About

Natalia Caporale is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior Department at UC Davis. She earned her Licenciatura en Biologia from the University of Buenos Aires and pursued her PhD in Neuroscience, where she examined mechanisms of learning. Following her doctoral studies, Natalia transitioned her research focus to science education, emphasizing the experiences of minoritized students and working towards effective institutional change to better support these students. Her research employs both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore these themes.

Research topics

• Social Science
• Sociology
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Public relations
• Engineering
• Management science
• Psychology
• Law
• Engineering ethics
• Data science
• Social psychology
• Gender studies
• Anthropology

Selected publications

• Grade Disparities Associated with Student Demographics in Upper-Division Biology Courses Across Multiple Institutions

  CBE—Life Sciences Education · 2025-08-26

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Disparate grade outcomes across various axes of student identities are prevalent in introductory science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, including in the biological sciences, yet few studies have examined outcome disparities in upper-division courses. Those that have present mixed findings. Rooted in a critical approach to quantitative methods and a student asset/institutional-deficit perspective, we characterized grade disparities associated with minoritized demographic identities over 10 years of enrollments ( N = 58,692 students) in two upper-division biology courses, Genetics and Cell Biology, at five institutions. We found strong evidence of grade disparities associated with women, PEER, first-generation, low socioeconomic, and transfer student identities while controlling for prior academic performance. Across all institutions, the number of privileged identities held by the students was positively correlated with averaged students’ course grades. These grade disparities were larger in Genetics than in Cell Biology and the degree of disparities in both courses varied across institutions. Our results show that the systemic inequities observed in introductory courses also exist in upper-division biology courses and call for universities to implement policies and practices that move away from student-deficit explanations for these disparities, and instead adopt a curriculum and institution-deficit model that recognizes their role in mediating and perpetuating equity disparities in STEM.

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding the Lived Experiences of the members of the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research through Collins' Matrix of Domination Framework

  CBE—Life Sciences Education · 2025-07-29

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Professional science societies stand at the intersection of science, education, and research, providing crucial professional development and career opportunities for scientists. Their structures and policies can either promote more equitable ideologies, practices and outcomes or deepen existing disparities within science. In recent years, many societies have implemented diversity statements and initiatives, but few studies have examined their actual impact on membership composition and the experiences of their minoritized members. Critical education scholars emphasize the importance of examining these experiences through frameworks that center their voices, acknowledge institutional racism, and address the power imbalances that exclude marginalized groups. This study uses the matrix of domination framework (Collins, 1990) and its four domains of power (structural, disciplinary, interpersonal, and cultural/hegemonic) to investigate the perceptions and experiences of inclusion/exclusion of the members of the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER). We identified factors that contribute to and detract from the society's equity goals by analyzing members' experiences at different systemic levels. By framing members' experiences through the lens of dimensions of power, we reveal relationships and structures that may have otherwise remained invisible, offering new insights into strategies that can better aid professional societies toward their equity goals.

  PublisherDOI

• Systemic advantage has a meaningful relationship with grade outcomes in students’ early STEM courses at six research universities

  International Journal of STEM Education · 2024-02-23 · 26 citations

  articleOpen access

  Background: Large introductory lecture courses are frequently post-secondary students' first formal interaction with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Grade outcomes in these courses are often disparate across student populations, which, in turn, has implications for student retention. This study positions such disparities as a manifestation of systemic inequities along the dimensions of sex, race/ethnicity, income, and first-generation status and investigates the extent to which they are similar across peer institutions. Results: We examined grade outcomes in a selected set of early STEM courses across six large, public, research-intensive universities in the United States over ten years. In this sample of more than 200,000 STEM course enrollments, we find that course grade benefits increase significantly with the number of systemic advantages students possess at all six institutions. The observed trends in academic outcomes versus advantage are strikingly similar across universities despite the fact that we did not control for differences in grading practices, contexts, and instructor and student populations. The findings are concerning given that these courses are often students' first post-secondary STEM experiences. Conclusions: STEM course grades are typically lower than those in other disciplines; students taking them often pay grade penalties. The systemic advantages some student groups experience are correlated with significant reductions in these grade penalties at all six institutions. The consistency of these findings across institutions and courses supports the claim that inequities in STEM education are a systemic problem, driven by factors that go beyond specific courses or individual institutions. Our work provides a basis for the exploration of contexts where inequities are exacerbated or reduced and can be used to advocate for structural change within STEM education. To cultivate more equitable learning environments, we must reckon with how pervasive structural barriers in STEM courses negatively shape the experiences of marginalized students. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-024-00474-7.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Values Affirmation Exercise

