STEM Pushout of HMoob American College Students at a Predominantly White Institution

The educational experiences of more than 20 ethnic subgroups within the Asian American category are overlooked when aggregated data reinforces racist tropes that Asians are overrepresented in STEM fields. Using a participatory action research approach, this study argues that HMoob students are pushed out of STEM disciplines in similar ways to other underrepresented minority populations. Of the 66 interviews with current or former HMoob undergraduate students, 28 experienced STEM pushout. We demonstrate that issues of equity in STEM are part of a meritocratic culture that privileges certain forms of knowledge and learning that invisibilize HMoob students through the model minority stereotype. Amplified and institutionalized by the expansion of neoliberal governmentality in US higher education, the prevalence of STEM meritocratic ideologies operationalizes rewards and punishments that drive the competitive culture of STEM through standardized testing, selective enrollment processes, and transactional advising.