Eric.ed.gov – Connections across Cultures: Inviting Multiple Perspectives into Classrooms of Science, Technology, Math, & Engineering.

This document is an introduction to a larger manual on the Pac-TEC project. The Pac-TEC project organizes educational reform around the problem statement that mathematics, science, technology, and engineering education is not inclusive of all thinking and learning styles, and therefore is not addressing the present and future needs of the expanding, evolving culture base of the United States. The Pac-TEC project has a research component consisting of interviews, classroom trials, literature, research, discussions, textbook analysis, and visits to the learning environments of classroom teachers (N=26). The teachers were chosen from elementary to university level and 15 of those teachers are members of groups that are underrepresented in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. The questions that guided the research phase pertained to the reasons why some students are uncomfortable with science, mathematics, engineering, and technology; possible contributions and new perspectives that women and people of minority cultures can bring to the fields of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology; a picture of what a Native-American, African-American, Hispanic-American, or woman-centered technology style would look like; and what motivates students to study and remain in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. This document explains the reasons behind the Pac-TEC research project, how some underrepresented individuals cope with the majority educational system, and includes some sample solutions. Contains 22 references. (DDR)