Recruiting and Retaining Gifted Black Students in STEM Majors: Implications for College Counselors

Abstract

The need to increase the number of ethnic minority students, including Black students, graduating from colleges with postsecondary degrees in STEM areas is quite popular in public discourse. Unfortunately, Black students’ oftentimes experience unique postsecondary issues that make reaching such a goal quite difficult. It makes sense that college counselors, given their role on campuses around the country, would be involved in any intervention designed to increase Black students’ representation in STEM majors. To that end, the purpose of this chapter is to detail some of the factors related relatively low numbers of Black students majoring in STEM and interventions college counselors can employ to help them overcome said factors and prepare for success in STEM majors en route to graduating with STEM bachelor’s degrees and subsequent careers.

Citation

Henfield, M.S. and Byrd, J.A. (2014), "Recruiting and Retaining Gifted Black Students in STEM Majors: Implications for College Counselors", Gifted Education: Current Perspectives and Issues (Advances in Special Education, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 211-221. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0270-4013(2014)0000026010