Cultural taboos as a factor in the participation rate of Native Americans in STEM

BACKGROUND: Native Americans are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We investigated whether having to violate cultural taboos might be a factor in the decisions of some Native Americans not to pursue STEM degrees. Many STEM faculty likely know very little about Native Americans’ historical experiences with an education system that has been used to forcibly acculturate them and so may not be aware of the threat many Native Americans perceive from curricula that claim cultural neutrality yet require Native Americans to violate strongly held cultural beliefs. RESULTS: We reviewed the relevant literature, surveyed 96 students from 42 different tribes, and interviewed two STEM and two non-STEM faculty at Haskell Indian Nations University. We found that 50% of survey respondents generally observe tribal taboos, 38% would choose not to pursue a science major if they knew or suspected that doing so would require them to violate an important tribal taboo, and 67% would be more likely to take science classes if the science curriculum was more respectful of tribal taboos. The most problematic activities and animals encountered in laboratory classes include, in order of discomfort level, human dissection, human bodies, animal dissection, snakes, spiders, and lizards. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing Native American participation in STEM requires that their cultural concerns regarding STEM curricula be acknowledged and addressed. This is important for several reasons. First, Native Americans have the highest poverty rate of all racial/ethnic groups, while STEM graduates have higher employment rates and salaries than non-STEM graduates. Second, increasing diversity in STEM supports cognitive growth and critical thinking, benefits problem solving, and contributes to increasing productivity, creativity, and global competitiveness. Third, there is a long history of exploitation of Native Americans and their lands by scientists and engineers, so it is particularly important to increase Native American participation so that their interests are represented in these professions. Many Native Americans’ concerns can be proactively and reasonably accommodated to provide a more respectful and welcoming learning and working environment and increase their participation in STEM, to everyone’s benefit.