United States

It is well documented that there is little diversity within physics at the undergraduate level in the United States, and this problem is only amplified in graduate school and the workforce. The cause of this underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in physics is reported to be partially due to a &quot;cold&quot; and unwelcoming climate within physics departments and differential pre-college experiences. Our larger research project aims to investigate undergraduate physics students&#39; experiences, to better understand the factors leading to the selection and retention of a physics major, and how these experiences may differ by one&#39;s social identity. To achieve this goal, we conducted a series of in-depth interviews with physics majors at one university to learn more about their pre-college and college experiences regarding physics and astronomy. In this paper, we report a subset of our findings. In particular, we share our preliminary results on the data collected from our nine participants with identities underrepresented in the discipline of physics with regards to their selection of a physics major.  Our findings reveal both internal and external motivators for selecting a major in physics and suggest that many of the pre-college obstacles they faced relate to their underrepresented identities.

PERC SM 22

Investigating underrepresented students’ choice of a physics major

PERC 2022 is focused on "queering physics education" through an intersectional lens. By "queering," we are centering queer theory which breaks down social constructions and hierarchies to unpack normalized assumptions. In the context of physics education, we want to apply the theory to unpack who has power in physics to control the production of future physicists, how physics policies and practices are sometimes built on ideas of punishment and power, and how PER embeds binaries in both its content and sociological research. Further, we want to encourage a dialogue that is both a critique and an imagining of a queer future for PER.

Explicit attention will be given to constructions of race, (dis)ability, gender, sexuality and how they interact and impact lived experiences.

We have had such a fun time organizing this year’s PERC. You might be aware that we were committed to transparency and documenting our processes and decision making which we outlined here. This year has also been challenging to be a queer or otherwise marginalized person in the US. And we continue to seek and provide support for those individuals.

As such, we recommend that folks visiting Grand Rapids who have the means consider giving to some local organizations who are working to advocate for those impacted by historic and ongoing marginalization and violence.


PERC 2022 focused on "queering physics education" through an intersectional lens. By "queering," we centered queer theory which breaks down social constructions and hierarchies to unpack normalized assumptions. In the context of physics education, we apply the theory to unpack who has power in physics to control the production of future physicists, how physics policies and practices are sometimes built on ideas of punishment and power, and how PER embeds binaries in both its content and sociological research. Further, we wanted to encourage a dialogue that is both a critique and an imagining of a queer future for PER. Explicit attention was given to constructions of race, (dis)ability, gender, sexuality and how they interact and impact lived experiences.

It is well documented that there is little diversity within physics at the undergraduate level in the United States, and this problem is only amplified in graduate school and the workforce. The cause of this underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in physics is reported to be partially due to a "cold" and unwelcoming climate within physics departments and differential pre-college experiences. Our larger research project aims to investigate undergraduate physics students' experiences, to better understand the factors leading to the selection and retention of a physics major, and how these experiences may differ by one's social identity. To achieve this goal, we conducted a series of in-depth interviews with physics majors at one university to learn more about their pre-college and college experiences regarding physics and astronomy. In this paper, we report a subset of our findings. In particular, we share our preliminary results on the data collected from our nine participants with identities underrepresented in the discipline of physics with regards to their selection of a physics major.  Our findings reveal both internal and external motivators for selecting a major in physics and suggest that many of the pre-college obstacles they faced relate to their underrepresented identities.

poster

Quantitative and survey research often limit or erase the possibilities of trans people within datasets. Gender is often measured as a binary and is also conflated with sex in survey research. Through a critical queer lens, we will discuss new approaches for measuring gender which could allow for a more nuanced understanding of how gender shapes our experiences. Using data collected from the Trans* Inclusivity Scale, developed through my dissertation, I will talk about trans* inclusive behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge student affairs staff have when working alongside trans* students and how this can extend into other areas of education and research. The discussion will then point to areas where policies and practices can be utilized to create a better environment for trans students And, finally, the talk will conclude with a discussion of future research within this work.

Beyond the Binary: Critically Queer Approaches to Quantitative Research in Education

Though much of contemporary PER work is carried out within the US, there are PER efforts outside the US that are frequently overlooked by the broader US PER community. The result is often not only a blinkered representation of the scholarship on the teaching and learning of physics, but also a lack of cross-cultural comparison between international contexts that may have important implications for physics education researchers and physics teachers interpreting and applying the results of PER studies from other countries. What is needed is a greater awareness of the international work done in the field of PER as well as an appreciation of the factors that can substantively shape the teaching and learning of physics in those international contexts. In this session we showcase the work of PER scholars working in the Nordic countries and discuss the Nordic context as it relates to PER. This session brings together a collection of physics education researchers working within Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, all of whom are members of newly established Nordic Physics Education Research Consortium. The presenters will each introduce the broader efforts of the research groups in which they work, discuss their own research, and reflect on some of the contextual factors that make PER different for them outside the US. The session will also provide time for discussion with the audience and briefly introduce the goals of the Nordic Physics Education Research Consortium.

