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  • Open Access

Critical look at physics identity: An operationalized framework for examining race and physics identity

Simone Hyater-Adams1, Claudia Fracchiolla2, Noah Finkelstein3, and Kathleen Hinko4

  • 1ATLAS Institute, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
  • 2University College Dublin, School of education, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
  • 3Physics Department, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
  • 4Department of Physics and Astronomy, Lyman Briggs College, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA

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Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 14, 010132 – Published 1 June, 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.14.010132

Abstract

Studies on physics identity are appearing more frequently and often responding to increased awareness of the underrepresentation of students of color in physics. In our broader research, we focus our efforts on understanding how racial identity and physics identity are negotiated throughout the experiences of Black physicists. In this paper, we present a Critical Physics Identity framework that can be used to examine racialized physics identity and demonstrate the utility of this framework by analyzing interviews with four physicists. Our framework draws from prior constructs of physics identity and racialized identity and provides operational definitions of six interacting dimensions. In this paper, we present the operationalized constructs, demonstrate how we use these constructs to code narrative data, as well as outline three methods of analysis that may be applied to study systems and structures and their influences on the experiences of Black students.

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Examining racial diversity and identity in Physical Review Physics Education Research

A collection of articles that examine and highlight racial diversity, specifically how Black physicists and people of color navigate within the physics community at large.

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Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 14, 010132– Published 1 June, 2018
  • Received 7 June 2017
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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