Issue Brief - 4 - Looking Within - Exploring Gender and Socioeconomic Differences in Black/African American Students' Mathematics Mindsets and Experiences

Oct 15, 2026

Issue Brief ‎#4 (June 2024) examines how Black/African American students aged 10–17 experience studying mathematics and how gender, socioeconomic status, classroom climate, math identities and beliefs, parent support, and instructional practices relate to math course-taking and achievement. Using survey data from a nationally representative student sample and oversampling underrepresented subgroups, the brief analyzes responses overall and by gender, reporting limited gender differences across most items. Findings are tied to a broader NORC study of math mindsets, math identity, and instructional contexts.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Findings

Findings by Gender

Issue Brief \#4 [www.norc.org | info@norc.org](www.norc.org | info@norc.org) June 2024 Looking Within: Exploring Gender and Socioeconomic Differences in Black/African American Students'Mathematics Mindsets and Experiences Prepared by Abrea Greene, William Fisher, and Elizabeth Klein Introduction As the STEM sector has continued to expand, so has the demand for a diverse workforce to advance technology and create innovative products and companies to meet global needs (Noonan, 2017) . Despite some efforts to recruit Black/African American students to pursue degrees and careers in STEM, they continue to makeup a lower proportion of STEM graduates relative to their proportion in the adult population. For example, in 2018, when Black/African Americans comprised approximately 14% of the U.S. population, they represented only 9% of the total science and engineering degrees awarded and less than 10% of scientists and engineers who were employed full-time (NCSES, 2021) . Educators and researchers highlight the important role math and science courses play in students’ persistence in STEM majors and their pursuit of STEM careers. Research indicates that course-taking differences before college may contribute to the historical underrepresentation of some racial/ethnic minority groups in STEM fields (NCSES, 2021) . Additionally, students’ experiences in math impact their outcomes and persistence in STEM. For Black/African American students specifically, research has found that factors such as racialized classroom experiences, teacher biases, lower academic expectations, tracking policies, and access to high-quality math instructors and curriculum have affected their sustained academic engagement with math during their K-12 educational experience (Diemer et al. , 2016; Gonzalez et al. , 2020; Rogers, 2020) . Research has also found that students’beliefs about math and their math ability impact their math performance. Specifically, students with a growth mindset (the belief that intelligence is malleable) tend to outperform those with a fixed mindset (the belief that intelligence is fixed and cannot be changed; Hwang et al. , 2016) . One potential lever to support Black/African American students’ participation in STEM is understanding the nuances of their experiences with mathematics in K- 12 classrooms. Such research can provide educators and decision-makers with best practices promoting Black/African American student participation in math. To this end, this study seeks to understand Black/African American students’(ages 10-17) experiences studying math and the factors that may influence their math course-taking and achievement. We studied the responses of students ages 10-17 to survey questions about the following factors: • Classroom climate (teacher and peer interactions in math class), • Math identities and beliefs about math (students’ views of their math ability, how math ability develops, and the importance of studying math), • Support from parents around math learning (parental expectations and providing help), and • Instructional Practices (classroom instructional practices and students’perceptions of the usefulness of these practices) . Findings This analysis is part of a more extensive study NORC conducted to explore how students view math (math mindset), their math abilities (math identity) , and their experiences studying math (instructional contexts) . The data were collected through a survey of a nationally representative sample of students ages 10-17 administered in the spring of 2023. The study also surveyed the parents of students ages 10-17 on topics like those included in the student survey. For this study, students identifying as Black/African American were oversampled due to a particular interest in the experiences of subgroups who are underrepresented in honors and advanced placement (AP) coursework (Flowers, 2008) and in STEM majors and careers (NCSES, 2021) . The final subsample conta

FAQs

What is the purpose of this issue brief?

It investigates Black/African American students’ (ages 10–17) math experiences and the factors that influence math course-taking and achievement, with an emphasis on gender and socioeconomic differences.

How was the student sample collected and balanced?

Students ages 10–17 were surveyed in spring 2023 using a nationally representative sample; Black/African American students were oversampled and the final subsample of 230 students was balanced by gender (48% female).

Which areas does the survey focus on?

It covers classroom climate, math identities and beliefs, parent support around math learning, and instructional practices, including students’ perceptions of usefulness.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jordan Avery