Abstract:

In the past twenty plus years, a growing number of women and minorities are entering higher education and business to pursue careers in mathematics, science and technology. Their numbers have reached well beyond fifty percent of the total enrollments. Yet, post-schooling statistics are striking in that these larger numbers of women and minorities are not holding up in the field after leaving their educational institutions. Characteristically, the smaller numbers of women and minorities that do go on to engage the tools of their education, set up smaller businesses outside of mainstream and engage in innovation (Jackson, 2002). To expand the capacity for innovation, it is imperative that these groups employ their education past the parchment. Currently, it is evident that small collaborations and innovation appear to be the route to that end. Without a lot of role-models, these group shape their thinking around what appears to be available to them rather than engendering an innovative, mind-set beyond tradition. At the educational level these individuals appear to setting their sites on the traditional larger institutions and are perhaps not reaching their full potential by singularly seeking to be part of typical route to success. For example: “Women owned Canadian firms are significantly smaller, less profitable and less likely to grow compared to those firms owned by men” (Orser, Gender & Export Propensity, 2008). “Women owned firms, on average, were less likely than firms owned by men to have exhibited rapid sales growth” (Orser, Women Entrepreneurs & Financial Capital, 2006). “In 2000, fewer Black and Hispanic men than White men were employed in managerial and professional occupations (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2004). Perhaps with less personal effort invested in bottom line profits and more on breaking the gender and minorities lines, these individuals are not seeing the full picture of their potential past post-secondary education. The markets indicate that innovation that turns into profits, begins with small groups with unique interests (e.g., social networking Web 2.0 businesses), and significant shifts are made evident through dialogue and imagination.
This paper examines the social theories, perspectives, and aspirations of 34 groups of women and minorities as they engaged in a contest to be innovators in mathematics, science and technology at the K-12 level. The paper examines the issue of evolving perceptions of place in the world beyond school that is shaped by the founding discussions and projects of teachers and their students around the notion of innovation in mathematics, science and technology. Discourse themes, emerging world issues, and project outcomes of this qualitative research, followed a pattern of imagining the future, “When I grow up, I will”. The discussion points innovation education toward early bigger-picture thinking, before these groups begin post-secondary education. A head start on expanding the capacity for innovation requires careful placement of turning points for youth turning points where imaginations can be engaged with less financial repercussions, to engage possibility thinking that will expand the capacity for innovation.

Keywords:

Innovation, women, minorities, science, technology, k-12, education.