The participation of Black students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, is an issue of national concern. Educators and policymakers are seeking to promote STEM studies and eventual degree attainment, especially those from underrepresented groups, including Black students, women, economically disadvantaged, and students with disabilities. Literature shows that this has been of great interest to researchers, policymakers, and institutions for several years (Nettles & Millet, 2006; Council of Graduate School (CGS), 2009; National Science Foundation (NSF), 2006), therefore an extensive understanding of access, attrition, and degree completion for Black students in STEM is needed. According to Hussar and Bailey (2014), the Black and Latino postsecondary enrollment rates will increase by approximately 25% between 2011 and 2022. It is critical that this projected enrollment increase translates into an increase in Black student STEM enrollment, persistence and consequently STEM workforce. In view of the shifting demographic landscape, addressing access, equity and achievement for Black students in STEM is essential. Institutions, whether they are secondary or postsecondary, all have unique formal and informal academic structures that students must learn to navigate in order to become academically and socially acclimated to the institution (Tyler, Brothers, & Haynes, 2014). Therefore positive experience with the academic environment becomes critical to the success of a student persisting and graduating. Understanding and addressing the challenges faced by Black students in STEM begins with understanding the complexities they face at all levels of education. A sense of urgency is now needed to explore these complexities and how they impact students at all educational levels. This book will explore hidden figures and concerns of social connectedness, mentoring practices, and identity constructs that uncover unnoticed talent pools and encourage STEM matriculation among Black STEM students’ in preK-12 and post-secondary landscapes. Section 1-Socialization Social discourse concerning how male and females are supposed to enact their socially sanctioned roles is being played out daily in educational institutions. Individuals who chose STEM education and STEM careers are constantly battling this social discourse. It is necessary for P-20 STEM spaces to examine and integrate understanding of socialization within the larger societal culture for systemic and lasting change to happen. Section 2-Mentoring A nurturing process in which a more skilled or more experienced person, serving as a role model teaches, sponsors, encourages, counsels, and befriends a less skilled or less experienced person for the purpose of promoting the latter’s academic, professional and/or personal development. Section 3-Identity Research focusing on identity constructs in STEM has become more common, especially as it relates to student retention and attrition. Researchers have been able to use identity as a way to examine how social stigma can cause students to (dis)identify within STEM spaces.

Looking at the Finnish–Russian borderland as a transnational space and claiming that there is a need to understand the long-term effects of migration – a continuing process spanning several generations – The Hidden Minority takes a multi-temporal perspective on mobility and belonging. The focus of this ethnographic study is the Russian minority in Finland, which is socially, economically, politically and culturally heterogeneous.The Russian minority in Finland is imbued with ’being hidden‘ or ’hiding oneself‘. The book explores informants’ reflections, together with the author, on the mental and physical crossing of national borders. Perceptions of belonging and/or Otherness and lived experience reveal a complex relationship of embodied memory, history, time and a multi-national social space.

This book asks why several ethnic and linguistic groups in Central Europe and the Balkans have not yet been legally recognized as national minorities. Some of these hidden minorities have not developed an intellectual elite that can visibly present their identity and claims to the majority population. Other groups are deliberately concealing their existence and language for reasons of self-protection. The chapters in this volume address the everyday mechanisms of hiding and being hidden in the transition zone of these two European regions.

The contributors to this volume examine social processes in terms of minority influence.

Racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States have been growing rapidly in recent decades. Projections based on census data indicate that, in coming years, white people will statistically dominate noticeably fewer regions and public spaces. How will this reversal of minority status affect ideas about race? In spaces dominated by people of color, will attitudes about white privilege change? Or, will deeply rooted beliefs about racial inequality be resilient to numerical shifts in strength? In An Unexpected Minority, sociologist Edward Morris addresses these far-reaching questions by exploring attitudes about white identity in a Texas middle school composed predominantly of African Americans, Latinos, and Asians. Based on his ethnographic research, Morris argues that lower-income white students in urban schools do not necessarily maintain the sort of white privilege documented in other settings. Within the student body, African American students were more frequently the "cool" kids, and white students adopted elements of black culture-including dress, hairstyle, and language-to gain acceptance. Morris observes, however, that racial inequalities were not always reversed. Stereotypes that cast white students as better behaved and more academically gifted were often reinforced, even by African American teachers. Providing a new and timely perspective to the significant role that non-whites play in the construction of attitudes about whiteness, this book takes an important step in advancing the discussion of racial inequality and its future in this country.

This book offers an in-depth exploration into the current educational climate and the impact of these policy measures for Roma people in seven Western and Southern European countries and seeks to raise awareness of this forgotten minority and to assess the policies implemented to integrate the Roma people into the education system.

Though Asian Indians are typically thought of as a "model minority", not much is known about the school experiences of their children. Positive stereotyping of these immigrants and their children often masks educational needs and issues, creates class divides within the Indian-American community, and triggers stress for many Asian Indian students. This volume examines second generation (America-born) and 1.5 generation (foreign-born) Asian Indians as they try to balance peer culture, home life and academics. It explores how, through the acculturation process, these children either take advantage of this positive stereotype or refute their stereotyped ethnic image and move to downward mobility. Focusing on migrant experiences of the Indian diasporas in the United States, this volume brings attention to highly motivated Asian Indian students who are overlooked because of their cultural dispositions and outlooks on schooling, and those students who are more likely to underachieve. It highlights the assimilation of Asian Indian students in mainstream society and their understandings of Americanization, social inequality, diversity and multiculturalism.

Minority invisibility has gone unnoticed in the communication discipline. It denies the existence of racial problems by consciously or unconsciously downplaying, ignoring, or oversimplifying the issues. This is evidenced from the claims of color-blindness and reverse discrimination, the belief in model minorities, and exaggerated, negative, or purposeful racial displays that permeate American culture. Using in-depth interviews with Asian-American professionals from various metropolitan areas, this study investigates these professionals' perceptions on minority invisibility and model minority status. It explores Asian Americans' ethnic consciousness on four levels, discussing how the group perceives their individual invisibility, their group members' invisibility, the invisibility of other American co-cultural groups, and finally their expectations in changing minority invisibility in the United States. The work considers diverse viewpoints on minority invisibility, model minority, satisfaction and dissatisfaction with mainstream American culture, and co-cultural ethnic relations. This study is useful to graduate and undergraduate students and researchers with an interest in race relations, Asian-American studies, co-cultural theory, and intercultural communication studies. Book jacket.

Seeing Social Problems: The Hidden Stories Behind Contemporary Issues shows students how to think about social problems in a new way, by carefully analyzing headline-making issues they are already familiar with and illustrating the connection between individual problems and larger social forces. Each chapter engages students in thinking about the world sociologically by focusing on a specific case study that represents a more general social problem. The chapters always start with the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and personal experiences that students bring to the case—what author Ira Silver refers to as the conventional wisdom—and effectively demonstrate to them the “first wisdom” of sociology: “things are not what they seem.” In each instance, Silver shows how sociologists ask questions, gather empirical data, use multiple perspectives, and consider larger social forces to discover the “hidden stories” behind individual behavior.