Farrar Victoria S, Medinaceli Montserrat Valdivia, Young Nicholas T, Bonem Emily, Mead Chris, Matz Rebecca L, Caporale Natalia
Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801.
Department of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, 95616.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2025 Sep 1;24(3):ar36. doi: 10.1187/cbe.24-02-0075.
Disparate grade outcomes across various axes of student identities are prevalent in introductory science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, including in the biological sciences, yet few studies have examined outcome disparities in upper-division courses. Those that have present mixed findings. Rooted in a critical approach to quantitative methods and a student asset/institutional-deficit perspective, we characterized grade disparities associated with minoritized demographic identities over 10 years of enrollments ( = 58,692 students) in two upper-division biology courses, Genetics and Cell Biology, at five institutions. We found strong evidence of grade disparities associated with women, PEER, first-generation, low socioeconomic, and transfer student identities while controlling for prior academic performance. Across all institutions, the number of privileged identities held by the students was positively correlated with averaged students' course grades. These grade disparities were larger in Genetics than in Cell Biology and the degree of disparities in both courses varied across institutions. Our results show that the systemic inequities observed in introductory courses also exist in upper-division biology courses and call for universities to implement policies and practices that move away from student-deficit explanations for these disparities, and instead adopt a curriculum and institution-deficit model that recognizes their role in mediating and perpetuating equity disparities in STEM.
在包括生物科学在内的基础科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）课程中，学生身份各方面的成绩差异普遍存在，但很少有研究考察高年级课程中的成绩差异。已有的相关研究结果不一。基于对定量方法的批判性方法以及学生资产/机构缺陷视角，我们对五所院校的两门高年级生物课程——遗传学和细胞生物学——在10年招生过程中（n = 58,692名学生）与少数族裔人口身份相关的成绩差异进行了特征描述。在控制先前学业成绩的同时，我们发现了与女性、少数族裔、第一代大学生、社会经济地位低的学生以及转学生身份相关的成绩差异的有力证据。在所有院校中，学生拥有的特权身份数量与学生的平均课程成绩呈正相关。遗传学课程中的这些成绩差异比细胞生物学课程中的更大，并且两门课程中的差异程度在不同院校之间也有所不同。我们的研究结果表明，基础课程中观察到的系统性不平等在高年级生物课程中也存在，并呼吁大学实施相关政策和做法，摒弃对这些差异的学生缺陷解释，转而采用一种课程和机构缺陷模型，该模型认识到它们在调解和延续STEM领域的公平差距方面所起的作用。
