Using culturally responsive and sustaining course design to increase retention of underrepresented STEM undergraduates

ABSTRACT

Undergraduate science courses are in urgent need of increased retention and recruitment of underrepresented minority (URM) college students. There is a significant gap in current approaches to curricular design and their efficacy for URM student retention. To address this, we propose increased incorporation of culturally responsive and sustaining education (CRSE) methodology in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula design. We identify well-documented and effective strategies, emphasizing practices that value students’ prior knowledge and relate course content to students’ lived experiences. Unlike prior applications of the CRSE conceptual framework that have focused on implementation, here we address curricula design. We present several examples, including the design of a new undergraduate course titled “Intersections Between Race, Biology, and Technology: More Than Skin Deep” that we created in 2024 at Medgar Evers College, an urban Predominantly Black Institution. This course addresses misconceptions about the intersections of race, genetic variation, and artificial intelligence. CRSE develops students’ STEM identity through engagement with real-world issues, such as racialized health disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Embedding CRSE practices into its design additionally aims to reduce individual instructor’s cognitive burden for CRSE implementation. Application of CRSE practices in college-level science courses offers actionable ways to improve relevance and engagement. We propose that educators approach collegiate course design more intentionally to ensure that CRSE practices are encoded within syllabi in order to maximize the positive impact on URM recruitment and retention in STEM fields.

A CALL TO ACTION FOR GREATER INTEGRATION OF CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE AND SUSTAINING EDUCATION IN UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULA

Thus far, cultural identities of undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields have not been adequately utilized to boost underrepresented minority (URM) student engagement in science, nor their pursuit of STEM careers. The United States’ inability to achieve STEM workforce diversity goals has long been attributed to the failure of the academic “pipeline” to maintain a steady flow of URM students (1). Considering the recent sharp decline in college enrollment (2), there is a need for targeted interventions to increase the engagement, enrollment, and retention of URM students in STEM.

The landscape of representation for URM students in STEM fields remains bleak. As of 2022, Black Americans with college degrees in STEM fields were 10% less represented in STEM careers than White Americans with the same degree levels (1). Despite equal participation in STEM education, Black and Latine students were less likely (24% and 16%, respectively) to complete a STEM degree (3). Significantly lower URM persistence in STEM is well-documented and attributed to multiple factors, including (i) a lack of early exposure resulting in knowledge gaps when entering higher education and (ii) a lack of connection between their lived experiences and STEM content. These gaps are exacerbated by classrooms that often do not recognize pre-existing knowledge of URM students (4).

Furthermore, the failure to adequately acknowledge URM representation in undergraduate STEM curricula has real-world consequences that are amplified by societal misconceptions about race. In particular, the recent resurgence of biologically deterministic misconceptions about race threatens what students learn about race in the context of health. Research shows that those who have the misconception of race being biologically deterministic are more likely to be accepting of racial prejudices in healthcare (5, 6). Persistence and perpetuation of these misconceptions within higher education jeopardize how students accurately learn genetics. For example, Schirmer and Lockman (7) found that typical assessments used in undergraduate genetics textbooks did not mitigate—and frequently exacerbated—misconceptions of genetic essentialism (i.e., the belief that a “race” is a genetically homogeneous group of people that differs physically, cognitively, and behaviorally from other racial groups) (8, 9). Curricula revisions have the potential to replace misconceptions with accurate information.

However, the most common approaches for addressing URM in STEM have lacked a focus on student assets. Russo-Tait found that in a sample of college science faculty at a historically White institution, a majority of faculty members used color-blind framings rather than systemic racism to explain the underrepresentation of Black, Latine, and Indigenous college students in STEM fields (10). In this regard, typical framings of the problem have focused on student deficits rather than the instructor’s responsibility to address inclusivity in their pedagogy. The potential for significant societal harm highlights the need for strategies that systematically address URM representation in curricula design.

