CARE WORK, SCIENCE BROKERING, AND CAREER MOTIVATIONS: HOW HISPANIC/LATINX YOUNG ADULTS IN STEM EXPRESSED SOCIAL AGENCY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Given Hispanic/Latinx students often express altruistic motivations for pursuing STEM careers, tapping into social agency may be a key mechanism through which Hispanic/Latinx students can be recruited and retained in the STEM fields in which they remain severely underrepresented. Yet, the ways in which Hispanic/Latinx young adults express and exercise this commitment may not be fully captured by traditional measures of social agency, such as formal volunteering or voting. In this study we report findings from eight focus groups we conducted in 2021 with Hispanic/ Latinx college graduates who had been part of a STEM postsecondary research program at a Hispanic-serving institution. We explore how participants articulated and exercised social agency in relation to family, community, and their STEM careers during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find these students often expressed social agency through informal types of civic engagement, including performing care work for their family members, as well as serving in a role we term "science brokering," in which participants worked to translate scientific research into language that was digestible to family members and others in their communities. Finally, we find many of our participants' commitment to social agency is influencing their career decisions in multiple directions. We argue definitions of social agency should be expanded to include informal forms of civic engagement, such as care work and science brokering, to more fully capture how Hispanic/Latinx young adults and other underrepresented groups in the STEM pipeline might express and exercise social agency.