Who I Am Shapes What I Do: Linking Identity and STEM Engagement for Gifted Learners

February 6, 2026

Posted By: Monica Meadows in Blog Posts,

By Monica C. Meadows, Ed.D., University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Tugce Karatas, Ph.D., Purdue University

Why Identity Matters in STEM Engagement

When we think about supporting gifted students in STEM, we often focus on curriculum rigor, acceleration options, or enrichment opportunities. While these are important, there is a deeper force at work that shapes whether gifted learners persist in STEM over time…identity.

Walk into any STEM classroom and you will see more than students solving problems or building models, you will see young people actively negotiating who they are and who they might become. Research consistently shows that students are more likely to engage and persist in STEM when they experience interest, competence, performance, and recognition (Carlone & Johnson, 2007; Hazari et al., 2010). More recent work further clarifies that recognition and belonging are not neutral processes, but are shaped by classroom power dynamics and social cues that influence whose STEM competence is noticed and valued (Hazari et al., 2017; Master et al.,2016). In other words, STEM learning is not just cognitive, it is personal.

For practitioners working with gifted learners, this connection between identity and engagement offers both a challenge and an opportunity.

What Is STEM Identity?

STEM identity refers to how learners see themselves in relation to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and how they believe others see them. It answers questions such as: Am I a STEM person? Do people like me belong here? Can I succeed here?

Carlone and Johnson (2007) describe three core components of STEM identity:

Competence – understanding STEM concepts and ideas
Performance – engaging in and demonstrating authentic STEM practices
Recognition – being recognized by oneself and others as a STEM person

Hazari and colleagues (2010) further emphasize the role of interest and motivation in sustaining STEM identity over time. Subsequent studies show that students’ sense of belonging and recognition in STEM learning spaces strongly predicts whether they continue along advanced STEM pathways, even when prior achievement is high (Rainey et al., 2018).

Importantly, gifted learners may demonstrate strong competence yet still struggle with recognition or belonging, particularly students from historically underrepresented groups in STEM or those navigating multiple identities (Ong et al., 2011).

Why Identity Especially Matters for Gifted Learners

It is tempting to assume that gifted students naturally develop strong STEM identities. However, research suggests a more complex picture. Ability alone does not guarantee persistence. Even highly capable students may disengage when STEM becomes challenging, when they do not see connections to their interests or values, or when they rarely see people like themselves represented in advanced STEM spaces.

Talent development models remind us that potential must be nurtured through sustained opportunities, support, and affirmation. Updated talent development frameworks explicitly identify psychosocial factors, including identity, motivation, and belonging—as critical for transforming early STEM aptitude into long-term achievement and contributions to the field (Subotnik et al., 2019). Identity-affirming experiences help transform early aptitude into long-term engagement and achievement.

Gifted learners may also experience additional identity-related challenges, including:

Multipotentiality, where strengths across domains compete for recognition (Collins, 2017)
Perfectionism, which can undermine persistence during iterative STEM work (Harper & Anderson, 2020)
Stereotype threats, particularly for gifted girls and students of color (e.g., Boston & Cimpian, 2018; Ford et al., 2008; Yang & Gentry, 2022)

Classroom Vignettes: Identity in Action

Vignette 1: Recognition Changes the Narrative (Elementary Engineering)

During an elementary engineering challenge, students were asked to design a structure to protect a small figure from impact. One student, quiet, observant, and rarely the first to volunteer, repeatedly revised her design while others rushed to test.

Instead of praising the “best” design, the teacher paused the class and said:

“I want to highlight how Maya tested, noticed a flaw, and redesigned. That’s what engineers do.”

Maya did not just receive feedback about her work, she received recognition as an engineer. In the following weeks, she began contributing more during discussions and volunteering to explain her team’s thinking.

Practitioner takeaway: Public recognition of process, not just outcomes, plays a critical role in STEM identity development. Research on belonging cues demonstrates that even brief moments of recognition can shift how students perceive whether they fit in STEM spaces (Master et al., 2016).

Vignette 2: Making STEM Personally Meaningful (Middle School Science)

In a middle school science classroom focused on data analysis, students were invited to investigate a community-based question: How does heat affect different areas of our school building?

Students collected temperature data, graphed results, and proposed design improvements to improve comfort and energy efficiency. Community-connected investigations like this align with national guidance emphasizing that meaningful STEM engagement emerges when learners see their experiences, families, and environments reflected in STEM learning (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2022). One student who had previously shown little interest in science reflected:

“This feels real—like something adults actually do.”

Practitioner takeaway: Connecting STEM learning to real-world and community contexts helps students see STEM as relevant to who they are.