There are many actionable practices to achieve this that highlight underrepresented voices. Previously successful interventions have focused on the shift from teacher-centered instruction (e.g., lectures based on factual content) to a student-centered learning experience (e.g., active learning strategies and connections of factual content to students’ lived experiences) (11–18). Culturally responsive and sustaining education (CRSE) is one such intervention. Briefly, CRSE is a teaching philosophy that aims to engage and empower students by centering their experiences through culturally relevant content (19–21). CRSE practices enhance learning and interdisciplinary connections (22).

We posit that utilizing a CRSE framework—especially during course design—is critical for creating an inclusive classroom that will recruit and retain URM STEM students. By offering biological and historical context to STEM course content through CRSE, we can challenge students to deconstruct perceptions of innate biology as it relates to race and health disparities. CRSE will engage students more sustainably with personally relevant material and build interdisciplinary critical thinking skills. By presenting the historical context of CRSE development and illustrating its applicability in biology education, we highlight the potential of CRSE-centered curricula design to transform the experiences of students through increased engagement and stronger STEM identities.

BACKGROUND

Culturally responsive and sustaining education grew from seminal works by Ladson-Billings, Gay, and Paris (19, 21, 23). First outlined as “culturally relevant teaching” by Ladson-Billings over 30 years ago (19), Gay later expanded upon this foundation, coining the term “culturally responsive teaching (CRT)” and defining it as a teaching practice that incorporates culture and emphasizes lived experiences of students as relevant and essential aspects of learning (24). In 2012, Paris argued for incorporating “sustaining” (the “s”) into CRT, expanding the concept as a pedagogy that “perpetuate(s) and foster(s) linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling (23).” While CRT links course content to a student’s culture, CRST (synonymous with CRSE) additionally views students as sources and producers of knowledge (25, 26) (Fig. 1). For example, in CRT, an instructor might ask students to discuss how technology in healthcare has impacted their lives. In CRSE, the instructor might expand this assignment by asking the students to interview family/community members to get varied perspectives and share the conclusions on a social media platform. CRSE application may be challenging or intimidating for faculty, but the result often provides deeper and more meaningful connections to course content than CRT alone.

Fig 1.

CRSE integrates student-centered pedagogy (culturally sustaining teaching) with cultural relevance (culturally responsive teaching). As first appeared in Education Week on 18 April 2022. Reprinted with permission from Education Week (25).

CONSIDERATIONS IN TRANSFERRING CRSE APPROACHES FROM K-12 EDUCATION TO COLLEGE COURSES

The positive impacts of CRSE in K-12 education on learning outcomes are well documented (20, 21, 27–30). Recent studies suggest that its applications are just as effective at the college level (15, 16). In particular, curricular changes incorporating CRSE in science/biology courses have strengthened student engagement (31). When considering CRSE principles in course design, Thevenot’s five tenets of culturally responsive and sustaining STEM curriculum (4) offer excellent guidelines (see Table 1). Similar to K-12 education, integrating CRSE in undergraduate STEM curricula is critical for internalizing a STEM identity and developing agency while preparing for a career in STEM (32).

TABLE 1.

The five tenets of culturally responsive and sustaining STEM curriculum

	CRSE tenet	Description
1	Using culture to promote a STEM identity	College biology instruction intentionally affirms students’ cultural identities, disciplinary interests, and career aspirations, positioning students as legitimate contributors to biological knowledge and research communities
2	Promoting critical thinking and discourse	College-level courses prioritize critical inquiry, scientific argumentation, and discourse that connect biological theory to social, ecological, and ethical contexts relevant to students’ lived experiences
3	Creating a more inclusive and equitable classroom	Instructional design and assessment practices support diverse learners, encourage collaboration, and reduce structural barriers that often marginalize first-generation, multilingual, or underrepresented students in STEM
4	Using cultural responsiveness and sustaining practices to promote student achievement	Teaching practices recognize students’ linguistic, cultural, and intellectual resources as assets, sustaining those identities while ensuring access to rigorous biological content and scientific norms
5	Promoting intellectual strategies to promote active learning	College biology curricula emphasize problem-based learning, undergraduate research experiences, and authentic scientific practices that actively engage students in knowledge construction