  2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Toward asset-based LatCrit pedagogies in STEM: centering Latine students’ strengths to reimagine STEM teaching and practice

  Frontiers in Education · 2023-06-29 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Latine students continue to persist in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields despite the numerous obstacles in place that stifle their academic potential and contributions. Instead of fostering the strengths Latine students possess that help them succeed despite these obstacles, the field of STEM education has traditionally examined these students’ experiences and challenges through a deficit lens. Deficit perspectives posit that any existing disparities in educational outcomes in STEM for Latine students are a product of the students’ lack of interest in STEM fields, poor academic preparation and/or motivation, among other ‘faults.’ In this manner, this deficit approach absolves educators, educational institutions, administrators, and researchers from any responsibility in mediating the disparate outcomes and negates the roles that outdated pedagogical practices, structural racism, discrimination and disciplinary bias have in limiting Latine students’ success in STEM. These deficit-understandings of these inequities are pervasive in all aspects of STEM education, guiding curricular choices, pedagogical approaches, assessment designs, interventions and even how STEM fields define knowledge and success. To counter these harmful constructions, this article discusses how STEM educators can draw on Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) and Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) epistemologies to foster learning ecologies that draw on Latine students’ cultural strengths rather than deficits. To this end, this article introduces LatCrit and CCW frameworks in the context of STEM education, and combines them to propose an asset-based LatCrit pedagogical approach to STEM curriculum design and teaching. It also contributes guiding questions and application examples STEM educators can reference to advance asset-based LatCrit pedagogical approaches that promote justice and equity within STEM classrooms and beyond. Contributing to this underdeveloped line of scholarship in the field of STEM, we apply these critical frames to help educators (re)imagine postsecondary STEM pedagogies and reforms around the wealth of skills, dispositions, and cultural practices that Latine students possess.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Major curricula as structures for disciplinary acculturation that contribute to student minoritization

  Frontiers in Education · 2023-08-31 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  Institutions of higher learning are characterized by multiple, often intersecting, social-educational structures aimed at regulating the conditions by which a degree is ultimately granted. The sequence of courses that students must take for a degree is one such structure. Building on the Sloan Equity and Inclusion in STEM Introductory Courses (SEISMIC) Collaboration’s prior work, we provide a comparative view of students’ pathways through selected curricula at two participating institutions. We apply process analytics to students’ course enrollments as a tool to reveal features of the curricula and the associated impacts on students’ progressions to degree. Given the high enrollment in biology-related degree programs at these institutions, we focus on those and ask two questions: (1) Is the intended progression through the curriculum the one most commonly experienced by the students? and (2) does the maintenance of coherence and socialization into the discipline act in a similar way on individuals of different socio, economic and demographic backgrounds? Curriculum analytics tends to be driven by a reductionist view of its structure. Instead, we view the curriculum as a tool for disciplinary acculturation, revealing aspects of students’ transitions through educational systems not captured by commonly applied course or retention analyses. Curricular structures and the constraints they impose impact the way individual students become members of a scholarly community by acting as a cultural and social homogenizing agent. Across the curricula and institutions in this study, we find that this process results in minoritization, hampering student progression through the curriculum and contributing to disciplinary exclusion in favor of traditionally advantaged socio-demographic groups. We call for curricular restructuring that (1) reduces or alters the depth of the hierarchical course sequences, changing the way progression is established; and (2) encourages adoption of pedagogical approaches in the courses that adapt to the learning community to which they cater; ultimately incorporating an asset-based approach to the acquisition of knowledge inclusive of students’ diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and ways of being.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Gendered Performance Gaps in an Upper-Division Biology Course: Academic, Demographic, Environmental, and Affective Factors

