IN PURSUIT OF EQUITY: A TA’S AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC REFLECTION ON FAILED RECRUITMENT OF STUDENT PARTICIPANTS FROM A LARGE-LECTURE ACTIVE-LEARNING GEOSCIENCE COURSE
This study takes an introspective, autoethnographic (AE) dive into a Teaching Assistant’s (TA) interactions with a large-lecture active-learning geoscience course. After failing to recruit students from this course who belong to races / ethnicities who have traditionally been underrepresented in the geosciences for a research study, the TA reflects on the sociocultural influences and power dynamics that guide interactions in a Southeastern, U.S. college classroom. Crucially, the AE examines the TA’s self, positionalities, and their biases in a reflective assessment of their interactions with the course by leveraging the SocioTransformative Constructivism (sTc) framework (Rodriguez, 1998; Rodriguez & Morrison, 2019). The sTc is used to critically examine the sociocultural power dynamics and student agency as observed by the TA, and aligns well not only with the active-learning approach by the instructor, but also with the values and efforts of the TA. As such, the course atmosphere and interactions with students will be illustrated with narratives of engagement utilizing the reflexivity aspect of sTc and a growth-mindset approach. Critically, the TA explores the connections between their experiences, failed recruitment of this specific population to the research study, and the broader, documented phenomena of underrepresentation of people of color in the geosciences despite the community’s efforts towards inclusivity.