明，CAM 对参与者对文化差异的认识、对与同事和学生互动的假设和方法以及他们努力改变行为以促进 HU 学生在 STEM 中的包容性实践产生了持久的影响。我们的研究结果提供了证据表明，CAM 可以纳入现有的导师培训计划，以提高资深研究导师的信心和能力，使其能够做出文化知情、以学者为中心的决策，更有意识地认识和应对指导和同事关系中的文化差异。