Although CRSE integration in undergraduate science courses has positive impacts, including increased student engagement, identity affirmation, and achievement of learning outcomes, its uptake has been limited (33). Thus, research on its integration has focused predominantly on framework overviews, institutional barriers to implementation, and strategies for greater implementation (34–38). However, specific interventions, such as relational teaching practices (e.g., using students’ names), modulating inclusionary/exclusionary language within STEM, and “noncontent instructor talk,” have been identified as effective in building instructor-student relationships and classroom culture (39–41). More broadly, outcomes from the multi-institutional NIH BUILD project identified undergraduate curricula changes as key strategies for improvement (42, 43). For example, California State University, Long Beach, created an umbrella health-related curriculum that addressed health disparities as an approach for CRSE integration.

Most prior efforts to apply CRSE in undergraduate STEM courses have focused on effective methods for implementing student-centered teaching approaches. For example, Barron et al. (44) found that undergraduate biology lab course teaching assistants used four fundamental principles to enact CRSE in their instruction. These principles included (i) making connections between students’ knowledge and science content, (ii) framing instruction to meet students’ learning needs, (iii) intentional scaffolding, and (iv) reducing student anxiety by making science more accessible. Successful CRSE integration is also documented in undergraduate microbiology (15) and mathematics (16) courses; however, like Barron et al., these interventions relied on patchwork revisions to pre-existing courses and were not integrated into the overall course design. Within such approaches, the burden of CRSE application often falls to the instructors and is therefore subject to greater implementation variance. Embedding CRSE during course design provides guidelines to increase consistency in application while reducing the cognitive burden for instructors unfamiliar with or less proficient in CRSE pedagogy.

We posit that transforming undergraduate science education to be more inclusive requires more than changing how courses are taught. It also includes changes in the overall course design, as has been demonstrated in K-12 education (45). Although the principles that underlie CRSE are not necessarily novel, its incorporation into undergraduate science courses has been hindered by the lack of existing frameworks for designing college courses based on these principles. We therefore argue for more support and incentives for the (re)development of college STEM courses that embed CRSE at the design level. Below, we provide detailed examples of CRSE-informed curricula design.

EXAMPLES OF CRSE PRACTICES IN STEM COURSE DESIGN

To illustrate the application of CRSE design principles in the college biology curricula, we present several distinct approaches. These approaches apply the tenets of CRSE (Table 1) in the design of assignments and course curricula. First, we illustrate the process with previously validated assignments in an introductory undergraduate biology course (46–48). Next, we present a design guide for incorporating CRSE in undergraduate biology contexts (49). Lastly, we include excerpts from our new STEM course, titled “BIO 206—Intersections Between Race, Biology, and Technology: More Than Skin Deep,” that we created in 2024 at Medgar Evers College (MEC), City University of New York.

As an example of a previously validated assignment, Schinske et al. implemented CRSE-designed assignments in an undergraduate introductory biology course to counter dominant narratives about who can be a scientist (46). These activities built upon the tenet of “Using culture to promote a STEM identity” (Table 2). In these assignments, counter-stereotypical examples of scientists matched the topics covered each week. By intentionally highlighting scientists from diverse backgrounds, they incorporated culturally responsive practices that validated students’ identities and broadened their perceptions of representation. Furthermore, they documented measurable changes in students’ stereotypes and science identity, even 6 months after the course. These changes in student perceptions correlated with science interest and course grades (46). Thus, CRSE-informed design can have lasting positive impacts on student success.

TABLE 2.