Physics education research in the Nordic Countries

This session features three early career scholars whose work centers queerness and queer theory in the context of STEM higher education.

Queerness in STEM education: perspectives from early career scholars

When we think about queer as a verb, adjective, and a noun, some things become clearer (and queerer!) while also making other issues more complicated a murky. This talk examines the idea of queering various components of our knowledge, scholarship, and pedagogy, inviting attendees to explore what we think we know, and then removing many of the (potentially biased) assumptions that undergird this knowledge to more deeply explore the world. Using queer theory, transdisciplinary approaches, and self reflection, this talk offers little in the way of answers, but rather, opens up a host of new avenues of approaches to thinking about education and knowledge.

Quarks are a bit queer: Rethinking known truths from a queer mindset

Research centering queer and trans* (QT) physics students has shed light on how undergraduate physics reinforces misogyny and cisheteronormativity, with emerging work on intersectionality capturing racialized dimensions for QT students of color. Introductory physics courses, as gatekeepers to STEM majors, have been important contexts in PER for exploring issues of equity, but QT students' experiences in these racialized and gendered spaces have not been considered. Positing a future direction for PER to advance queer and intersectional justice, this paper presents findings from an analysis that interrogates how introductory physics reinforces white cisheteropatriarchy in STEM experiences among QT students of color.

"We can’t just turn that off and then do some physics”: A counter-storytelling analysis of introductory physics as a white, cisheteropatriarchal space

In this plenary, we model a physics lesson exploring wave and particle properties of light. This teaching exposition exemplifies how queer theory can guide instruction that de-stabilizes binaries, absolutes, and power inequalities within both physics content and classroom social dynamics to promote inclusive, identity-affirming opportunities to learn. Concurrent with the lesson, we narrate our pedagogical reasoning, including how physics education research and queer theory informed the lesson design, as well as how we negotiated constraints (e.g., limited race and gender diversity in physics resources). We conclude by illustrating how instruction in our lesson makes space for complex understandings of science, which expand educational opportunities that affirm queer and trans* students' diverse and dynamic social realities as physics learners.

Leveraging queer epistemic subjectivity to advance justice through physics teaching

The need for physicists to work with others outside of the discipline of physics has become more prominent due to the growing necessity of interdisciplinary subjects and careers. While this need exists, there are few opportunities for physics students to gain collaborative experiences and skills. This study looks at how a community of practice formed within an informal physics program that was designed specifically to bring undergraduate physics and graphic design students together to create an aesthetic physics teaching tool. Throughout this 10 week summer project, we collected qualitative data in the form of interviews and written responses from a team of four undergraduate students, observed meetings, and interviewed the project co-developers. These data record the students' and co-developers' experiences as they work together to develop a public engagement project aimed at combining physics with art and design. Using an operationalized Communities of Practice framework to analyze these data, we are able to explore the formation of a Community of Practice and better understand how developing informal physics programs can foster a community of practice environment.

Examining community of practice formation within a new informal art and physics program

Mid-Study Update from an Online Design-Your-Own Labortory Experiment Curriculum

The physics teachers require, in addition to knowledge of the discipline, to develop skills that allow them to plan and implement teaching strategies that help students acquire knowledge of the different branches of physics and their usefulness in different contexts. Thus, teacher training plays a fundamental role and can be approached from two perspectives: initial training (profile) and in-service training (teacher training). In Latin America, particularly in Chile and Mexico, the training of physics teachers focuses on their professional profile, so it is necessary to deepen teacher training, so that an ideal profile is achieved to teach physics classes. In general, the teaching training of teachers can again be divided into two: 1) courses on the didactics of physics; and 2) Courses on the educational model of the school. In this work, a study is made about the training of the physics teacher, creating indicators to know the ideal profile of the teacher and proposing training tools that allow the teacher to approach the ideal profile, making a comparison of the results of the study between teachers of Chile and Mexico.

Professional profiles and teacher training of Physics teachers in Latin America

Conceptual inquiry-based introductory physics labs deploy PER-informed pedagogical strategies in physics labs with the aim of helping to improve students' understanding of physics concepts. Unlike traditional labs (which tend to be highly-structured and focus on verification of scientific relationships via precision measurements) and skills-based labs (which tend to eschew the aim of helping students learn physics concepts in favor of teaching experimental skills), some studies have suggested that conceptual inquiry-based labs may have a positive impact on student conceptual understanding, as measured by concept inventories. This paper reports on a randomized controlled study that compares student conceptual gains in electricity and magnetism between a conceptual inquiry-based lab and a skills-based lab. Following a difference-in-differences analytical strategy and hierarchical linear modeling, the result from this study is that the conceptual inquiry-based lab provides no additional benefit to students' conceptual learning gains compared with the skills-based lab. Studies such as these may help physics departments make decisions about the goals and scope of transformations to their introductory lab courses.

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Investigating underrepresented students’ choice of a physics major

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