# Importance of accounting for student identities and intersectionality for
creating equitable and inclusive physics learning environments

Lisabeth Marie Santana  Chandralekha Singh  Department of Physics and
Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA 15260

###### Abstract

This research focuses on the experiences of seven undergraduate women who were
majoring in physics at a small liberal arts college. In the semi-structured,
empathetic interviews we conducted, the women discuss how they decided to
major in physics, their interactions with their peers and instructors, who has
supported them during their physics trajectory, and suggestions that would
improve their experiences in physics. We use Standpoint Theory and focus on
the experiences of undergraduate women to get a holistic perspective of how
they became interested in physics, how they have been supported in their
physics journey as well as identify any challenges that they faced in their
undergraduate physics program due to their identity. Using synergistic
frameworks such as the domains of power and the Holistic Ecosystem for
Learning Physics in an Inclusive and Equitable Environment (HELPIEE), we
analyze how those in the position of power, e.g., instructors, can play
important roles in establishing and maintaining safe, equitable, and inclusive
environments for students, which is especially important for historically
marginalized students such as women and ethnic and racial minority students in
physics. Using these frameworks, we compare the experiences of these women
with those in Johnson’s research at a small college and our prior
investigation at a large research university. We also discuss the suggestions
provided by the undergraduate women to implement in the future to support
current and future undergraduate women in physics and astronomy. Their
suggestions are separated as personal advice for peers and suggestions for
physics instructors.

††preprint: APS/123-QED

##  I Introduction, Framework and Goal

Many groups, e.g., women and ethnic and racial minorities (ERM), have
historically been excluded from physics and improving their representation and
experiences has been an important focus for researchers for the past few
decades. Within the last decade, the percentage of women who received physics
bachelor’s degrees in the US has ranged from 20% to 25% [1, 2, 3]. Reports
from 2020 shows that of physics bachelor’s degrees, 3-4% are awarded to Black
students and 12% are awarded to Latinx students [4, 5].

Moreover, the women and ERM students who obtain their degrees in physics, face
many challenges while doing so uniquely due to their identities. These issues
faced by women and ERM students in many undergraduate Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields have been reported in previous
studies [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. Research focusing
specifically on physics and astronomy shows that women and ERM students often
have negative experiences in the physics learning environments [19, 20, 21,
22, 23] and there are often gaps in performance and psychological factors
(e.g., self-efficacy, belonging, identity etc.) disadvantaging traditionally
marginalized students.

At many institutions, physics is still tied to its historical origins in
regard to its culture. For example, physics has the worst stereotypes among
the natural sciences regarding who belongs in it, who can excel in it and what
a physicist looks like [24, 25]. As a result of these stereotypes, students
are negatively affected [21], including in their performance [26, 27, 28]. In
addition, the demographics of physics departments may continue to reinforce
stereotypes, and historically marginalized students, who don’t have role
models, continue to be constantly reminded that they do not necessarily fit
in.

Previous studies have shown gender disparities in performance as well as
psychological factors in physics persisting throughout high school and
college. Such disparities include women’s lower perceived recognition compared
to men as a “physics person” from peers and instructors [29, 30, 31, 32, 33,
34, 35, 36], which can hinder their academic performance [37] and influence
female students’ decisions to leave the field [38, 6, 7, 39]. In particular,
if women believe that their instructors or peers do not see them as being
capable of excelling in physics, it impacts their own beliefs about whether
they can excel in physics [40, 41, 34, 42]. Moreover, lower self-efficacy and
sense of belonging can be detrimental even to those students who are
performing well. Prior research also shows that women drop out of STEM
disciplines with significantly higher grades than men [43]. Prior studies have
also found that sense of belonging and self-efficacy in physics are closely
intertwined [44, 45, 46]. Because improving self-efficacy is a multifaceted
process [47], creating an equitable and inclusive learning environment that
increases underrepresented students’ sense of belonging may help increase
their self-efficacy and improve their retention [48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54,
55].

In order to do this, physics instructors must be committed to these issues in
order to establish and maintain a safe and equitable physics learning
environment. They also have the power to do so as they are responsible for
setting the tone of how students are treated and establish classroom norms.
Another important aspect to emphasize is that in many physics programs, men
make up the majority or both physics majors and physics faculty. Hence, they
have both power and influence to make change. We also note that physics
culture has traditionally been masculine, as it still is at many universities,
which continues to perpetuate inequities and stereotypes for traditionally
marginalized students. The physics culture proclaims and reinforces ideas that
only brilliant people can do physics and since men are stereotypically
associated with brilliance [56], they are the only ones who can do physics and
belong in physics [8, 57, 28, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 26, 63, 64, 65]. This
masculine culture disadvantages women and they become isolated from lack of
role models and a community that could provide support to them [66, 67, 65,
68].

Thus, is it important to investigate the experiences of underrepresented
students in physics, such as women as in our study, as they are the ones who
can shed light on their interactions with others in physics, and how the
physics culture impacts them. Qualitative studies such as this investigation
can be valuable to learn about inequities directly from students who may be
experiencing it. Through interviews, we can understand undergraduate women’s
perspectives in their own voices. Previous studies in other contexts that
utilize student interviews revealed that women in physics and astronomy
experience hostile environments within physics departments [19, 69, 21, 60,
22, 23].

We choose Standpoint theory as our theoretical framework to help frame this
study in which we put undergraduate women in physics at the forefront [70,
71]. Standpoint theory is a critical theory that focuses on the relationship
between the production of knowledge and acts of power [72]. It is related to
other critical theories in that it centers around the standpoint or voices of
the underrepresented groups that do not have the same privilege as the
dominant group in order to gain a clearer understanding of their struggles.
Thus, using this framework, we put emphasis on the experiences of
undergraduate women in physics to understand what physics departments and
instructors can do to improve the physics culture such that they feel safe and
supported [73].

In this study, we use qualitative interview data to understand undergraduate
women’s trajectory in physics (including what or who got them interested in
physics), interactions with their peers and instructors, who supported them in
physics and challenges they face, and their suggestions to improve their
experiences. We compare these findings to Johnson’s study at a small college
and a study we conducted several years ago at a large research university to
analyze if there were major differences in women’s interactions with male
peers and faculty across these different types of institutions [74, 23]. In
the previous study conducted by Johnson at a small college, she analyzed women
of color’s experiences using Collins’ domains of power framework. We compare
undergraduate women’s experiences at these different institutions using a
similar analysis employing the domains of power framework after discussing our
results at the small liberal arts college presented here. We also make note of
the fact that the domains of power framework is closely aligned with the
Holistic Ecosystem for Learning Physics in an Inclusive and Equitable
Environment (HELPIEE) framework which focuses on the role of those in the
position of power in creating an equitable and inclusive learning environment.

###  I.1 Domains of Power and HELPIEE Frameworks

Collins introduced four domains that are necessary to understand how power is
organized in a particular context [75]. She argued that the four domains we
need to consider are: interpersonal, cultural, structural, and disciplinary.
The interpersonal domain is where power is expressed between individuals. The
cultural domain is where group values are expressed, maintained or challenged.
The disciplinary domain is how rules are enforced and for whom. The structural
domain is how power is organized in various structures. Johnson applied this
framework in the context of physics learning environments at a small college
where women of color felt supported and were excited about learning physics.
With the domains of power framework, it is the instructors who have the power
over shaping the narrative for each of these domains (which interact with each
other). In the context of student experiences in learning physics, the
interpersonal domain refers to how students communicate with each other and
how students and faculty interact; the cultural domain refers to the physics
culture; the structural domain refers to the structure of a physics learning
environment; and the disciplinary domain refers, e.g., to how instructors
discipline students in the physics courses and in the physics learning
environments in general, if their conduct does not conform do the expected
norms.

The Holistic Ecosystem for Learning Physics in an Inclusive and Equitable
Environment (HELPIEE) framework posits that those in the position of power,
e.g., instructors in physics classrooms, have the power to help all students
feel supported by carefully taking into account students’ characteristics and
implementing effective pedagogies in an equitable and inclusive learning
environment [76]. Within this framework, if students from different
demographic groups in a course do not have similar positive experiences and
feelings of being supported, the learning environments are not equitable
because those in the position of power did not provide adequate support to
level the playing field.

Both of these frameworks are synergistic. From these two frameworks, we see
that in the context of physics courses, it is the department and instructor’s
responsibility to create an equitable learning environment. Together, these
frameworks are useful for analyzing the findings of this study and comparing
them with prior studies. Below, we describe our research questions.

###  I.2 Research Questions

  1. RQ1.

What are the experiences of undergraduate women majoring in physics at a small
liberal arts college?

  2. RQ2.

How do the results of this study compare to other studies with similar themes
but in different types of physics learning environments?

##  II Methodology

We conducted semi-structured, empathetic interviews with 7 undergraduate women
physics and astronomy majors at a small liberal arts college in the US. At
this college, women are underrepresented in physics, but not to the extent
that they are underrepresented at the national level [1], i.e., they make up
about one-third of the physics majors. We note that there are 9 full-time
faculty members and 4 visiting/adjunct faculty members in this physics and
astronomy department. The number of physics majors that graduate each year
varies from 10-20. In order to capture a wide range of experiences, we
interviewed women who were at various points in their physics trajectory in
college, e.g., second to fourth year students.

Each interview was about an hour long in duration and was recorded via Zoom.
The interviews followed protocols set by the group prior to conducting the
interviews. The protocol questions focused on these women’s experiences in
physics, including their high school experiences and how their gender impacted
their experiences. These women in our study volunteered to participate in the
interviews.

We coded these interviews using hybrid coding (inductive and deductive)
methods that emphasized these women’s experiences. Deductive codes are based
on the interview questions while inductive codes were formed during the
analysis [77]. The interview questions were centered around women’s
experiences in physics, e.g., interactions with peers and instructors, why
they majored in physics, etc. First, one of the researchers coded the
interviews and both researchers engaged in several discussions related to the
coding through which they came to an agreement on the codes. The codes were
then distilled into several analytic themes. We note that in the excerpts, we
removed most of the ”ums” and ”likes” to make it easier to follow their point
of view.

###  II.1 Analytic Themes

The main analytic themes (AT) related to their experiences that we focus on
are the following:

  1. AT1.

Pathway to Majoring in Physics

  2. AT2.

Interactions with College Peers

  3. AT3.

Interactions with College Instructors

  4. AT4.

Sources of Support

  5. AT5.

Reflection on How Identities Affect Experiences

  6. AT6.

Suggestions to Improve Experiences

###  II.2 Positionality

Both researchers identify as women of color. Specifically, one of the
researchers identifies as a queer Chicana woman. The other is an Asian
American woman. It is important to note these identities as they are also
intersectional and were useful when coding and analyzing the intersectional
identities of some of these undergraduate women in physics. Both have had
several prior experiences conducting and analyzing qualitative studies
focusing on equity and inclusion in physics learning environments.

###  II.3 Introduction of Women

Here we briefly introduce each woman in this study who was majoring in the
physics and astronomy department at a small liberal arts college. All women
were provided pseudonyms for anonymity. Cathy is a White fourth year student
who is interested in computer science in addition to majoring in physics.
Chloe is a White third year student. Esme is a Latina second year student.
Francis is a White third year student who is majoring in math in addition to
physics. Karina is a White fourth year student who is majoring in English in
addition to physics. Paulina 111We note that Esme and Paulina have different
college experiences in regard to the aspects of their identities that have
negatively impacted them and one reason for this could be the differences in
their visual characteristics, i.e., only Paulina visually appears to be non-
White. is a Latina third year student. Ruby is a White second year student.
All of these women were brought up in the US, except Francis who grew up in
the UK and came to the US to study at this college.

