Beyond Access: A Mixed-Methods Examination into the Impact of Community Support and Racial Identity Affirmation on the Shaping of STEM Persistence Among Black Students 2 views

Black students remain significantly underrepresented in post-secondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, a disparity that reflects structural conditions rather than individual deficits. Despite national efforts to broaden participation in STEM, existing research has largely focused on individual-level explanations, overlooking the institutional and climatic conditions that shape whether Black students persist or exit STEM pathways. This dissertation examines how perceived community support and racial identity affirmation influence STEM persistence among Black undergraduate students, graduate students, and degree holders across the post-secondary STEM pipeline, with STEM self-efficacy functioning as a key mediating mechanism linking these psychological and relational factors to persistence outcomes. This study integrated quantitative survey data from 97 participants with qualitative interview data from seven purposively selected participants. The theoretical framework combined Social Cognitive Theory, Sense of Belonging Theory, and Quantitative Critical Race Theory within a systems-engineering orientation, treating persistence as an emergent outcome of interacting psychological, relational, identity-based, and structural forces. Quantitative analysis identified racial bias as the only statistically significant direct predictor of persistence, confirming that racial hostility is a primary structural barrier to Black student persistence in STEM. Scenario-based modeling demonstrated that institutional environments matter substantially, with High Support Environments producing robustness scores more than three times higher than Low Support Environments. Four qualitative themes illuminated the mechanisms underlying these findings: psychological resilience and academic self-efficacy as a mediator of persistence, social integration and community belonging, racial identity affirmation and its role in sustaining STEM engagement, and structural and environmental conditions shaping STEM trajectories.

PHD (Doctor of Philosophy)

sociotechnical systems; STEM self-efficacy; STEM belonging; QuantCRIT; Systems thinking; black identity

English

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2026-07-25