Chapter 1: Cultivating Hispanic/Latina and African American Females in Reading, Mathematics, and Science (Charms) for STEM at the Elementary School: Results of One Project

There is a concern in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career fields to address the scarcity of diversity among our professionals relating to females of color, more specifically, African American and Latina females (Alvarez & Harris, 2010; Espinosa, 2009; US Commission, 2010). There has been a plethora of research on the need to increase the number of females to select STEM academic majors that transforms into STEM careers (American Association of University Women, 2010; Bayer Cooperation Report, 2010; Beede et al., 2011; Tyler-Wood, Ellison, Lim, & Periathiruvadi, 2012). While such emphasis has been the pathway for career development of the 24% of females in STEM careers (Beede et al., 2011), the majority who are of European and Asian descent, there is a need to cultivate Latina and African American (LAA) females. They comprise 25% of the current school-age population who will be a major component of the future workforce (Espinosa, 2009). However, increasing the number of female professionals in STEM fields means starting at the elementary level (K–5) with an assessment of the academic achievement of LAA females in reading, mathematics, and science (Bianchini, 2011; O’Brien, 2010). The fundamental research question is: What is the academic achievement of LAA females at the elementary level in reading, mathematics, and science? As such, this research question served as an impetus to secure funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a conference for teachers, administrators, and parents (TAP) entitled, Cultivating Hispanics and African Americans’ Reading, Math, Science (CHARMS) in Elementary Schools for Girls Conference: Project CHARMS for Elementary School Girls (NSF #1048544). Based on the results of this project, we (a) discuss an analysis of selected state accountability scores from the 2007 and 2011 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) data for females in mathematics and science at the third and fifth grade level, (b) provide an overview of the CHARMS conference and share the results of the CHARMS conference evaluation, and (c) discuss the findings as related to LAA elementary girls and STEM.