What are "Underrepresented Groups"?

Underreprented groups in math, science and engineering (MS&E) are those groups whose demographics in MS&E do not reflect their representation in the general population. The National Science Foundation recognizes women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders as underrepresented groups.

A good source of reliable statistics is the Science and Engineering Indicators, which is published by the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation. The latest statistics show that the proportion of women, African-Americans and Hispanics in S&E occupations have continued to grow over time, but are still less than their proportions of the population. In particular, they found

• Women were 12% of those in S&E occupations in 1980 and 25% in 2000. However, the growth in representation between 1990 and 2000 was only 3 percentage points.
• The representation of blacks in S&E occupations increased from 2.6% in 1980 to 6.9% in 2000. The representation of Hispanics increased from 2.0% to 3.2%. However, for Hispanics, this is proportionally less than their increase in the population.

Why Broaden Participation?

The demographics of the country are changing. The proportion of Hispanic and African-American people will be getting larger. MS&E has traditionally not attracted people from these demographics into MS&E occupations.