Role of mentorship, career conceptualization, and leadership in developing women’s physics identity and belonging

The percentage of women receiving bachelor’s degrees in physics (25%) in the U.S. lags well behind that of men, and women leave the major at higher rates. Achieving equity in physics will mean that women stay in physics at the same rates as men, but this will require changes in the culture and support structures. A strong sense of belonging can lead to higher retention rates so interventions meant to increase dimensions of physics identity (interest, recognition, performance, and competence) may increase persistence overall and increase women’s retention differentially. We describe our model in which mentorship, an understanding of career options (career conceptualization), and leadership are inputs into the development of these dimensions of physics identity. This paper includes preliminary results from a qualitative study that aims to better understand how career conceptualization, leadership, and mentorship contribute to the development of physics identity and belonging. We report results from a survey of 15 undergraduate physics students which was followed up by interviews with 5 of those students. The students were from 2 institutions: a small private liberal arts college in the midwest region of the U.S. and a large public university in the southeast region of the U.S. classified as a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI). With respect to mentorship, consistent with the existing literature, we found that it could provide critical support for students’ engagement in the physics community. Leadership experiences have not previously been positioned as an important input into identity, yet we found that they helped women in physics feel more confident, contributing to their recognition of themselves as physics people. While the data on how career conceptualization contributed to the building of identity is limited, there are some connections to recognition and competence, and it will be an interesting avenue of future exploration.

Figure 1

Our theoretical model builds on the identity framework of Hazari et al. [5], which describes a physics student’s identity as consisting of personal identity, social identity, and physics identity (left box). Recognition, performance, interest, and competence are important for students’ ability to build physics identity [5], as shown in this diagram with an arrow pointing at the physics identity circle. We theorize that leadership and mentorship experiences and career conceptualization can serve as inputs to support the development of physics identity for undergraduate women. Our model places self-efficacy at the intersection of performance and competence, and this performance, in turn, demonstrates their competence [25]. Students’ sense of belonging within the physics community [26] occurs at the intersection of the elements of their identity and is particularly related to social, physics, and personal identities. Note that it is not yet clear whether leadership is significant as an independent component of a student’s identity or as an input into recognition, performance, and competence (it may not impact interest directly) to build a student’s physics identity.