Growing SEEDS: Evaluating a Community-Centered STEM Mentorship Program to Advance Racial Equity Among Middle School Students

Middle school students of color continue to face inequitable access to high-quality, culturally responsive STEM learning, limiting their confidence, sense of belonging, and academic performance in STEM fields. These systemic barriers hinder STEM identity development, constrain students’ Community Cultural Wealth (CCW), and perpetuate persistent achievement gaps. The Student Engagement, Exploration, and Development in STEM (SEEDS) program at the University of Southern California addresses these challenges by providing culturally responsive, near-peer STEM mentorship and a hands-on, community-centered curriculum in middle schools serving students of color. The purpose of this study is to advance educational, racial, and socioeconomic equity for minoritized middle school students. Grounded in Carlone and Johnson’s (2007) Science Identity Model and Yosso’s (2005) CCW framework, SEEDS serves as the research intervention. The program is designed to strengthen students’ STEM identity and build aspirational, navigational, and social capital through projects connected to community-identified issues. This randomized controlled trial (RCT) will include approximately 550 middle school students randomly assigned to either SEEDS (treatment) or a business-as-usual STEM program (control). The study hypothesizes that SEEDS participants will demonstrate greater gains in (a) STEM identity, (b) CCW, and (c) STEM test scores compared to control group students.