ABSTRACT
Latinas are acutely underrepresented in STEM fields. The author explores the role that teachers and schools play in erasing or affirming Latinas’ potential interest in science and engineering careers from the perspective of Graciela, a Latina adolescent with a strong academic performance whose interest in math and science was erased. Graciela was a participant of a larger study of 12th-grade Latina adolescents from New York City public schools. A holistic-content perspective analysis and an Identity in Practice theory guided the narrative analysis. Graciela’s counter narrative shows that for low-income Latinas, teachers have the most consequential role in the erasure or affirmation of their math and science identities. In addition to poor quality schools and tracking practices that deny Latinas a solid math education, inconsistency in the number of effective, experienced, and caring math/science teachers threaten Latinas’ affirmation of self as math- and science-oriented students. These findings offer policymakers and administrators insights into how schools and teachers contribute to the erasure of Latinas’ interest in STEM fields, and into how their actions/inactions affect cognitive and affective systems to encourage or discourage Latinas’ STEM career interests, goals, and curricular choices.
