Deprogramming Deficit: A Narrative of a Developing Black Critical STEM Education Researcher

Abstract

This essay shares a personal narrative from a Black woman STEM education researcher whose experiences living in poverty positively impacted her childhood and provided her with skills and strategies to navigate academia. The author’s lived experiences have influenced her social justice research agenda aimed at combating social inequities. Her use of narrative is intended to provide insight for other researchers of color who may share similar experiences with their participants. Ultimately, her goal is to disrupt deficit narratives about communities of color living in poverty, which typically fail to address their systematic disenfranchisement, by providing a counter-narrative and descriptions of her lived experiences with STEM.