Historically, researchers have observed that some African American youth suppress public expression of their interests in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) topics. Prior research has attributed youth denial of STEM identities to their perceived social pressures. When researchers interview participants in STEM education experiences, we receive certain responses that help us to learn about STEM identities. When we look to social media content, which is sometimes shared publicly and voluntarily, we see a possible window into the perspectives and identities of African American youth and young adults that may help us learn about STEM identities in a new way. Through this window, we may observe social media content that reveals STEM identities and community involvement. Along with text, the social media content may include non-text paralinguistic elements such as emoji, hashtags, images, videoclips, and GIFs (graphics interchange format, typically animated) that may be overlooked in our common discourse analysis techniques; yet these elements could potentially inform our understanding of identity expression.
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