##  III Findings and Discussion

###  III.1 Pathway to Majoring in Physics

In this section, we discuss the experiences that influenced these women’s
decision to major in physics in college, e.g., family’s role, and positive
high school experiences, while also discussing their negative high school
experiences.

####  III.1.1 Family’s role in providing support

All of the women described several ways in which their family provided support
to them, e.g., providing general support, academic support, and exposure to
science at an early age. These positive experiences with family as described
below were very important in putting these women on the path to majoring in
physics and potentially creating a science identity.

Family providing academic support: Many women described how having family
members who are physicists, who majored in physics, or had STEM degrees, which
required taking physics courses, have been able to provide academic support in
their physics journey through having first hand experiences with related
disciplines themselves.

Cathy describes how her sister, who is doing her Ph.D. in physics, helped her
learn physics and provided encouragement to major in physics: “I kind of like
learned a lot about it from her and she encouraged me to go into it…I think
that she made it a lot easier for me to go into it…she had a lot of good
advice and…just kind of made the whole thing like pretty accessible.” Having
someone directly in the field was very beneficial to Cathy, making physics
‘easier’ to get into and ‘pretty accessible’ to consider as a college major.
Receiving advice from an insider, someone who already went through the
process, may have been especially beneficial as that advice may have been
specific to physics because even within different STEM disciplines, the
established norms and cultures can be different..

Similarly, Francis explains how one of her older sisters who majored in
engineering has provided academic support: “whenever I had issues with like
homework and wanted help, I would always…go to her and she would help me out
which I guess probably helped a lot just knowing that I had someone who could
help…” Again, having family who can help with homework is very beneficial,
especially when her older sister already took physics classes and hence was
familiar with the material.

Chloe also describes how her parents being physicists have influenced her
decision to major in physics: “I’ve been interested in physics, most of my
life, probably because both of my parents studied physics and are physicists
and all their family friends are also physicists. I’ve always been surrounded
by it, so I think I almost had an advantage in that way, in which seeing
actual physicists and particularly female physicists-it had a big influence on
me and I’ve always kind of wanted to pursue physics, particularly astronomy…”
Being surrounded by physicists was beneficial to her, e.g., not only is her
self-efficacy likely to get a boost particularly because her mother is a
physicist but close family ties with physics possibly introduced her to
various topics in physics and astronomy early on and provided insights as to
what a career in physics may look like. In particular, seeing female
physicists may have been especially beneficial in that Chloe was seeing people
with a shared gender identity pursuing and being successful in a field that
she had interest in.

Karina also explains how her parents provided academic support because they
are electrical engineers: “…I enjoyed physics in high school, but I also had
parents who understood it, so if I was confused about something, you know, it
was similar to a lot of work they were doing as electrical engineers, so I
could go home [and] ask my parents, Oh I don’t understand how this works, and
I think kind of like having that support and getting the early on
understanding definitely helped me enjoy physics and feel like I yeah could
get it.” We see that having family members who are familiar with physics as
they had taken physics courses, can be especially helpful and encouraging to
women like Karina.

Ruby has an uncle who is a physicist. She explains that during a previous
semester, her uncle provided support by recommending books: “last semester,
when I was taking modern physics I would talk to him about it and he like
recommended this book on matrices and commuting principles and I-it was a
little out of my understanding, but it was still really interesting.” Although
the books that Ruby’s uncle gave her were advanced, having someone like her
uncle who supports her learning and interests can foster interests that could
firm up the decision to majoring in physics.

Family providing exposure to science: A few women, such as Esme, Paulina, and
Ruby, have family members who exposed them to science broadly either through
their career or through experiences not related to school.

Esme describes how her dad instilled the importance of education into her: “He
works in construction and…since he was born in Mexico, he couldn’t get an
education here in the US, so he kind of always projected education is
important. It was the number one thing I had to focus on and he was always
into engineering and all that stuff and because we were so close, that’s how I
got into physics. I’ve always been into astronomy. So he had always…encouraged
me to go into whatever I liked and I’ve always been very STEM oriented because
of him.” Thus, Esme’s dad encouraged her academic endeavours and his interest
in engineering influenced her own interest in physics.

Esme also explains that when she was young, her dad would take her to work and
expose her to the technical aspects of his job: “he kind of would always
explain how cars work or because he would work in construction…sometimes, he
would take me when he wouldn’t do the dangerous things and he would just
explain what he was doing…I remember this one thing-we went to the library and
we just got a book on the history of math and we just looked at the photos
because I was very young and he would just explain to me all the…optical
illusions and stuff like that…” These are key experiences for Esme as her dad
was both encouraging and introducing her to STEM related topics, e.g., those
that were related to his job or exposing her to other science and math topics,
e.g., optical illusions. We also see the effort by her dad to engage Esme in
STEM experiences in a supportive manner.

Paulina shares that her family having careers in STEM exposed her to science:
“I was always interested in STEM because a lot of people in my life were
either doctors and so they did STEM for a living…[or] my father and my
grandpa, for example, they were both chemical engineers, so I’d always been
like surrounded by STEM…most of it had been from a very young age.” This early
exposure may have fostered Paulina’s interest in science. She directly credits
her interest in STEM to having family members in STEM. In addition, she feels
very good about the fact that she was “surrounded by STEM” so these various
exposures appear to have instilled interest in STEM disciplines.

Paulina also shares how her grandmother taught her different aspects of the
human body and medicine and interacting with doctors provided additional
exposure to medicine: “whenever I was spending time with [my grandmother]…she
would either give me small little pointers or small literally tidbits of
medical facts…and be like, Hey, what is the femur? What is the function of it
in the body? and simple stuff like that to the point where I became more
engaged with medicine, at least, and I would also use that a lot to interact
with doctors…and so I would use information my grandmother would tell me, her
little facts and then eventually I was able to communicate with doctors a lot
and whatever kind of information they told us about a diagnosis. I would also
retain that because, again, I was one of the only people [in] my family that
was able to speak English and Spanish, and so I was often in charge of
communicating to my family members and doctors. So whatever information I got
to hear about medicine in Spanish, I would translate that and then I would
also get some other information from doctors. And so that happened very
frequently in my life, and that was how I became really, really immersed in
STEM.” Her interview suggests that this constant exposure may have provided a
sense of identity in science as Paulina was able to serve as a translator
between her family and doctors. She further explains that this exposure to
scientific information was repeated throughout her childhood like a cycle. It
appears from her interview, that this continuous exposure to science may have
been useful in creating her science identity.

Paulina also recalls times with her grandfather in which he would explain the
machinery he used and taught her about chemistry: “he kind of showed me around
the site where he was working and he told me the basic functions of a lot of
the machinery that he was using and most of his work involved chemistry, so I
was often listening to chemical composition of a lot of materials so it wasn’t
necessarily physics, but I was always engaged with all these different aspects
of STEM all around me. And I think he kind of just stuck with me as I grew up
and I just realized that I really wanted to keep learning about it because
it’s something that [I] had been so familiar with for a long time.” These
different exposures to science made her want to continue learning and possibly
continue pursuing science beyond high school.

Ruby explains that although many of her family members are not scientists, her
grandfather provided exposure to science: “So actually my parents are both not
scientists and I have three brothers who are also not in science as well, but
my grandpa was very into science and at a young age, he would always do these
math puzzles with me and I just found [it] really interesting because it was
like, you have a step by step approach of how to get to a solution.” In this
early recollection, she describes how doing math puzzles introduced her to
problem solving. Additionally, she elaborates: “but he would give me numbers
and then there was an equation that I had to get to using the numbers that he
would give me and he would have some hints for how to get there, but then the
rest I would have to figure out on my own and then use those steps that he
gave and add on to them to get to the final product.” She summarizes that
having her uncle as a physicist and her grandpa who was into science was
helpful: “So I think having those two people in my life, who were very active
in sciences and in a way, having my parents, not being in science kind of made
me realize I want it for me, not for any other reason.” Thus, for Ruby, having
family members who were both into science and not in science seemed beneficial
as she had several perspectives and several family members who helped her get
into physics as a college major.

We see the role family has had in supporting these women majoring in physics
at this liberal arts college. Not only did family provide academic support, if
they had careers in STEM, but also provided opportunities for these women to
interact and learn science in contexts that were applicable to their jobs or
pursued scientific activities for fun, e.g., Ruby’s puzzles with her
grandfather.

####  III.1.2 Positive high school experiences

Many if not all of these women took a physics class during high school. We
recount their positive experiences in their high school physics class.
Positive experiences include perceptions of and/or interactions with their
teachers.

Cathy explains that the high school she attended was a ‘pretty liberal school’
and that she liked her high school teachers: “I was pretty lucky because
everything was pretty gender balanced and they really encouraged women to
pursue STEM. It was definitely one of their focuses.” It seems like Cathy’s
teachers were generally supportive and encouraging. When asked if she
experienced any gender bias, she says, “I didn’t feel that in high school, but
I’ve definitely felt that in college.” In comparison to her college
experiences, which we will discuss in a later section, her high school
experiences were generally positive.

Esme attended a public school and shares that she was part of a NASA program
during her junior year. “I got to go to NASA for a week, all expense paid trip
and I would be there and…we did like a mock Mars mission and I got to work
with actual engineers and they would give us lectures and give us tours around
NASA, it was very great opportunity…” This positive experience may have
solidified her interest in physics and astronomy. It allowed her to
participate in astronomy by working with NASA engineers and learning about
astronomy.

Francis attended an all girls high school in the UK. She summarizes, “because
it was just all girls…I didn’t feel out of place and I guess that helped, yeah
I guess I’ve always had quite nice physics teachers.” She explains that when
it came to college applications, her physics teachers were, “always very
willing to help with applications and interviews and that kind of thing,
because in the UK, when you apply, you apply [for] one degree…some places,
will have interviews and they’ll ask you questions about that, so I remember,
I did a [mock] interview with one of my physics teachers…and they would ask
physics questions and solve it and talk through how I solved it and they would
definitely [be] very helpful with that.” Thus, Francis’ physics teachers
played a very important role in helping her prepare for college, in addition
to encouraging her and other students to apply for college.

Paulina recalls her interest in physics and taking several classes during high
school. Through this class she was able to have a lot of hands-on experience
in labs and was able to have one-on-one conversations with her teacher: “I
became really interested in the class and I would stay after [to] chat with
him, ask questions, help other students and I think at that point, I just kind
of viewed it as a hobby of mine. I didn’t really expand on it too much and so
after that I proceeded to take AP physics C… electromagnetism and mechanics
and that was also very interesting to me, I think it was one of the first
experiences that I had where I felt truly challenged in a class, but also in a
very positive way, I felt I was getting something out of the education I was
receiving and it was very interesting, especially because I could visually see
the ways in which physics and I interacted a lot in my everyday life. And that
was what really first got me into physics.” It is possible that having these
one-on-one conversations with her high school teacher was beneficial and
helped her see physics as an interesting field to pursue, and potentially a
field in which she can have a career instead of pursuing it only as a hobby.
These conversations may have also encouraged her to continue challenging
herself, such as by taking the AP Physics exam. Her perception of physics
throughout the interview was very positive and she found connections between
physics she learned in class and physics she interacted with in everyday life.

Chloe attended a private school which she says was known for being a
“competitive college prep school where there are many students who had been
like training in math Olympiads and science competitions their whole lives.”
She had overall mixed experiences during high school, but in this section we
will comment on her positive experiences. Despite the negative competitive
culture, she says, “…it was inspiring to be around people who were so driven
academically, so I think I grew academically always [like] I wouldn’t have if
I hadn’t been surrounded by these people who are just really focused on
getting into college.” The fact that students at her high school were driven
and focused on college education encouraged her to also focus on her academic
trajectory.