Application of the CRSE design principles from literature to course development

Tenet of CRSE	Rationale for application	Example from a college biology course	Intended impacts on student success
Use culture to promote a STEM identity	College biology often marginalizes students whose lived experiences are absent from traditional curricula. CRSE emphasizes positioning students’ identities and communities as assets for learning science, supporting belonging and persistence.	Example from the literature (46): incorporation of Scientist Spotlight assignments featuring counter-stereotypical biologists connected to course topics, paired with reflective writing on personal connections to scientists’ work.	Improves science identity, reduces stereotypical views of scientists, increases interest in biology, and correlates with higher course grades and persistence.
Promote critical thinking and discourse	College-level biology requires students to critically evaluate evidence and confront misconceptions, particularly around race, genetics, and human variation. CRSE encourages discourse that exposes and interrogates harmful scientific narratives. The cultural experiences and funds of knowledge of each student are used as resources to supplant genetic essentialism with principles of humane genomics (47) in an undergraduate biology course.	Example from the literature (50) to course development: genetics instruction emphasizes multifactorial causation and gene–environment interactions rather than simplistic Mendelian or race-based explanations, explicitly confronting genetic essentialism tied to racism.	Deepens conceptual understanding of genetics, improves scientific reasoning, and reduces racist and deterministic beliefs associated with biological misunderstanding.
Create a more inclusive and equitable classroom culture	Traditional lecture-centered biology courses can reinforce inequities in participation and authority. CRSE promotes classroom structures that distribute intellectual responsibility and value collaboration.	Example from BIO 206:a Sustained small-group work organized through group work, with rotating roles (facilitator, recorder, spokesperson, consensus builder) and both group and individual accountability embedded in assessment design.	Increases sense of belonging, encourages equitable participation, strengthens collaborative skills, and supports engagement and course completion for diverse learners.
Use culturally responsive and sustaining practices to promote achievement	CRSE rejects deficit-based frameworks and insists that rigor and equity are mutually reinforcing. In biology, this requires teaching accurate, complex science that dismantles race-based misconceptions rather than reproducing them.	Example from the literature (4): curriculum integrates students’ cultural funds of knowledge with problem-based STEM learning, positioning the instructor as facilitator and students as co-constructors of knowledge.	Promotes academic achievement, strengthens STEM identity, and supports equitable learning outcomes by affirming students’ cultural knowledge while maintaining disciplinary rigor.
Promote intellectual strategies to support active learning	Active, problem-based learning mirrors authentic biological practice and allows students to apply concepts to issues with real social relevance, a core feature of CRSE in higher education.	Example from BIO 206: students analyze real public-health data sets using CODAP to identify racial disparities, critique bias in medical algorithms and AI tools, and communicate findings through data-story posters and presentations.	Builds data literacy, problem-solving, ethical reasoning, and scientific communication skills.

^a BIO 206 is the Medgar Evers College Course “Intersections Between Race, Biology, and Technology: More Than Skin Deep”.

Similarly, Donovan et al. developed the “Humane Genomics Literacy” curriculum to increase students’ comprehensive understanding of genetics and reduce belief in genetic essentialism (47, 48). Their curriculum illustrates the CRSE tenet of “Promoting critical thinking and discourse” (Table 2) by directly challenging students to use evidence-based information to deconstruct three genetic essentialist beliefs: “(a) that individuals of the same race are genetically uniform in their variable DNA; (b) that different racial groups are genetically discrete, or non-overlapping, in their variable DNA; and (c) that complex traits are immutable and racial disparities in these traits are best explained by genes” (48). Randomized studies of these curriculum changes revealed significant increases in students’ knowledge of genetics and a reduction in genetic essentialist beliefs (50). Thus, the application of CRSE-informed design principles in undergraduate STEM education has the potential to prevent misunderstanding and misinterpretation of fundamental biological concepts.

Using a more holistic approach, Dewsbury and Brame created a CRSE-informed guide for designing activities that incorporate students’ voices to foster a positive classroom climate (49). Their approach expanded upon the CRSE tenet of “Creating a more inclusive and equitable classroom” by providing recommendations for how to balance broader campus inclusive practices with the demands of high-content volume disciplines. For example, the integration of campus student support services with academic course goals fosters social belonging and student-centered classroom communities. They found that culturally responsive strategies (e.g., belonging interventions, inclusive framing, representation, structured participation) demonstrated improved learning outcomes for historically marginalized students (49). Thus, a focus on CRSE in curricula design and wrap-around student support services is likely to yield broader impacts on student success and a stronger sense of belonging.

