Examining social and emotional skills adolescent Black girls need to remain motivated to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers

Living through the COVID-19 pandemic, the world learned our survival depended on having a diverse science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce to support innovation for all people. The ingenuity and the voices of all demographics of people to create immediate STEM solutions to this crisis were invaluable. Only 7% of STEM undergraduate degrees are awarded to Black women in the United States (Burke et al., 2022). This number must be increased to have more diverse voices in STEM fields to help develop critical solutions (Burke et al., 2022). This study aimed to add to the research to increase the participation of Black women in STEM ecosystems across the country by reducing the attrition of adolescent Black girls who want to have STEM careers. This qualitative study examined the social and emotional supports adolescent Black girls needed to remain motivated to pursue STEM careers. For this qualitative study, I used a Black Feminist Thought Framework to create a safe and affirming space for the adolescent Black girl participants to define their social and emotional needs for themselves (Collins, 1990). The methodological approach I used was participatory action research to support data collection. I reviewed previous literature about the social and emotional barriers Black women and girls state increased their pushout in STEM environments to determine common themes. Those common themes were: identity, self-awareness, belongingness, and self-efficacy. Using a participatory research approach, the intervention involved delivering culturally relevant STEM social and emotional learning (SEL) lessons using the themes to collaborate with the participants to develop solutions for STEM ecosystems to increase the participation of Black girls in STEM.