In regard to her experiences in her high school physics classes, Chloe said
that in her AP physics class, women made up half of the class and that, “…all
these girls were like top of our class, really wanted to go into STEM, so I
had a positive experience with that because they’re also the people I was
friends with. So it was nice being in a class where I had friends there and
then they’re all very driven.” Being surrounded by other women who also wanted
to pursue STEM created a positive culture/environment for Chloe. It also
helped that she was also friends with these peers.

Karina also attended a private high school and had mixed experiences. Her
positive experiences were mainly in regard to her high school teachers. When
asked about potential gendered experiences in high school, she says, “Both
teachers were male, but they were very supportive, and I don’t think I ever
felt treated unfairly because of my gender…I always felt they treated me like
I was smart and capable and deserved to be there…I can definitely remember for
that advanced physics class my senior year, there was a big gender disbalance,
and I think even if people are treating you fairly, if you feel like one in
the minority, it does affect your experience.’ Despite there being more men
than women in her high school physics class in her senior year, Karina still
felt supported by her teachers. She also adds an important fact that having an
underrepresented identity can affect a student’s experience even if others are
treating them “fairly”.

Ruby also had mixed high school experiences. She says she liked her high
school teachers and notes that she had positive experiences in her math
classes. Specifically, she describes her high school physics teacher: “In
terms of asking him for help, or questions, I did find that he was very
approachable and he wasn’t condescending or more condescending towards a girl
[than] he would be towards a guy, which was really nice, and I think I never
felt that because of my gender, this is not a field I can go into in high
school so that was really, I was fortunate to have that experience.” Thus,
Ruby’s high school experiences were such that she was able to talk to her
teacher without any gender bias in the interactions and never felt discouraged
to go into physics.

####  III.1.3 Negative experiences in high school

Four out of the 7 women described negative experiences during high school.
Negative experiences include perceptions of and/or explicitly negative
interactions with their peers and teachers.

When asked about her high school experiences, Chloe says: “I think the
competitive culture was quite toxic I’d say.” In regard to when students
applied to college, she recalls, “I remember when the early decisions came
out, it became universally banned to talk about where you had gotten in
because there is so much competition amongst students and so many people would
feel bad [but] everybody knew where everybody had gotten in because it was the
only topic of gossip our senior year.” It seems like students in Chloe’s
senior class were fixated on their college status and students did not
communicate with each other positively due to tensions related to college
admissions. Chloe, who described herself as an introvert, also recalls
negative experiences in her math class, in which, “sometimes people would talk
and when I would talk nobody would hear me, but when some of the quiet boys
would talk, everybody would listen to them.” She reflects upon and explains
that her being ignored might be a result of students stereotyping her, e.g.,
male students assuming that she does not have anything substantial to
contribute to conversations.

Karina feels guilty about going to a private high school, she says: “If I
think morally about private school education, I don’t believe in it, so I felt
guilty about having that opportunity. And it was a pretty wealthy school.”
Having access to better educational resources was a point of guilt and
contention that she points out several times in her interview. She also shares
that the culture of her high school was discouraging: “I got kind of
discouraged by it. It was kind of like a college prep type environment, where
the sort of expectation was to go to an Ivy league school or that’s a failure
and to have like-I felt like everyone around me was thinking a lot about GPA
and not really caring about the learning so I got a little discouraged…”.
Thus, in Karina’s high school, the culture fostered high expectations for
students to earn good grades to attend top universities as opposed to
encouraging them to focus on learning, which made her feel discouraged.

Esme talks about her physics teacher and how she did not like the priorities
he had for students: “I really didn’t like my physics class… [My physics
teacher] really didn’t do a good job…We would just work on one problem, and he
would just kind of vaguely explain the physics of it, but we mostly worked on
trying to pass the AP [exam] rather than understand the concepts of physics.
So, I didn’t really like that class. It almost made me really quit physics,
because…I didn’t want to do just problems and not understand.” Esme did not
feel like she was learning physics, but rather working to pass the AP exam.
Since the focus of the physics class was not to understand concepts, she did
not like it and if it was not for a very positive NASA experience, she may not
have chosen a physics and astronomy major in college. She also mentions that
her high school teacher called out only a few students who he thought would be
the only ones to pass the AP exam if they try hard enough (implying that
others were not capable).

When reflecting on how being a woman affected her interactions with her high
school teacher, she says: “but in terms of being a woman, my teacher was very
strange, he… had a weird relationship with the girls in my class.” She
clarifies that “he would always compliment them and…just be kind of
unprofessional, like not professional, at one point I remember he made a
Tinder [account] and he wanted help so some of the girls in my class were
helping him.” For reference, Tinder is an online dating app. Esme also noted
that his inappropriate behavior with female students made the environment
weird and uncomfortable.

Her interview also points to the fact that Esme had negative interactions with
her male peers: “They knew they also wanted to go into engineering and physics
and they were always about the money and always like, Yeah, I got this, like
they were very arrogant and yet they would kind of…mooch off of my work. They
always tried to take my work…If we had partners, I usually did my portion [of]
work, and I would try to make them do it, but sometimes they wouldn’t and it
would affect my grade so I would have to do everything.” Thus, we see that
Esme’s high school male peers took advantage of her work and sometimes
channelled it as their own or they would not contribute and leave her to do
things on her own. This account corresponds to findings in another study where
male students dominated group work [46].

When asked why Esme found it difficult to communicate with her male peers, she
says: “It really seemed like they didn’t respect me. I always thought maybe it
was just my personality…Personally, I’m very flexible…I usually put up with
things, but I have a limit and they would reach that limit many times.”
Despite the fact that she describes herself as having a reasonable amount of
tolerance for her male peers’ behavior, she thinks that her personality might
be the reason why the interactions with them often led to friction. This is
important to note as it may be a reflection of the masculine STEM culture and
how it can make women think that they are the problem when it comes to
negative gender dynamics and interactions with male peers. She also noted that
she made it a point to avoid her male peers. When asked about the gender
distribution of her peers in her high school classes, she says that “there
were a little more men than women but I honestly can’t say how many more
because… I really would try to not interact with them unless they were someone
I knew.” This avoidance might have been stressful but it may have been a
survival mechanism in that the avoidance may prevent her from experiencing any
biases or microaggressions from her peers first hand.

Ruby describes her high school physics experiences as: “I liked high school
physics, a lot. I did well in it, but I never felt like it was something that
I could go into honestly before college. [At] my high school, no one ever
talks about becoming a physics major and no one ever even tells you that
that’s necessarily an option, and until I got to college, I really didn’t
think that that was something I was even capable of if that makes sense.”
Although she liked her physics class and her high school teachers, she never
felt encouraged to pursue physics as a college degree. Not having teachers
encourage students to pursue physics could be extremely discouraging
especially for students from traditionally marginalized groups. The lack of
encouragement could also be interpreted as teachers not thinking students are
capable of succeeding in a physics major, which may have contributed to Ruby
feeling this way.

When recalling her high school physics teacher, Ruby says: “I definitely
noticed that in high school, my teacher would always-even if my hand was up or
if another girl’s hand is-that he would always call on the male students
before the female students.” Recollecting that her high school teacher showed
gender bias, she further says, “I do think there was still this bias on his
side of thinking, Oh, the guys are able to do this more than the girls. Well,
oh, the girls will need your [more] help with laboratory experiments than
their male counterparts. And there definitely was that tone under the setting.
But it wasn’t obviously apparent.” Ruby seemed to catch on to these biases
which implicitly reflected that women may not be as good as men in physics or
at physics lab. Despite the possibility that these biases may have had lasting
experience on her, Ruby says, “I sort of just brushed it off because I didn’t
want that [high school teacher’s gender bias] to get in the way of me doing
something that I liked.” It is great that she didn’t let a teacher’s biased
comments affect her self-efficacy and prevent her from pursuing physics but it
could have affected other women in her class.

In terms of interacting with her peers, Ruby says: “even my guy friends and my
brother’s friends would talk down to me when I had a question about math or
physics and would definitely treat me like I was stupid or didn’t know what I
was doing without having any reason that we knew of for them to think that,
and so I definitely felt scared to ask for help a lot of the time.” Thus, it
appears that Ruby may have faced some sort of biases from her male peers or
her brother’s friends but she persisted. She also explains that in addition to
these negative interactions, her high school culture was competitive, “It was
a lot more of a competitive environment, at least, where I went to high school
and, if you would go to someone for help, specifically if I would go to a guy
friend for help, they would talk down to me while explaining the information.
Well if I went to a girlfriend for help, they would be much more supportive
and not at all condescending when helping with the information.” In
combination with these poor interactions with male peers, a competitive
culture may have contributed to her initially being afraid to major in physics
during college.

###  III.2 Interactions with college peers

In this section, we describe the experiences these women had with their peers
in college physics courses. These experiences include positive and negative
interactions and perceptions.

####  III.2.1 Positive interactions and perceptions

Only a few women described any positive interactions with and positive
perceptions of their male peers. One possible reason why there were not that
many women who mentioned positive experiences with their peers may be due to
the fact that there were many more negative interactions that stood out to
them.

Chloe explicitly says that her interactions with her peers have been good and
that she does not think that her gender excludes her in spaces: “I’ve never
really felt excluded because of my gender and that I’ve always been in classes
with other girls and-but I will say I have made groups for all my study groups
and people I really talk to are other girls and that has been the most
comfortable for me.” It may be that Chloe has surrounded herself with
supportive people, specifically women who tend to be more approachable, thus
avoiding any negative interactions and experiences with male peers. For
instance, her study groups consist of other women.

Ruby is the only one who explicitly mentions that men and women work together
well. In particular, she mentions not worrying about asking male peers for
help and how she perceives her interactions with them to be positive: “I think
[my college] has a very good environment in terms of men and women working
together and collaborating. I have, I really haven’t felt that fear of asking
a guy for help versus asking a girl for help here as much as in high school.”
Despite these positive reflections, we note that she is speaking about her
college experiences relative to her high school interactions. In the next
section, we will discuss negative experiences Ruby had in college with male
peers.

####  III.2.2 Negative interactions and perceptions

All of the women recalled negative experiences with their male peers during
college. At the end of this section, we include Paulina’s experiences as
separate from the others, but still under this theme. The reason for doing so
is that her experiences are different due to her specifically pointing to both
her race and gender as being aspects of her identity that led to her negative
experiences with both male and female students.

Cathy did not provide many experiences about her peers in physics but
describes that she has had many negative experiences with peers in her
computer science courses. She says: “I think part of the problem is that, in
the computer science classes, a lot of people come in with a lot of experience
because there’s so many side projects you can do on your own and learn stuff
on your own, so, and everybody has to take the intro classes you can’t leave-
place out, so I went into my first intro class, not knowing any computer
science and there were people [who] would just do the lab in 10 seconds and
then leave because they’ve been doing it for years and they just had to fill
the requirement. So I think that made it a little more intimidating because
you would ask someone for help, but they’d be already out the door and they
didn’t really have time to slow down”. According to Cathy, peers in her
computer science courses are intimidating to approach to ask for help since it
seems like they have a lot of background in computer programming which is very
relevant in the courses. Without any actions from the instructor to put
students in groups in which they can learn from each other on projects, the
structure of these courses did not support peer collaboration, which made it
more difficult to connect with other students.