Lastly, we present an example of a STEM course that we designed with intentional incorporation of CRSE strategies. Similar to Dewsbury and Brame, we incorporated CRSE tenets as foundations in the design of this course (Table 2). We created a 3 h/3-credit science elective course for the general education curriculum titled “Intersections Between Race, Biology, and Technology: More Than Skin Deep,” to be offered at MEC in the Fall of 2026. MEC is a Predominantly Black Institution with 82.8% of students identifying as Black. As a science elective offered to both STEM and non-STEM majors, this course has the potential to engage URM undergraduates in science who may not have considered it as a career option.

The development of this course was directly informed by an informal survey of the student body in which 70% of respondents expressed strong interest in racialized health disparities and artificial intelligence’s (AI) evolving relationship with race. In this course, students explore contemporary scientific developments in genetic variability and geographical ancestry, the relationship between skin color and race, racial disparities in health outcomes, and the impacts of emerging technologies (i.e., AI). Thus, the course content was centered around student interests and was culturally responsive in its conceptualization.

When designing this course, we built upon the work of Hubbard (18) by constructing avenues for students to interrogate the intersections between perceived race and technology (Table 3). By focusing on these connections, we established a strong foundation in fundamental biological principles, such as genetic variability within human populations. Moreover, activities and assignments were designed to address these fundamental concepts through a culturally responsive lens (Table 4). In this way, CRSE was intentionally infused throughout the course design.

TABLE 3.

Four essential elements for designing a culturally responsive undergraduate course on race, biology, and technology^a

Theme	Key concept
1	The biological race concept is “unscientific”
2	Race is socially real but constructed in different ways across the globe
3	Racism impacts health and, therefore, biology
4	Racism impacts technology development and influences its efficacy

^a Modified from Hubbard (18).

TABLE 4.

Example assignments that apply CRSE principles

(i) Example assignment 1—AI: friend or foe of health equity?
Tenet of CRSE	Activities	Assessment
1. Using culture to promote a STEM identity	Read Unit 3 of comic series—We Are AI Watch a video on an NPR news story on the impact of skin tone on pulse oximeter efficacy	Essay questions: “What is the reason the article gives for why pulse oximetry devices perform better on White people?” “How has this disparity in efficacy impacted health equity in the COVID-19 pandemic?” “Based on your lived experience, are your needs taken into consideration in the development of new technologies? Explain why or why not”
2. Promoting critical thinking and discourse	Students complete the HHMI biointeractive case study—human skin color: evidence for selection and discuss implications of their skin color to racial groups and environmental considerations, such as vitamin D supplementation and UV light sensitivity	Discussion board forum questions: “Based on the video you watched, explain why the evolution of dark skin and pale skin was advantageous” “After watching the video, what is one thing that you learned that is relevant to your own skin color?” “Based on these graphs in the case study, which genotype has the darkest skin pigmentation on average? Which genotype has the lightest?” “The distributions of skin melanin content for individuals of each genotype overlap. What would you expect to see if only one gene determined skin color without environmental effects? Based on these data, would skin color be a useful AI criterion for classifying individuals by race? Explain WHY or WHY NOT, using complete sentences”
3. Creating a more inclusive and equitable classroom	Small group discussion of biological diversity and the validity of race adjustments in healthcare	Each student shares their ideas on a class storyboard

