Dr. Rezarta Bilali joined the 2020 IHDSC Seed Award cohort with her proposal, “Disrupting the narrative: Mobilizing collective action to reduce racial and gender inequality.” Bilali examined how narratives about a group’s historical trajectory and past collective action can be leveraged to mobilize action for reducing inequality along racial and gender divides. One line of this research has been a collaboration with Psychology and Social Intervention doctoral student, Sam Freel. Bilali and Freel have examined Black and White Americans’ endorsement of two main narratives regarding the trajectory of racial injustice—the progress narrative and the longstanding injustice narrative—and their associations with support for the movement for racial justice and participation in collective action. In addition, they have also investigated how narratives of the Civil Rights Movement influence Americans’ orientation toward the modern movement for racial justice, and participation in collective action to address ongoing racial injustice. In a second line of research in the context of gender inequality, Bilali and Freel have shown that the way we tell the story of past collective action, in this case of the Women’s March in 2017, can either increase or reduce women’s participation in future collective action for gender equality. Bilali’s Seed Award research provided a significant stepping stone in her exploration of historical narratives and the mechanisms that disrupt dominant narrative and legitimize inequality. Today, Bilali uses the pilot data from the Seed Award as evidence to inform future questions and a deeper exploration of collective action through social movements and narrative creation. IHDSC is committed to continuing our partnership with Bilali by supporting future scholarship on this topic and emergent areas of interest, as well as by providing ongoing grant and research support.

Preliminary results from Dr. Andrei Cimpian’s 2021 IHDSC Seed Award research project, “What Motivational Messages are Children Receiving from Children’s Books about Famous Scientists? Implications for Diversifying STEM,” were recently shared at the 2022 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference. Co-PI, Dr. Jess Gladstone, discussed the role children’s books play in introducing STEM role models to children and how stories’ portrayal of growing ability and interest in STEM can influence young readers. Preliminary analysis of 289 popular children’s science biographies found that there are more instances of ability and interest being portrayed through a fixed rather than growth mindset in STEM children’s books. Additionally, the prevalence of these mindset messages does not differ based on the gender or race/ethnicity of the story’s protagonist. Cimpian, Gladstone, and the team at the NYU Cognitive Development Lab have leveraged the IHDSC Seed Award to explore critical questions about children’s early exposure to motivational messages through stories about STEM. The evidence from this study can be used to inform a broad knowledge base of scholars, educators, and storytellers, as well as the practice of creating children’s books that motivate children from all genders and racial/ethnic backgrounds to pursue STEM. 

“The notion that exposing a child to a role model can serve as a motivational tool is intuitive, but there is much more complexity here than one might first assume,” said Dr. Cimpian. “Under certain circumstances, exposure to a role model can even backfire. Presumably, most authors of children’s science biographies have not had exposure to the latest psychological and educational science on role models. That's why it's really important to analyze the motivational content of these books and raise awareness about any problematic patterns that seem to be common, like the prevalence of fixed-mindset messages. I, Jess, and the rest of the team are grateful for the support provided by the IHDSC Seed Award, without which this work would not have been possible.”