Chloe shares an experience in which she had an exam and following the exam,
she heard some students talk negatively about it: “a bunch of students were in
the hallway and then they’re all…talking about how they didn’t like the exam
and they didn’t like the format of the exam and that how…they just didn’t like
it, and it was kind of, I felt bad vibes from the conversation, and most of
them were boys.” Chloe’s bad vibes about male students complaining about the
exam reflects how bad she felt about them not respecting the type of exam the
instructor had given and their excessive complaining did not create a
welcoming environment for Chloe in which she would feel comfortable
communicating with them. This may also illustrate how men may be more critical
of assessments including their format, especially if it was given by a female
instructor.

In regard to working in groups, Chloe says that she does not feel as
comfortable working with men as she does working with women: “I just always
felt a little more uncomfortable [with male peers] and I’m not sure how much
of that well, I guess it’s all just an inherent thing that’s still part of our
culture… I know that’s a difficult problem to solve.” According to Chloe, she
mostly interacts with female peers within study groups and feels comfortable
doing so. When it comes to working with male peers, she says, “I’d only really
feel comfortable working with the boys if I’m already friends with them
outside of the classroom, like they’re one of my closer friends.” It seems
like for men, there’s a higher threshold to overcome in order for them to be
deemed comfortable enough for Chloe to work with them.

Chloe also shares that although her physics department is not overly dominated
by men, “it’s all like males at the top.” She adds: “I feel like as a woman, I
have to prove myself for people to look at me and go, Oh, you’re smart and
dedicated and you like science, I have to prove that first. It’s not
implicitly assumed and nobody assumes that when they first meet me. Well, I
think, for many men in my classes, it’s the opposite where it’s like you
initially assume that this person is really smart and gets really good grades
just because they’re male in science.” Thus, Chloe points to a pervasive
gender stereotype in physics that for men, everyone assumes that they are
smart and will do well in physics (or other STEM disciplines). On the other
hand, for women, this is not assumed and she has to always prove this to
people first.

When asked about who is part of her study group, Francis explains that she
mostly works on homework with female students because of the negative
experiences she’s had with male peers: “I would generally choose a woman just
because…I remember that last semester we would, in one of my physics classes,
if me and my partner had different answers, it kind of felt like he’d
automatically assume that he was right, which wasn’t always the case, and to
me that just felt like a very male thing to [do]- So I guess I do generally
would select to study with a woman.” Thus, having negative experiences with
men in her study groups has affected whom she currently chooses to work with.
She also attributes this behavior of automatically assuming they have the
correct answer as a “very male thing to do”, which hints to a masculine
physics culture.

She also says that men have more confidence in answering questions and their
confidence takes up space in the classroom: “it felt like there was a lot more
men in the class…than [there actually] are…most of the speaking seem to be
coming from them and I guess, they just felt more confident answering
questions whereas I think, for me, I wouldn’t answer a question unless I know
for sure that I’m right, but they’re happy just to have a go with something
that they think could be right.” This correlates with prior research in which
men in physics courses are more confident in answering questions [23, 36].
When asked if she thinks that these students could be showing off, she says,
“I definitely do get that idea from some people. I remember one guy who would
just, he would ask questions that kind of felt like he knew the answers [to].
He just wanted to show that he was thinking about this one specific thing.”
This type of report of male students showing off reflects the physics culture
in which men feel comfortable doing so. Regardless of whether this was
intentional or not, women tend to perceive this behavior as intimidating or
these types of behaviors can reduce their sense of belonging.

Karina shares that she has a different approach to learning, she takes longer
to learn the material. She also explains how this negatively affects her
interactions with her male peers: “I need to think about things for a little
bit to get a really good understanding of them and that’s how I work, so I
think probably in labs I sometimes felt like the group was moving on or they
had done the thing and I didn’t want to speak up…maybe just because of pride
or something. Also, I didn’t want to be like oh, hold on, I don’t understand
what’s going on here, can I try this, can I do this, and I’m not sure how much
of that has to do with gender versus, you know, just the type of learner I am
and the way I work.” Thus, while on the one hand, Karina seems to be
contemplating as to whether her gender was a reason for these negative
interactions and the fact that she did not feel comfortable speaking up about
letting her try certain things and slowing down, she also puts the onus on
herself and contemplates whether it is her learning style that is making it
difficult for her to collaborate with her male peers in the physics labs and
giving her inadequate opportunities to delve deeper into the concepts and be
on the same page with them.

When asked about what the vibes were like in the classroom and if there was a
dominant group, Karina reflects: “more participation, more dominant, men are,
they’re…sort of like blocking out the space to ask more basic questions to
understand the material at the most basic level.” She further provides a
similar insight as Francis did: “I think there’re some spaces, where I don’t
know if this is a gender thing, but there would be men asking like questions
that perhaps are built to make himself seem really smart and so it’s
suffocating this space to ask sort of more basic level questions for other
people.” Again, Karina adds to Francis’s point of men often showing off and
wanting to be perceived as smart by asking certain type of questions, by
saying that they are “suffocating the space” for other people to ask more
basic questions. From her phrasing, we interpreted these types of behaviors to
be very negative experiences. These behaviors also alienate and make other
students anxious by creating overly high expectations for types of questions
that can be asked or knowledge that can be brought to the table during a
physics class.

Although Ruby shared previously that she perceives the collaborative
environment to be positive, she also shares that her interactions with her
male peers are varied: “A lot of the guys in my class are so helpful and so
willing to help and don’t approach things in condescending manner at all, but
then there are others who act like know it all…I don’t know if they do it
because I’m a woman, but sometimes it feels like that, where they’re like
mansplaining so often in and outside the classroom, there is definitely a
culture of mansplaining.” For example, she recalls an experience working with
a male peer lab partner via Zoom. She says that her partner was extremely
condescending and, “I don’t know if it was because I was girl, I think he just
thought he was smarter than everyone else in the room at all times and always
had to be the one to answer the question first, always had to be the one to
know it…I ended up switching my partners actually because I just could not
deal with that.”

While on Zoom, she says that her partner would dominate breakout room
conversations and assignments, leaving her and her other female partner
behind: “He would always just solve it himself and then present the answer,
without even giving us a chance to try and that really bothered me because it
made me feel like…he thinks oh, because he knows it, that all of us cannot be
smart enough to even try…and it made me feel like I was being talked down to
from him, thinking that I was less smart than he was.” The fact that this
happened over Zoom may have made this situation especially difficult to be in.
Ruby also adds that her partner would not collaborate on the written report
and would write it himself. She says, “he would act like I didn’t know
anything that I was doing, when I was fully capable of doing it myself and
that really made me feel…angry about it because… I love collaboration, I think
it’s so important, and I really liked when I’m able to work with somebody,
we’re able to combine our own knowledge and figure out new stuff, and with
him, I felt that I was limiting my own knowledge, because I wasn’t getting
access to even try. And I felt he was mansplaining things all the freaking
time. I really did not like it.”

When asked if she thought that this behavior was specifically towards women,
Ruby says, “100% yes.” Again, she explains that she thought that the student
thought that he was smarter than others, “but he also believed that he was
helping in a way. He thought that, Oh, these women can’t do it themselves,
I’ll help them, I’ll do it for them, which is so not how real life works and
that’s not how we should handle the situation at all. But in my mind at least,
I believe that’s why he did, that I think he thought of women in a sense, that
they were less capable and more vulnerable than men, and so he wanted to be
this savior.” Thus, in her experience, this male peer thought that he was
helping women by answering for them and doing all the work, when in reality,
it had the opposite effect.

Cathy recalls her physics REU experiences at large research universities, some
of them being very negative. In one of her REUs, she was the only woman in a
group of nine students and she was not familiar with the research topic. As a
result, she felt excluded: “I couldn’t really ask questions or anything
because everybody else knew so much more than me and they kind of talked down
to me, sometimes it was just really overwhelming and intimidating and it
definitely harmed my confidence a lot, because since I didn’t feel like I
could ask questions, I really didn’t understand what was going on, and I got
super behind, which made it so it was harder to ask questions, it’s just kind
of the cycle and I don’t really feel like I learned anything in the end
because I was just so overwhelmed the whole time.” Without any support from
REU mentors, the fact that the other male students gave her the impression
that they were more knowledgeable than her and they talked down to her made
her intimidated to ask questions, potentially making her not benefit from the
entire REU experience when a supporting environment would have made it very
beneficial.

####  III.2.3 Paulina as an island among her college peers

Chloe recalls during high school when her history teacher made an observation
about the physical distribution and clustering of students in the classroom:
“We made a very big point in class about the us versus them…ideologies and
they pointed out how in our classroom, every single table was separated by
gender and race…and that we all gravitated towards people who were similar,
who looked similar to us and that it was so clear…the seating arrangements in
the classroom…” This excerpt is also relevant because Paulina emphasized that
she was particularly excluded in her classes due to the intersection of both
her gender and race as described below.

In this section, we present Paulina’s negative experiences with her college
peers. The reason for separating her experiences with peers is two-fold. One
reason is that she repeatedly expressed how both her gender and race affected
her interactions with peers. Secondly, she expressed how isolating these
experiences were, so much so that they resulted in her becoming an island and
not interacting with anyone because of these negative experiences. We also
note that Paulina shared the most negative experiences compared to the rest of
the women.

Being perceived negatively by peers: Paulina is very aware of how the
intersection of her marginalized identities (i.e., gender and race) impacts
her in the physics learning environments and how she may be perceived by her
peers. In the interviews, other women shared stories about how their identity
as women affect how male peers perceive them or interact with them. However,
Paulina explicitly described how her multiple marginalized identities of being
a woman of color interact and make her negative interactions with her college
peers at a predominantly White institution (PWI) more complex in nature.

She says that being a woman of color is complicated because, “whenever I think
about asking someone for help…it’s like well, people perceive me as being
different in the classroom because I’m a person of color and also because I’m
a woman. So, there’s these two factors that they can visually see when I
approach them and I always feel like that’s…the first thing they see and it’s
how they assess my value or what I can contribute to the classroom.” As one of
the few people of color in her program, we note that this may be extremely
difficult to navigate as she constantly thinks about how others are perceiving
her. She also says that students simultaneously are judging her and assessing
her intellect and the value of interacting with her and what she will bring to
collaboration of physics problem solving. Similar issues have been documented
in previous studies involving interviews with six physics graduate students
who were Black women [21].

Paulina explains that she even feels judged amongst other women in her course,
“even amongst a group of other women, there’s also been this expectation that
I am just not up to par with them, because [of] my racial background and so I
feel there’s some intersections in terms of my experiences in STEM with
women…I definitely know that beyond the realm of just gender, race also plays
a really big role in it.” In Paulina’s experience, she doesn’t necessarily
find solidarity amongst other White women either because she is a woman of
color. Since her university is both small and a PWI, finding support and
solidarity in other students who look like her can be extremely difficult.

She adds that whether she interacts with students inside or outside of the
classroom: “there is more of a willingness to either poke fun or underestimate
me because of the intersectionality of my gender and race.” She believes that
the interaction between her multiple marginalized identities in physics has
led to her negative interactions with her peers. We also theorize that her
comment about the other students “poking fun” of her because of an
intersection of marginalized identities may be due to students stereotyping
her. These marginalized identities have resulted in Paulina feeling like an
island among her peers and she interprets the negative interactions with them
as at least partly due to them feeling that she does not have much to
contribute in a collaborative learning environments due to her marginalized
identities.