Vignette 3: Broadening Who Belongs in STEM (Enrichment Setting)

During a STEM enrichment program, each session opened with a brief story about a STEM professional. One week featured an engineer who openly discussed struggling in math early on and succeeding through collaboration.

Afterward, a student commented:

“I thought engineers were just people who were always good at math. I didn’t know you could learn your way into it.”

Practitioner takeaway: Short, intentional narratives that highlight diverse pathways and challenges help students reframe what it means to be a STEM person.

Vignette 4: Normalizing Iteration and Failure (High-Ability Group)

In a small-group engineering pull-out, gifted students grew frustrated when their designs failed repeatedly. Instead of offering solutions, the teacher asked:

“What did this failure teach us about our assumptions?”

Students began documenting “design lessons learned” alongside their prototypes. Failure became data—not a judgment.

Practitioner takeaway: Explicitly naming iteration, struggle, and revision as valued STEM behaviors supports healthier STEM identity development and persistence.

How Practitioners Can Support STEM Identity

Across grade levels and settings, educators can intentionally foster STEM identity through small but powerful instructional shifts:

Make recognition explicit and equitable by naming STEM thinking and practices, not just correct answers.
Position students as STEM creators, using language such as “engineers,” “scientists,” and “coders” while they work.
Connect STEM to students’ identities and communities, treating lived experiences as assets for STEM problem-solving.
Broaden representations of STEM professionals, highlighting diverse identities, pathways, and collaborative work.
Balance challenge with support, emphasizing growth, curiosity, and persistence over innate brilliance.

Identity Is Built Through Daily Practice

STEM identity does not emerge from a single lesson or program. It develops through consistent messages, authentic opportunities, and affirming environments. For gifted learners, especially those navigating multiple identities, educators play a critical role in signaling. National consensus reports increasingly emphasize that identity development begins early and is shaped through everyday instructional interactions, making classroom-level decisions especially consequential for advanced learners (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2022).

You belong here. Your ideas matter. STEM needs you.

When identity is attended to alongside academic rigor, we move beyond enrichment toward true talent development, supporting gifted learners not only to succeed in STEM, but to see themselves as future contributors to it.

References

Boston, J. S., & Cimpian, A. (2018). How do we encourage gifted girls to pursue and succeed in science and engineering? Gifted Child Today, 41(4), 196-207. https://doi.org/10.1177/1076217518786955

Carlone, H. B., & Johnson, A. (2007). Understanding the science experiences of successful women of color: Science identity as an analytic lens. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 44(8), 1187–1218. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.20237

Collins, K. H. (2017). From identification to Ivy League: Nurturing multiple interests and multi-potentiality in gifted students. Parenting for High Potential, 6(4), 19-22.

Ford, D. Y., Grantham, T. C., & Whiting, G. W. (2008). Another look at the achievement gap: Learning from the experiences of gifted Black students. Urban Education, 43(2), 216-239. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085907312344

Harper, F. K., & Anderson, B. N. (2020). “I just get all stressed out”: Coping with perfectionism as a Black gifted girl in mathematics. In Joseph N. M. (Ed.), Understanding the intersections of race, gender, and gifted education: An anthology by and about talented Black girls and women in STEM (pp. 27–52). Information Age Publishing.

Hazari, Z., Cass, C., & Beattie, H. (2017). Obscuring power structures in the physics classroom: Linking teacher positioning, student engagement, and physics identity. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 54(4), 497–519. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21214

Hazari, Z., Sonnert, G., Sadler, P. M., & Shanahan, M. C. (2010). Connecting high school physics experiences to physics identity. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 47(8), 978–1003. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.20363

Master, A., Cheryan, S., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2016). Computing whether she belongs: Stereotypes undermine girls’ interest and sense of belonging in computer science. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(3), 424–437. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000061

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2022). Science and engineering in preschool through elementary grades: The brilliance of children and families. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/1015

Ong, M., Wright, C., Espinosa, L., & Orfield, G. (2011). Inside the double bind: A synthesis of empirical research on women of color in STEM. Harvard Educational Review, 81(2), 172–209. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.2.t022245n7x4752v2

Rainey, K., Dancy, M., Mickelson, R., Stearns, E., & Moller, S. (2018). Race and gender differences in how sense of belonging influences STEM persistence. Science Education, 102, 1144–1169. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0115-6

Subotnik, R. F., Olszewski-Kubilius, P., & Worrell, F. C. (2019). Talent development as a framework for gifted education. Gifted Child Quarterly, 63(1), 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1076217514556531

Yang, Y., & Gentry, M. L. (2022). Striving to excel in STEM: Insights from underrepresented minoritized graduate students with high academic ability. Gifted Child Quarterly, 67(2). 110-136. https://doi.org/10.1177/00169862221119208

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