The primary learning goal of this course is for students to explain the relationship between the development of technologies and race/racism to discern biological and non-biological factors. This goal is achieved by engaging students in assignments with news articles, podcasts, data analysis, and their peers or communities (Table 4). Group discussions are typically initiated by examples of how technology can impact real-world challenges. For instance, one discussion utilizes a news source reporting on research emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic that found pulse oximeters to be less efficient at reading blood oxygen in patients with darker skin (52). Another discussion provides students with graphical data on skin pigmentation across three distinct genetic alleles and tasks students to interpret the data and reflect on how their conclusions may be relevant to their own skin color and the designation of racial categories by generative AI models (Table 4, part [i]). We expect these prompts to generate vibrant discussions because they have real-world applications for students. While these practices demonstrate intentional cultural responsiveness in fostering dynamic peer communities, we also take this one step further by having students engage with their local communities through a scaffolded semester-long project. This project captures the CRSE tenet of “Promote Intellectual Strategies to Support Active Learning” (Table 2) by tasking students to investigate large, real-world historical data sets from COVID-19 vaccination sites in New York City. One aspect of this project asks students to practice data literacy utilizing an online graphical tool to manually select and plot data based on different parameters to reveal real-world trends. This activity places students in the driver’s seat for the entire process and facilitates them in making their own conclusions about racial health disparities (Table 4, part [ii]). An additional learning goal in this and other assignments is for students to not only be able to interpret data on racial health disparities, but also to identify inequitable data inclusion/exclusion criteria and patterns in biological determinants of health. By equipping students with these skills in data analysis, critical thinking, and advocacy, this course aims to prepare them not only for potential careers in science, but also to challenge and transform existing inequities in these fields.

Lastly, a major objective we had when designing this course was for any instructor to be able to engage with CRSE practices successfully. By structuring the course with built-in CRSE elements that utilize student-driven learning approaches, we aim to reduce instructor preparation time and cognitive burden and, therefore, be less dependent on individual instructor input on a lesson-by-lesson basis. We believe that this is an essential step toward reducing barriers to entry for instructors who may be less practiced with CRSE. By creating more courses that are designed with CRSE at their core, instructors will have the tools to maximize the impact of CRSE on undergraduates in STEM fields. Similar to Universal Design for Learning principles (53), by making science more engaging and accessible to URM students, all undergraduates can potentially benefit.

CONCLUSION

Undergraduate STEM curricula reform to address genetic essentialism beliefs, misconceptions about race, and declines in URM retention is needed now more than ever. The embedding of CRSE principles in the design of undergraduate STEM courses addresses the needs of diverse student populations and provides a framework for reimagining STEM curricula. Here, we highlighted the benefits of incorporating CRSE in the design of STEM courses for undergraduates by providing concrete examples. For educators looking to adopt CRSE practices into their undergraduate STEM courses, we recommend starting at the course design level and using the four principles outlined earlier by Barron et al. (44) as a guide. Ensuring that CRSE is consistently applied throughout the course demonstrates to students that their culture is valued and is central to the learning process. On an institutional level, the adaptation or production of de novo CRSE-centered courses should be incentivized and systematically supported to reduce the burden on individual instructors. This could be achieved by providing workshops on CRSE-centered course design to faculty and instructional designers. These efforts would likely benefit from applying an “interdisciplinary” lens to course creation or emphasizing workforce development by incorporating real-world STEM skill development as well.

Whereas starting at the level of course design is ideal for consistency, we recognize that this may not be feasible in all cases. Revising an individual assignment or class activity is a reasonable place to start with the ultimate goal of (re)designing entire courses built upon CRSE principles. CRSE practices can be successfully applied to pre-existing courses; however, the cognitive burden on instructors may reduce efficacy. A common barrier that educators face when attempting to incorporate CRSE practices is either a fear of underpreparedness or an overestimation of how adequately CRSE is already implemented within their course (7, 54, 55). To address these challenges, instructors should focus on individual assignments and model their revisions on pre-existing examples of CRSE incorporation, such as those illustrated in Table 2. These revisions should be student-centered and reflect the tenets of CRSE principles.

Going forward, to advance CRSE implementation in undergraduate STEM curricula to the extent that it is well-established in K-12 education, further research in this area should include (i) collecting and reporting data on how the implementation of CRSE in undergraduate STEM courses impacts student learning and URM retention, (ii) conducting syllabi analysis to standardize design practices, and (iii) creating a self-assessment of CRSE practices to guide future course designs. Through these approaches, practitioners in this field can increase intentionality, transparency, and accountability in CRSE-centered undergraduate course designs. By advocating for the proposed curricula revisions and centering students as sources of knowledge, educational institutions stand to gain in student success, moving the needle toward a higher education system that is more culturally sustaining.