- Year 2023
- NSF Award #2050406
- Registration Current Noyce Scholar
- First Name Luisa
- Last Name Castro Vizcarra
- Discipline STEM Education (general)
- Institution MISTI Mercy College
Abstract
European colonization in the Americas has stripped Indigenous peoples of the Americas and people of African descent of the right to live by brutally forcing them into assimilation. In the United States of America, the majority of white peoples’ ancestry originates from European descent, thus we refer to them as White Americans. Underrepresented minorities are made up of any individual who self-identifies as one or more of the following: Native American or Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latino/a, Black or African American. Though they are ethnically/racially/culturally different groups of people, as a collective, they have been harmed by the same European oppressor in similar ways. Racism, the belief that race accounts for differences in human ability, has perpetuated its way into every domain of human life, including the study of science and education. For the purpose of this poster, I will share my investigation of the history of scientific racism and its implication on today’s youth in U.S. education in three sections:
Section 1. Manipulation of scientific findings to demonstrate European/European descent superiority over people of African descent and Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Section 2. Scientific racism’s effect on education and ways to help underrepresented minority students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Section 3. Ways of approaching science education through culturally relevant pedagogy.