Being ignored by peers: Much of Paulina’s experiences are centered around her
working alone on assignments because she is ignored by her peers during group
work. Below, we discuss how her intersecting marginalized identities
negatively impact her throughout and play a central role in her interactions
with peers. Paulina explains that her peers will not value or listen to her
contribution in groups: “A lot of my experiences in the classroom have been
where people, often peers, for example, will kind of look at me and if we have
to engage in sort of group work, there’s usually not a lot of listening
happening on their behalf. I think there’s this assumption that… because I am
a woman of color in STEM, I don’t necessarily have the same background or
knowledge as they [do], so a lot of the times I’ll bring [up] points and it’ll
just be ignored and that’s something that I’ve had to deal with a lot.” Here
we see that her peers are ignoring her, but she recognizes and adds that this
could be due to biases that they have about her physics background based on
her being a woman of color. Thus, stereotypes and biases impact how other
students perceive her, how she perceives her peers perceiving her, and
ultimately why other students in physics choose not to engage with her.

She reveals that this semester for the first time, she has been placed in a
group with students who she has worked with before in her class. These
students have similar physics backgrounds to Paulina and she feels that
although there seems to be some effort to meet and work through assignments,
it is difficult. She reflects upon working with these students outside of
class that she has interacted with in class earlier, “…it’s made me feel more
comfortable but usually it just ends up happening, where there’s a lot of
physics majors and those that are physics majors are like an established group
or they’re just not really open to working with new people outside of the
classroom, so it becomes difficult to set that up.” Her experiences reveal
that physics students form cliques with others with similar identities which
makes it difficult for her to work with them because she does not share their
identity. She says, “[t]hey either stick to doing things on their own, or like
they already have a background with other students in the class, so they’ll
just reach out to them, and if we happen to be in the same group, they’ll
usually just choose to staying engaged with the students they already know,
rather than work together as a group with me who they might not be as familiar
with.” Thus, according to Paulina, other students feel more comfortable with
others who share their identity and whom they know more personally or have
interacted with more. The fact that these students have all been placed in a
group with Paulina to work outside of the class and she is still feeling
excluded (both inside and outside of the classroom) is very concerning. This
formation of a clique makes it difficult for Paulina to meaningfully
collaborate with other peers (including other women) as they choose to talk to
other students in other groups who they do know and have similar identities
(e.g., gender and race), as opposed to her, who is placed in their group.

Working alone: Because Paulina is so isolated and feels negatively perceived
due to her multiple marginalized identities, she usually resorts to working on
her own, which also takes up mental energy and extra resources, e.g., time.

Paulina explains that although some of her classes incorporate group work,
there is no effort to communicate or work on problems outside of class. Even
for the case mentioned earlier in which she has been placed in a group for
studying outside the class, she feels that it does not work effectively, and
she is left to work on her own. She says, “Usually what ends up happening is
that we don’t really communicate with each other through the group messaging,
for example, and so it ends up being a situation where no one, or at least I’m
aware of, no one is reaching out to each other to talk and work things out
together so by default I just feel like I have to end up doing things on my
own.” Thus, even when she has been placed in a group to work outside of class,
her own group does not communicate about when they should get together to
study or do homework, so she resorts to working alone. It is unclear whether
students who have been placed in Paulina’s group are meeting with other
students with similar identity outside of the class to study and do homework.
In particular, she is not aware of what is happening since nothing happens
through the messaging system they were supposed to communicate through when
they were placed in the same group for out of class study. Whether this lack
of communication is directed towards Paulina because of her identity or caused
by other reasons such as none of the students in the group she has been placed
meeting regularly, it is interpreted as lack of community by her. Thus, she is
unable to lean on her peers as resources and collaborators, and can only rely
on herself.

Inside the classroom, when she is ignored by her peers, she feels like she
cannot rely on her group mates either and says, “I felt like I could only
directly reach out to the professor to ask questions or I was expected to
learn things on my own and if I didn’t verify [that my problem solving process
was correct with the professor] it reflected badly on my own personal
knowledge and understanding of the subject. And it’s still something that I’m
trying to grapple with, but a lot of my experiences usually have to do with
people underestimating me or feeling like I don’t have enough like a solid
background in physics, and so it causes me to feel like I have to continuously
overachieve and prove that I am just as knowledgeable as everyone else in the
space.” Thus, Paulina describes that in her case, she has to self-study,
rather than work in a group to learn the material or work on problems
together. She also adds that she has to understand the material well even
though she is not able to collaborate with her peers. She also feels that if
she does not “verify” with the instructor that she has learned the material
well and solved the associated problems using the correct approach, then it
makes her look bad. The fact that she feels that she has to overachieve and
prove that she is knowledgeable like her peers is an additional burden on her
because she does not want to confirm any stereotype others may have related to
her identity [61].

Because other students would not work with her even in class even though she
was in a group with them even when the structure of her classes utilized group
work, she could not complete in-class assignments during class like her peers
did. She says: “I would fall behind because I would basically be left to my
own devices to work out these problems and then, because I wouldn’t have the
time, the resources to ask questions like my peers, I would have to go back to
my room and work on it on my own where like my peers would be able to have a
conversation and just finish it in the classroom.” Not only does she have to
manage feelings of being excluded and negatively stereotyped by her peers, she
also has to spend extra time outside of class to finish her class assignments.
We can see how her multiple marginalized identities in physics can take up
emotional and mental space that could be used for learning physics and problem
solving. She has to use additional time and resources to complete her in-class
assignments due to the exclusion by peers and navigate her physics journey
alone.

Paulina was the only student to mention the weekly meeting of undergraduate
physics majors in the student lounge, which is a place designed with the
intention to establish a community culture. She says that these are informal
meetings where students can connect. However, if she misses a single meeting,
she feels completely left out: “if you end up not going to one of these
meetings one week, for example, it almost feels like you’ve fallen behind…you
lost so much time where when you do come back, everything feels different and
it feels-it’s difficult to kind of get back to a position where you feel
familiar enough with everyone’s engaging actively…it just feels like
everything is very fast pace and almost divided into different groups where,
if you don’t attend, then you’re immediately out of the loop.” This is
especially concerning due to how small the department is and how essential it
is to create a space for all students regardless of their multiple
marginalized identities to connect and feel safe. Paulina already feels
isolated due to her race and gender in her classes. Feeling excluded in
informal settings is concerning because they are supposed to be low-stakes and
more casual and could provide opportunity for her to bond with other students.

###  III.3 Interactions with college instructors

In this section, we describe the experiences these women had with their
college physics instructors. These experiences include Positive and Negative
interactions and perceptions.

####  III.3.1 Positive interactions and perceptions

Most of the women explicitly said that they have had good experiences with
their physics instructors. We note that Paulina was the only woman who did not
say this in her interview.

When asked about the gender dynamics in her courses, Esme brings up her
academic advisor, who she had positive experiences with: “I’m very comfortable
with her, because she’s my advisor here and I’ve had her as a professor many
times…she wants us to be comfortable with the people that we interact with. I
know we’re about to do a project and she’s trying to make sure not to put the
women in our class as the only woman in a group, I know she’s working on that
and I definitely am grateful for that, because I definitely would not want to
be in a group by myself as a woman with men…” She notes that at least her
advisor puts in effort to make sure students feel comfortable with peers that
they interact with. Also, this instructor is aware of not having a woman as
the only woman in a group [79], which Esme appreciates.

When asked about her overall college experience, Ruby says: “I think I’m very
fortunate to go to school at [my college] where the instructors really want
you to succeed and I felt so supported in physics, math, and honestly all of
my classes here.” She feels like her instructors are encouraging and
supporting her academically. This is a good sign that Ruby has positive
experiences with her instructors. However, this does not specifically mean
that she only has had good experiences with all instructors.

Both Ruby and Francis mention positive interactions with their instructors
during office hours. Ruby explains that she had difficulty grasping certain
concepts in her courses, such as air resistance, but her professors are very
helpful: “I went to my professor about it, and she was so so helpful…” In
Ruby’s experience, her professor normalized struggle and helped her realize
that not all students must understand a physics concept at the same rate. She
also says that she feels comfortable to ask professors questions during office
hours and that it is a welcoming environment. Francis explains that she
doesn’t attend office hours, unless she has a specific question. However, when
she has gone, she has had positive experiences. She says: “it was definitely
helpful. So it was after an exam I had a question [about] something I did
wrong, so I went and she helped me explain why it was wrong and then guided me
through the correct answer, I think it was definitely helpful.” It appears
that this particular professor provides good support during office hours and
did a good job at answering her questions whenever she went.

Francis also explains that one of her favorite class period was one that
focused on marginalized students’ identities in physics and their experiences
in physics. In this class, students read articles from marginalized people and
then they discussed them during class. The discussions focused on how physics
needs to change to become more inclusive: “I think, including something like
that, at some point in your undergraduate studies is definitely a good thing,
trying to make sure, everyone is aware and actively thinking about how you can
do better to make things more inclusive and I guess peers just acknowledging
that…people are coming from different backgrounds and not assuming that you
know more than someone before talking to them.” Francis praises this
instructor for incorporating such a discussion into a class and the value of
such discussions for all students.

Chloe says that overall, her experience in physics has been good and that the
physics community is “welcoming and positive.” She also adds that her
instructors “have really made attempts to make their classroom environments
better.” She recalls an example of one of her instructors trying to create an
inclusive learning environment by asking a student who was trained in such
things who, “comes into our class and takes notes on what the [instructor is]
doing and what the classic dynamic is and then also comes around and talks to
all the students individually and really asked us about everything, like how
the classroom environment is, and how we feel, and then they bring it up with
the professor.” It seems like this specific instructor cares about how their
students are interacting with each other and how they engage with their
students. This instructor had someone evaluate their classroom and then
provide feedback. This is very useful as it can help instructors understand
how students experience their physics classroom environment.

####  III.3.2 Negative interactions and perceptions

Here we share negative interactions with and perceptions of some of the
instructors that these women had. For some women, their negative perceptions
stem from lack of action or interventions during negative interactions with
peers. This, in particular, is a reflection of the lack of disciplinary action
(if male peers’ behavior is not appropriate) or shows lack of efforts in
general to create an equitable and inclusive learning environment by
instructors.

As part of the interview, when asked if her professors can do more to prevent
male students from negatively stereotyping women in physics, Chloe says: “I’m
not sure if they noticed it. I think the professors who tried to notice it do
[see biases], but if a professor isn’t really trying to actively improve
equity in the classroom then it’s easy to miss” To her, it is not apparent
that some of the instructors are aware of biases that male students have
towards women. According to Chloe, in order to notice these things,
instructors have to be, e.g., alert to male students dominating or showing off
or de-valuing women and actively improving their classroom environments. This
awareness is essential to instructors then making changes to improve the
learning environments.

Ruby says that while working with her lab partner who was condescending
towards her, one of her instructors intervened and one of them did not. She
says, for one class, “The instructor for my class actually did notice that the
student was being very difficult to work with and that he wasn’t collaborating
with the group, and she I think spoke to him about it.” Although this lecture
instructor addressed the student’s behavior, the lab instructor did not. She
explains: “But in the lab I don’t know why they didn’t notice, I think, a part
of it was, a lot of our experiments were done outside of the physical
classroom because, again with COVID, it was hard to sort of build those
relationships with professors, so I think that was a part of the reason, but I
also think another reason is when you’re submitting work on time and when
things are looking fine, a lot of professors don’t go out of their way to look
at the problems and a lot of professors, when necessary, will assume [things
are fine] or [don’t] want to have to deal with anything like that.” She also
offers an additional reason why the lab instructor did not address the
student: “because [my lab partner] knew the answers to a lot of things and…he
is smart, he’s just horrible to work with and because of that, it’s possible
that, that gave him the right, or in their minds, they gave them the right to
act how he was acting.” Thus, Ruby suggests that because her male peer
appeared smart, that may have justified his behavior to the professor. Thus,
Ruby reveals that instructors have a role in addressing students’ behaviors
and not being biased by whether the student appears to be smart because these
types of student behaviors are tied to the physics culture.

Paulina shares a few experiences when her professor singled her out and
assumed that she was falling behind when she was not: “I’ve had maybe one or
two experiences, where the instructor has kind of singled me out in the
classroom and asked me questions continuously trying to I guess make sure that
I’m keeping up with the class, even though there’s been no signs of me
struggling with the material.” It is possible that the professor is aware of
Paulina’s marginalized identity as a woman of color and overcompensated by
asking her questions in a way that she felt stereotyped. In Paulina’s view,
this came across as the professor underestimating her, as she also perceives
her peers to do. We note that it could be that this instructor had good
intentions. However, the physics culture was not equitable and inclusive so it
was not possible for Paulina to view the instructor’s intentions and actions
as positive, and she perceived this experience as the instructor singling her
out as opposed to checking-in on her.

When asked if she’s been in any situations where she had to stand up for
herself, Paulina shares experiences in which other students in her classes
stood up to the professor: “…someone else has stepped up and [was] like, Hey,
this feels like-I feel like I’m not being accurately listened to, or
represented in this atmosphere and what professors will do is that a lot of
them actually end up being surprised by students speaking up and by students
feeling this way, and so I guess after that, they have a conversation and the
next class time, for example, [professors will] try to make it known to
students Hey, we should be engaging with each other or trying to discretely
say…there should be more interactions with individuals that aren’t necessarily
White or that are women in STEM and so I think that’s been the extent [of]
things usually, when a student speaks up about it, I’ve seen temporary
discussions of it with professors and maybe in the classroom setting, but it
feels almost as if, a few weeks later, it kind of goes back to what it used to
be” According to Paulina, when put in these types of situations in which
students call out professors directly, although a professor may have
superficially tried to address the issues brought up by students, it is not
very impactful or long-lasting. We suspect that the physics culture is so
established that when a professor addresses an issue superficially and
passively, it does not have any long term effect on the culture since it was
not reinforced in any way and things go back to the way they were very soon.

###  III.4 Reflections on how various aspects of their identities affect
physics experiences

In this section, we provide reflections from women who share how their
specific identities negatively affect their experiences in physics. These
reflections are helpful in assessing their awareness of how their specific
identities affect their experiences in physics and contemplating strategies to
ensure that these identities do not negatively impact how they navigate their
path in their pursuit of their physics degree. We note that some of the women
had difficulty naming their gender as one of the reasons for why they may have
had negative experiences with male peers, or did not mention gender bias to
explain why their male peers were condescending even though they described
very well going through these experiences.

Chloe describes herself as introverted and expressed how this part of her
personality has made it difficult to navigate group work. She notices that
physics is a very social environment saying: “I think personality is the thing
that isn’t always talked about like being very social…versus somebody who’s
not…most physicists are nerdy and I tend to be more introverted…outside of the
classroom. I think personality does create some divides…” She suggests that
for someone who is more quiet like her, it may be difficult to try to engage
in conversations with social and extroverted physicists.

Francis was one of the few interviewed women who felt she did belong in
physics. This could be attributed to her high school experiences as she went
to an all-girls high school in the UK. With that in mind, Francis explains
that sometimes when there are very few women in a class or as the only woman
in a group, “I didn’t really feel like…I didn’t belong there, it was just
weird because that wasn’t really something I’ve experienced before being the
only woman in a space. I’m not really the kind of person who speaks up a huge
amount in class anyway, but yeah I didn’t really know what was weird about
it’s just something different.” She does not explicitly say that she feels
alienated if there are very few women or she is the only woman in a group with
a bunch of men participating. We hypothesize that her being quiet and being
from a different country might make her more accepting of different norms she
is being exposed to in her classes even though she finds the dominant
participation of her male peers “weird” and feels this is a “different”
environment compared to what she was used to in her all-girls high school. It
is even possible that her male peers were not as condescending to her as they
were to some of the other women due to her being from the UK.

Karina explains that sometimes she feels pressure particularly in her classes
in which there are not that many women: “When there’s less women, I feel some
of that pressure…to like be smart, if you feel like you’re representing
woman…So I think I do feel some of that. I think some of it was also just for
me as a person. But yeah I think it would be fair to attribute some of that to
feeling, to understanding myself as a woman in that space.” Whether or not she
is consciously aware that this pressure is partly from the lack of women’s
representation in her classes and stereotypes about who can excel in physics,
Karina feels it. She may not be fully aware that she is representing women in
physics, but she still wants to appear smart and knowledgeable in her physics
classes.

Karina confesses she is afraid of not appearing smart. This fear may be
stereotype threat, the fear of confirming a negative stereotype about women in
physics. “Maybe logically I wouldn’t think that those people would think women
are bad at physics, if I asked them to slow down, so maybe if anything, that
would be like a subconscious fear because logically that doesn’t really add up
to me, but I think subconsciously maybe, yeah.” Although Karina is confident
about her own ability, she seems conflicted about not appearing smart in front
of her peers: “I think I actually have a lot of confidence in myself and my
ability…I don’t think I am too worried about sounding dumb, yeah, which [may
sound like] I was saying kind of the opposite before.” She admits that it may
appear that she is contradicting her previous statement about being worried
about representing women in a positive way. Karina is an example of how
conflicted a female student in physics may be about how their identity may
shape their experiences.

Karina explains that her privileged identity, i.e., having private education,
has cushioned her from feeling isolated. This is particularly interesting
because she explains that the further she progressed in her degree, the less
women there were. As a woman, this may be challenging to navigate. However,
Karina explains that the further she progressed in college: “I was more
comfortable in the department, just like I knew all the professors. I knew the
space. I had been you know living in [college town] at [college] for longer by
the time I was a junior/senior, so I think I didn’t so much feel like isolated
or alienated because of that, maybe I would have felt that more, earlier on…I
think again, I’ve been pretty cushioned in physics, I haven’t really had to
face a whole lot of awful things that have been key to me from being a person
in physics, so I think more than anything, it wasn’t a personal experience,
being one of a few women, more than like wow this sucks, I wish this field as
a whole for the sake of the field and for the sake of everyone had more
representation.” Thus, Karina clarifies that her negative feelings, e.g.,
about appearing smart and feeling like she is representing women in physics,
stemmed from not seeing many women in physics and she didn’t particularly have
direct negative experiences with her peers based on her identity as a woman.

When asked about if/how her race/ethnicity played a role in her experiences in
physics and astronomy, Esme explains that she was one of two Hispanic students
in physics at this college and one of two women during her experience at NASA.
She reflects on this issue saying, “I think more gender [than race] in my
experience has been affected.” This reflection seems consistent with her
previous experiences that she describes. Based on her experiences in general,
it seems like gender was more salient in her experiences related to physics.
Again we hypothesize that this may partly be the case because of her visual
characteristics not “manifesting” her ethnicity in the same manner as Paulina.

We note that Paulina constantly emphasizes how her multiple marginalized
identities as a woman and person of color were salient in her interactions
with peers and even instructors. She attempted to disentangle the two in the
context of her interactions with her female peers, i.e., she felt that they
judged her differently based on her racial identity (hypothesized by Paulina).
However, throughout her interview, both identities were constantly brought up
by her when explaining her interactions with others in the physics learning
environments in college.

Paulina also mentions that sometimes she works with two students, one being a
man of color. She says that they usually consult each other for help when it
comes to problem solving. Although she has not had any conversations with him
about what his experiences are like in physics, being a man of color, she
believes it might be easier for him to seek out help from other students in
the classroom. She says, “he feels more comfortable going up to other students
if he doesn’t know how to proceed. I guess it becomes a bit easier for him to
engage in the classroom with other individuals…it feels as if his first
response is, select, seek out other people of color in the classroom and
have…conversations about it [with other students].” Although they do work
together, she thinks that his identity as a man might be a privilege over her
multiple marginalized identities, as she has had difficulty getting other
peers to take what she says seriously.

###  III.5 Supports and Role Models

In this section, we share who or what has supported and sustained these women
and kept them on their path during their undergraduate physics journey. This
support may include role models, i.e., people who they looked up to. In the
previous themes, such as Family providing academic support, we discussed how
some of the women already highlighted how their family provided support by
helping them with their homework. For many of these women, their family
members were also role models, especially if they had careers in science. For
example, Cathy shares that her sister and her parents were some of her role
models and provided foundations and inspiration for going into a science
major. Many women noted that their professors were their role models. Some of
these professors were also their academic or research advisors, thus serving
multiple roles and having multiple contexts for providing support.

Chloe shares that one of her professors is really inspiring because of a
shared identity. Chloe considers herself to be an introvert and her professor
is also quiet, so she feels inspired by her: “my astronomy professor is a big
inspiration…she’s the first real astronomer that I’ve met and particularly
that she is kind of a quieter person and most of the professors that I’ve met,
you ask them a question and then they talk very confidently for hours and
she’s not like that…so meeting somebody who’s not like that but is still very
successful in the field, yeah, that is very inspiring.” This type of role
model is valuable as the stereotypical image of a physicist is usually either
social and outgoing (like those portrayed in the media) or awkward and
standoffish. Seeing someone who shares similar characteristics is helpful for
someone like Chloe, who does not have the stereotypical personality of a
physicist, to see herself as capable of being successful as one.

Paulina also shares that her role model is her academic advisor, who is also
her research advisor and someone she had classes with. She says that he
encouraged her to pursue physics as a college major: “he was one of the first
people that kind of sat down with me and kind of listened to me speak about my
passion for physics and he was like Hey it sounds like there’s something
beyond a hobby, I think it would be very interesting for you to take more
physics classes at a high level and see how you feel about them, and having
someone that took the time to have a conversation with me and help me figure
things out was really meaningful to me.” Another important factor, she adds is
that he shares a common identity of being Latinx: “He’s one of the few other
Latinx professors that I’ve seen on campus specifically in the physics
department so it’s very, it’s become very meaningful to see someone from a
similar background as me kind of succeed and serve as a person that I can go
to and he’s very encouraging.” As someone who attends a PWI and whose peers
are predominantly White, seeing and connecting with a faculty member who has a
similar identity is very important to Paulina.

Ruby shares that one of her role models is her academic advisor because she
helped Ruby consider majoring in physics. Following that conversation, Ruby
also turned to her family for support/advice: “They’d all told me, You gotta
go with your gut, you have to trust your gut because you know what you can do
and you can do more than what you think you can do, and that really stuck with
me. This idea of you’re gonna put limitations on what you think you can do,
but you can always go past that limit a little bit, even if it’s just the
tiniest bit you can push past that and I look up to my brothers a lot so after
hearing that from them and talking to my parents as well, I think I was able
to let go of that fear, because how much I wanted it [pursue physics] and how
much I realized that fear is so in our heads.” Here Ruby was able to go to her
family as a soundboard for advice and reassurance when she was worried about
the hurdles she will encounter majoring in physics after her academic advisor
suggested she consider majoring in it.

Francis explains that having female professors to look up to and who act as
role models help her feel like she belongs. “I think there’s quite a few
female professors here and I feel like having that role model of a woman who
is in physics is definitely nice.” Again, this shared identity can provide
comfort for students and like in Francis’s case, help her feel like she
belongs.

Another important source of support Chloe mentions is mentoring. The mentoring
program is part of a gender inclusive STEM club where upperclassmen partner
with lowerclassmen. Chloe specifies that mentoring program is all girls and
the upperclassmen “lead [the lowerclassmen] through the classes, and so my big
sib[ling] was really helpful and showing me that I can apply for these
research and these internships and to pursue these opportunities, yeah and
just seeing people who are older and are currently doing what I am aspiring to
do in the future is very inspiring.” This mentoring program connected her with
more experienced students and particularly her mentor who guided her through
opportunities such as research programs and internships.

###  III.6 Suggestions to improve experiences

In this section, we present personal advice that has helped these women
persist in physics and suggestions for instructors they think would help
improve their experiences.

####  III.6.1 Personal Advice: The ”Band-Aid” Approach

We note that although this personal advice may have helped a few of these
women, it may not be useful for others. We also labeled this personal advice
as The ”Band-Aid” Approach” because although this may be genuine advice from
these interviewed women in physics, it only scratches the surface of the
issues that traditionally marginalized students face within physics
environments. In particular, this advice is more oriented towards personal
action as opposed to more systemic change in the physics culture, which is
discussed in a later sub-theme.

Cathy has served on an undergraduate committee for physics majors in her
program. She says that this opportunity has been beneficial for her and that
“having a lot of leadership roles available has been helpful for me because
you can get involved in making whatever changes you feel would be helpful and
having the department listen to the students…” Through her role on this
committee, she was also able to host events for her peers: “I felt like that
gave me a lot more power to just host the events that I’ve been wishing we had
started up, like study groups for classes and stuff, and started up a physics
GRE program, study program so I liked that once I was involved, I could then
kind of make the events that I thought would be helpful so I’m glad I did
that.” It appears that this may be personal advice based specifically upon the
experience with undergraduate major committee that helped Cathy. We note that
not every student may have this opportunity or may feel safe being in these
types of roles. However, being involved in different types of departmental
committees and activities based upon interest may be valuable for students.

Ruby provides some advice that has helped her persist, which includes having a
growth mindset: “I think what has helped me the most is learning that it’s
okay to not understand everything and that most people don’t even know really
anything but it’s about just practicing and trying and also just learning as
much as you can. And I think that advice has really helped me in that feeling
support, even when I’m not going to be even close to the smartest person in
that room. [It] has really helped me.” Having growth mindset may in fact be
useful for students to adopt. However, it is especially effective when
instructors and the physics culture encourages and reflects a growth mindset
as well so that the onus is not only on the student, like Ruby, to adopt a
growth mindset in order to excel in physics. In particular, when instructors
have growth mindset about their students’ potential and believe that all
students can do well in physics, it can help students develop growth mindset
and believe that they can become good at physics by working hard, working
smart and taking advantage of resources.

Francis shares that she thinks that believing in yourself would help future
women in physics “believe in yourself and just because other people,
especially men, are talking more and acting like they know more, it’s not
necessarily true and you know, [you] are just as intelligent as them.” Thus,
Francis’ advice based upon her personal experiences is to “believe in
yourself” and although this is a good thing to do, it may be difficult for
women in physics if they do not have the support and it does not appear to
them that other people believe in them (as in the case of Paulina). This
advice may be viewed by some as putting onus on the student to change to fit
in to survive and make it through the physics culture. Having instructors
believe in their students is necessary for traditionally marginalized students
to truly believe in themselves with regard to excelling in physics. These
positive changes can be heralded with changing the actual culture of physics
that can be usually intimidating for many students.

####  III.6.2 Advice for instructors

In this section, we summarize the suggestions for instructors provided by
these undergraduate women. We have bolded their suggestions. However, we note
that many of their suggestions overlapped and would fit into several general
suggestion categories.

Avoid forming opinions about students based on background: Karina shares some
insight on how instructors should not make assumptions about students based on
their background: “I think [it is important] for professors to know that
[they] try their best to avoid forming opinions on students. In that way,
especially a small school like [my college], where you might have professors
for multiple years, you might come back to that professor that you’ve had your
first semester and I think that’s important, that’s something that’s important
for professors to know.” This is especially important, as Karina emphasizes
because the college is small and students may have the same professor for
multiple courses throughout their program. Besides potentially having the same
instructor for multiple courses, these instructors also serve as research
advisors and mentors, so it is especially important to have good perceptions
of (and relationships with) students. In addition, having preconceived notions
about students may unintentionally lead to instructors stereotyping students
or making generalizations, particularly about their ability.

Addressing and dismantling biases against women: Ruby shares that it is
important for instructors to explicitly communicate in their actions and words
that women are just as capable as men in terms of their physics ability:
“making it a very, very clear fact that…men are no better at physics than
women. Just because there are more men in the history of physics does not mean
that men in your classroom are going to be better at it than you are because
of your gender, because that has no influence on how capable you are [of]
learning the subject, even if people tell you otherwise.” Changing the physics
culture to reflect beliefs about all students as equally capable of excelling
in physics is key. Having instructors emphasize this and continue to do so not
only through verbal affirmations but via their actions as well would be
necessary to reflect how deeply they support this tenet.

Chloe shares that she feels like she has to prove herself to people because
they do not think that she is capable. She thinks that people make assumptions
that men are capable: “I feel like as a woman, I have to prove myself for
people to look at me and go, oh, you’re smart and dedicated and you like
science, I have to prove that first. It’s not implicitly assumed and nobody
assumes that when they first meet me, well, I think, for many men in my
classes it’s the opposite, where it’s like you initially assume that this
person is really smart and gets really good grades just because they’re male
in science.” She believes increasing the number of women in physics programs
could help reduce these biases: “I think the only way to fix it…[is] if many
other girls are also doing really well, I think it’s a self perpetuating cycle
that as more women get involved in science, the more everybody gets, realizes
that we’re on the same playing field.” Again, Chloe feels like she has to
prove herself, so having instructors dismantle these stereotypes and biases
about who belongs in physics and can excel in it through their actions can be
very impactful.

Reassurance about lack of representation of women in physics: Ruby shares that
she is aware of the historical lack of representation of women in physics but
she would appreciate her department to acknowledge that: “I think it’d be
great to address the fact that there are not many historical women in physics,
but that does not mean that there cannot be in the future, women who make an
impact in physics and I think making that clear is so important because I’ve
never really heard that before like I haven’t really ever been told …just
because there aren’t a lot of women that did it before you, doesn’t mean you
can’t do it, but it’d be so reassuring and helpful to hear…I think that that
would be beneficial to sort of creating that comfortable environment and
creating that confidence.” Thus, Ruby emphasizes that acknowledging this part
of physics history would not only educate departmental members but also
students would be aware of this going forward in their major. Following this
acknowledgement, reassurance would be helpful so that women are not worried
about majoring in physics and the department feels supportive to them.

Create a better representation of women in physics: Esme shares that having
more representation of women in physics would be beneficial: “seeing more
women be the forefront, be the face of physics, because usually when we think
of physics, we think of the men…which you know they’ve done a lot for us, but
you know, seeing more women just in their discoveries is something that
probably can be helpful.” Thus, based upon Esme’s suggestion, highlighting
more female physicists such as in lectures, seminars, newsletters, etc. can
provide support for women. This can show them the achievements of female
physicists who have made major contributions to physics historically and in
the present, which can potentially improve their sense of belonging and
persistence in physics.

Provide positive recognition: Ruby shares that some reassurance would be
helpful especially when she does not feel confident in herself. For example,
not doing well on an exam would be an opportunity to reassure students: “more
reassurance would be nice in a sense. Sometimes it’s scary and sometimes it
makes you feel like am I in this and not able to do this?, and a lot of the
times, my confidence is definitely shaken up by a test grade or something
along those lines…I think, on the part of the school and professors [to be]
making it more clear that it’s okay to not always get the right answer…and
that doesn’t mean you’re stupid and that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do
what you’re passionate about…” In Ruby’s opinion, instructors should make the
learning environment safe so that students do not feel bad about getting a
wrong answer. Reframing mindsets about wrong answers as an opportunity to
learn would be useful in addition to instructors reassuring students that they
do belong in physics and that it is okay to not do well on an exam.

Improving office hours: Ruby provides several suggestions for instructors to
improve their classrooms, one of them being improving the perception and
purpose of office hours: “I think there’s not as safe environment as there
should be for getting things wrong or for not knowing things and I
think…making a more accepting environment and comfortable environment to make
mistakes and to not always know the answer…a lot of the time I think not
knowing the answer honestly would help a lot, so that people can feel
confident, even when they don’t know everything, because there’s this big, I
think, problem with the culture, people are terrified to even try to answer a
question in the fear of getting it wrong, and I think that shouldn’t be the
case, the best way to learn is by making mistakes and by getting wrong because
that’s the only way you can grow. So I think changing that part of the culture
would be really helpful, at least for me.” Physics culture usually rewards
geniuses and creates intimidation for those who don’t identify as geniuses, so
dismantling this notion such that students feel supported and safe enough to
go to office hours and ask questions they do not know answers to would be very
helpful.

Another aspect Ruby explains is important is for instructors to be
approachable to students and clarify that students do not need to be experts
to go to office hours: “Well, I think it’s so important for professors to
explain that they are approachable and…also to get rid of this notion that
students are supposed to come in already knowing everything that they want to
ask, already knowing everything that they’re asking about. So I think that
that’s on the professors to make abundantly clear that it’s okay, if you don’t
know this, it’s okay, if you have a question, even if you think that this
question might not be a good question there’s no such thing as a bad question.
I think making that clear is so important…” In her opinion, instructors should
have that role in making students feel safe and comfortable to attend office
hours as well as be approachable enough.

Encouraging peer collaboration: Another suggestion Ruby provides is in regard
to collaboration with peers, she wishes that there were more opportunities to
do so: “I wish there was more of a focus on group work, as well as individual
work, because I think, I love to be able to talk with other students in a
classroom as well as outside the classroom and learn from them and I don’t
think there’s enough of that. And I think that that would also set us up a lot
better for once we enter the real world and we do work with other people, so I
think having an environment for that would be really, really great.” Not only
would this be beneficial in introducing students to each other and forming
strong connections that could support them throughout their program, but it
would teach students how to collaborate with each other, as Ruby mentions.

Chloe adds to this suggestion: “if you’re not talking to people, then you’re
not breaking any of your preconceptions about them, so I think more engaging
classroom dynamics would be good, not just for the learning, but for really
like people getting to know each other on a level beyond just what they look
like.” In her opinion group work would also be beneficial so that students can
get to know each other, like Ruby mentioned, but also so that students can
break down their own assumptions about students (and potential biases against
them).

Restructuring in-class groups: Chloe, who is an introvert and has difficulty
breaking barriers to collaborate with peers, suggests that instructors should
change how groups are formed when it comes to in-class groups, such as:
“assigning people to different groups and having rotations where people aren’t
always stuck with the same group but also have enough time working with other
people to break down these barriers, to force people to become friends…”
Rather than keeping the same groups throughout the semester, rotating groups
would help students meet each other. “[if] teachers have control over what the
format of the classroom is and they can decide if it will just be lectures, or
if they will work with groups inside the classrooms.” She justifies this by
saying that instructors have control over how they structure their classes, so
they can choose to incorporate group work in their classrooms and decide how
groups are formed.

Paulina, who has felt isolated in physics due to the intersection of both
gender and race, adds that rotating partners is better compared to being in
small groups because: “it takes away the fear of having to keep up with all
these different people who might know each other and might not know you or
might have different areas of strength or weaknesses. And so it’s hard to kind
of keep track with all of this. With one person, it’s a more direct
conversation, and you can slowly build comfortability around them.” Being
partnered up with another peer may reduce cognitive load and anxiety
associated with meeting multiple new people. This may also be useful for
students with multiple visual marginalized identities that can impact how
others perceive them, to just talk to one student at a time, rather than
manage working with multiple people who can potentially team up and stereotype
them or ignore them like Paulina was experiencing.

Paulina also says that being able to communicate with her instructors about
whether or not she feels comfortable with her partner would be important: “if
we’d also have the choice to be like Hey, I don’t necessarily feel comfortable
being partnered with this person, and then you wouldn’t have to. It would just
be a conversation that you can have [with] the professor and then that kind of
also alleviates the stress of engaging with someone who perhaps you haven’t
had a positive experience with before.” It seems from Paulina negative
experiences, a lot of the onus is on the student to bring this issue up.
However, Paulina suggests that the instructor should make it clear that
students can switch partners or provide feedback especially if they do not
have good experiences with their partners. This might make it easier for
students to switch partners.

Instructors reinforcing disciplinary actions: Paulina emphasizes that
instructors have responsibility in addressing inequities in their classroom.
Specifically she refers to how students interact with each other. She also
mentions that instructors have to be aware of any issues in their classrooms
in order to properly intervene and take action: “It has to start off with the
professor, I guess, because since the professor is the one that’s kind of in
charge of engaging the students with one another, if they’re not aware of it,
the problem where women in STEM don’t feel, women of color don’t feel as if
they have an accurate voice in the conversations being had and there’s no way
for them to personally intervene and frame their classroom to encourage the
voices of women of color.” Again, we see a student emphasize that instructors
have to be the ones who enact change. Paulina says that to do so, they have to
be aware of what is going on in their classrooms, and with their students,
otherwise how could they create change? She also says that they have to be
aware of the issues in their classes in order to accurately discuss them.

Check-in with students: Paulina shares that it would be beneficial for
instructors to check-in with students: “I know it’s difficult for some people
to have conversations in a large setting, so having one on one meetings,
asking students how they feel in the space and [whether] they feel
comfortable, they feel their questions are being answered, not just from the
professor, but what’s their interactions with students and that’s also really
helpful, because some students’ fear personally going up to professor and
speaking up, just because you don’t necessarily know how it’s going to be met,
and what kind of response they’re going to give you.” These types of
conversations would help instructors understand how their students experience
their classrooms and what their interactions with peers are like.

Workshops to address biases against women and women of color: Following her
suggestion for instructors to take action in their classrooms, Paulina also
suggests that having workshops involving both instructors and students would
be useful to address big issues: “I think, also just having interactive
workshops between students and professors and maybe other faculty, where there
is proper amount of attention given [to] this subject. Then, that’s when
change can happen, I think it has to be something that is continuous and is
made an apparently big deal because if it’s just kind of like something under
the rug or it’s again only discussed once or twice, maybe in passing, then,
most people would just not really take it to heart, it has to come to include
the engagement of professors…and students, it can’t just be one or the other,
because then they can’t really be resources for the students in the
classroom.” Here she calls for workshops to be a space where issues in physics
can be highlighted as current issues for the department to work on, rather
than having them be mentioned once and then them being forgotten or not
addressed.

Frequent conversations with students about inequities: Paulina recalls some
advice from someone she met about their instructor taking time out of class to
have students engage with each other. That person conveyed to her that:
“instead of focusing on solving like physics problems, we would engage with
each other, and we would kind of provide a space where students can share
their experiences if they wanted to and if no one felt really comfortable
doing so, we were just kind of having conversations where I guess, students
and professors would engage with the fact that, there is a lack of equity in
the classroom for students of color and so having these, I guess, in-class
workshops or in-class discussions, made it…[feel] as if it was important or
situation that required a class time, for example. And so, people could engage
with either other students of color or professors, or like dismantle any kind
of stereotypes, or ideas that White students might have about the experiences
of women or women of color in the classroom.” Paulina shares that having
conversations frequently is useful because: “not only [do] the students begin
to expect these kinds of conversations, but as time went on, you can see that
there is more openness to ask more questions all around the classroom…” So the
practice of normalizing important conversations might help other students feel
comfortable asking for advice or insights. For example, Paulina says that
attending a PWI, there are many White students who might not be aware that “
their thoughts or perceptions of students of colors are just biased or harmful
to our learning experiences and so having a chance for us to have these
continuous conversations allowed for them to come into the next workshop for
example being Okay, well, I learned this from the last workshop, how can I
expand on this, or how can I help other conversations and ask questions if I
don’t really know how my actions or thoughts affect the students of color in
the classroom.” She said that these workshops can provide an opportunity for
people from dominant groups, such as White people, to be vulnerable about not
understanding certain experiences and wanting feedback.

##  IV Comparison to Previous Studies

We now situate this work by comparing it to previous qualitative studies
related to experiences of women in physics such as Johnson’s [74] study at a
small college and our previous study conducted in 2019 [23] at a large
research university. This comparison focuses on analyzing all four domains of
power and evaluating the relative experiences of female students in the
physics learning environments. We believe the study discussed here at a small
liberal arts college shows a physics learning environment which is
significantly better than the one at the large research university [23] but
not as equitable and inclusive as the environment at the small college in
Johnson’s study [74], which can be taken as a gold standard that all physics
departments should aspire to be like.

First, we will discuss the interpersonal domain, which relates to individuals
communicating with each other, or in our context, where students interact with
peers and faculty members. In Johnson’s study [74], undergraduate women
described their physics peers as “friendly,” “super nice,” and approachable.
They perceived other physics students as partners in their learning so “why
wouldn’t they help?” Students also got to know faculty members in their
department. On the other hand, in Santana and Singh’s 2019 study [23],
undergraduate women perceived their male peers to be condescending and to have
many biases against women. In this current study, we saw that many women felt
that their male peers were condescending and some male peers perceived these
women to be incapable of doing physics without their help. Some of these women
tried and managed to avoid their male peers. However, some of these women
noted that they did not have extremely negative interactions with their male
peers.

In regard to the interpersonal domain between students and instructors,
Johnson [74] found that women perceived their instructors as accessible, nice,
helpful. They even said that their instructors asked “how are you feeling? how
are things going?” These check-ins definitely showed them that faculty care
about their students. Contrasting these relationships with our previous study
[23], women noted that their physics instructors were generally very
condescending and also had biases, which reflected stereotypes about women not
being smart enough to excel in physics. The undergraduate women also reported
some experiences as microaggressions from their male peers and instructors.
Some women even said that male faculty set examples of bad behavior that male
students then tried to emulate. In our current study, women perceived some of
their faculty as very helpful if they went to their office hours. Most of the
women had overall positive opinions of their instructors. They also noted that
the faculty that were either their research advisors or academic advisors were
very helpful and they had positive experiences with them.

In terms of the cultural domain, Johnson’s study showed an extremely positive
physics culture, very atypical of many traditional physics department and
classroom settings. Female students loved being around the physics building,
thus showing that the physical space was welcoming and fostered an environment
that emphasized working together. On the other hand, in our previous study
[23], most women did not want to interact with male peers and the culture in
spaces such as study groups or the undergraduate physics lounge, where men
dominated, was very toxic. Both peers and instructors were reinforcing toxic
and stereotypical physics cultures that included beliefs about physics only
being for smart people, women not being able to do well in physics, etc. In
this study, some of the women chose not to work with male peers. Specifically,
Paulina felt that she could not work with anyone because of how they perceived
her as a woman of color and due to the lack of strong commitment to work
collaboratively even when she was placed in a group for the first time at the
time the interviews were conducted. She also specifically felt that cliques
were formed, especially if students already knew each other (e.g., from
previous classes), so it was difficult for her to work effectively in groups.
From Paulina’s perspective, we also saw how her identity as a woman of color
impacted these interactions and she perceived her peers to negatively
stereotype her, which further alienated her and made her anxious.

In Johnson’s study, she described the physics structural domain to be
interactive and collaborative. For instance, faculty structured their classes
to incorporate group work during lectures and faculty also guided students on
how to work effectively in groups [74]. In our previous study, we noted that
physics courses were taught traditionally, with few faculty incorporating
active-learning strategies. In particular, faculty did not typically
incorporate collaborative elements such as group work during their lectures.
In this study, many of these women did describe working in groups, but did
occasionally work alone. Thus, there is some evidence that some instructors
had group work embedded in their lectures. However, many of them also called
for more emphasis on peer collaboration by their instructors and effective
norms for peer collaborations. For example, a few students suggested working
in pairs as opposed to small groups in order to not be marginalized (e.g.,
Paulina) as well as to reduce cognitive load and get to know their peers well.

The disciplinary domain is essential to this study, as this directly falls
under faculty responsibilities. In Johnson’s study, there were many instances
of faculty intervening and “reprimanding students who failed to work equitably
in groups” and reacted to students reinforcing stereotypical ideologies of
attributes of physicists. Our previous study at the large research university
showed that professors did not do much disciplining. In fact, some women noted
that they were the ones showcasing the inequitable physics culture,
demonstrating it to students, especially male students, who then continued on
to perpetuate it in other contexts. The undergraduate women did make several
suggestions which were focused upon disciplinary actions. In this study, we
saw few instances in which instructors addressed inequities perpetuated by
male students. In particular, none of these types of issues were addressed in
a meaningful way to have sustained impact beyond a short period or upheld by
continuous disciplinary actions. A few women said that the instructor
addressed the situation once and then students returned to similar behaviors.

The HELPIEE framework emphasizes that those in the position of power, e.g.,
the instructors, have the power to create equitable and inclusive learning
environments for students. Instructors can use this power to create positive
change and set the norms in the various related domains of power in Johnson’s
framework. Applying this to the disciplinary domain, instructors should be the
ones to enforce and uphold good behavior using the suggestions for instructors
provided by the women in this study. They are also the ones to establish the
structure of the classroom (structural domain), i.e., creating opportunities
for students to work together as well as setting norms, which could work to
dismantle preconceptions or stereotypes (thus changing the cultural domain).
This in turn can improve how students interact with each other, and can help
students see each other as partners in learning, as opposed to using
stereotypes to judge others (affecting the interpersonal domain).

##  V Summary, Conclusions and Future Directions

In this study, we interviewed seven undergraduate women in physics who
attended a small liberal arts PWI. Through these interviews, we learned about
their early experiences in physics during high school, how their family
supported them in physics, e.g., by providing emotional and academic support,
their interactions with their college peers and faculty, reflections about how
certain intersections of their identity may have affected their experiences in
physics, advice based upon what has helped them persist in physics, and
suggestions for faculty that would improve their experiences.

We note that these women’s family played a large role in supporting them, from
an early age including during high school. They also provided a range of
opportunities, which fostered interest in physics and science. However, beyond
emotional support, most of these undergraduate women were unable to rely on
family for academic support during college. They mainly credited some of their
faculty as providing support for them. This might be the case as all of the
women moved away from home to attend this college and their instructors and
other physics faculty were closer in proximity to provide support especially
in physics. Thus, based upon their experiences, instructors play a very
important role in these women’s college experiences in physics once they are
away from home.

In particular, we see that their relationships with and perceptions of the
faculty they regularly interacted with were generally overall positive. These
women mentioned that women faculty were especially inspiring to them. Some of
the faculty who served as academic advisors or instructors also encouraged a
few of these women like Paulina or Ruby to major in physics. At least one of
these faculty incorporated discussions about the experiences of marginalized
people in physics. Despite these positive perceptions and experiences, some of
these women noted that faculty often did not take actions or were not aware of
equity and inclusion issues in their own classes. Thus, these undergraduate
women had negative experiences with their peers which persisted without any
intervention or with only superficial interventions by the instructor when
such issues were explicitly brought out.

Again, based upon domain of power and HELPIEE frameworks, we emphasize that
physics instructors have a lot of power in their classrooms to empower
students and so it is important that they use that power to address inequities
in the classroom. For example, several of these women had experiences in which
their male peers talked to them in a condescending way, took credit for their
work, or in Paulina’s case, made her feel excluded from group work.