  CBE—Life Sciences Education · 2023-10-31 · 11 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Despite the existent gender parity in undergraduate biology degree attainment, gendered differences in outcomes are prevalent in introductory biology courses. Less is known about whether these disparities persist at the upper-division level, after most attrition is assumed to have occurred. Here, we report the consistent presence of gender equity gaps across 35 offerings (10 years) of a large-enrollment upper-division biology course at a research-intensive public university. Multilevel modeling showed that women's grades were lower than men's, regardless of prior GPA. These gender gaps were present even when controlling for students' race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, first-generation college-going status, international status, and transfer status. Class size, gender representation in the classroom, and instructor gender did not significantly relate to course grades. Student questionnaires in a subset of offerings indicated gendered differences in course anxiety, science identity, and science self-efficacy, which correlated with grade outcomes. These results suggest that women experience differential outcomes in upper-division biology, which may negatively influence their persistence in STEM fields postgraduation. Our findings suggest that gender disparities are a systemic problem throughout the undergraduate biology degree and underscore the need for further examination and transformation of upper-division courses to support all students, even at late stages of their degrees.

  PublisherDOI

• Qualities of Safer and Unsafe Spaces at an Emerging HSI: Community-Based Participatory Research to Center Latina/o/x Undergraduates’ Voices in Addressing Campus Issues

  Journal of Latinos and Education · 2022-10-17 · 5 citations

  article

  “Safe spaces” denote areas where students show up as they are and express themselves without fear of being made uncomfortable because of their sex, cultural background, or other status. Many dismiss the importance of safe spaces for students by accusing the institution of becoming a “therapeutic institution” concerned with their well-being, and/or viewing them as victims. We recognize the value of safe spaces to promote inclusion, and a sense of belonging for students. Utilizing photovoice with a LatCrit framework, we demonstrate the power of community-based participatory research to help Latina/o/x and Chicana/o/x students 1) explore and articulate which spaces at an emerging HSI support their sense of safety; 2) illuminate unsafe spaces and how they navigate them; and 3) center student voices in safer spaces issues. We also identify factors that make university spaces feel safer and unsafe so as to provide guidance to those interested in being supportive of this student population. The findings provide insight into the factors that impact Latina/o/x and Chicana/o/x students’ sense of safety and offer greater understanding of communal approaches that might support navigation of unsafe spaces and the increased creation of safer spaces.

  PublisherDOI

• Chronicling the Journey of the Society for the Advancement in Biology Education Research (SABER) in its Effort to Become Antiracist: From Acknowledgement to Action

  Frontiers in Education · 2021 · 11 citations

  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Social Science

  The tragic murder of Mr. George Floyd brought to the head long-standing issues of racial justice and equity in the United States and beyond. This prompted many institutions of higher education, including professional organizations and societies, to engage in long-overdue conversations about the role of scientific institutions in perpetuating racism. Similar to many professional societies and organizations, the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER), a leading international professional organization for discipline-based biology education researchers, has long struggled with a lack of representation of People of Color (POC) at all levels within the organization. The events surrounding Mr. Floyd’s death prompted the members of SABER to engage in conversations to promote self-reflection and discussion on how the society could become more antiracist and inclusive. These, in turn, resulted in several initiatives that led to concrete actions to support POC, increase their representation, and amplify their voices within SABER. These initiatives included: a self-study of SABER to determine challenges and identify ways to address them, a year-long seminar series focused on issues of social justice and inclusion, a special interest group to provide networking opportunities for POC and to center their voices, and an increase in the diversity of keynote speakers and seminar topics at SABER conferences. In this article, we chronicle the journey of SABER in its efforts to become more inclusive and antiracist. We are interested in increasing POC representation within our community and seek to bring our resources and scholarship to reimagine professional societies as catalyst agents towards an equitable antiracist experience. Specifically, we describe the 12 concrete actions that SABER enacted over a period of a year and the results from these actions so far. In addition, we discuss remaining challenges and future steps to continue to build a more welcoming, inclusive, and equitable space for all biology education researchers, especially our POC members. Ultimately, we hope that the steps undertaken by SABER will enable many more professional societies to embark on their reflection journeys to further broaden scientific communities.

  PublisherDOI

• Insights from the Inclusive Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research Network: Our Experience Organizing Inclusive Biology Education Research Events

  Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education · 2020 · 24 citations

  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Engineering ethics

  In contrast to efforts focusing on improving inclusion in STEM classrooms from kindergarten through undergraduate (K-16), efforts to improve inclusion in scientific meetings and conferences, important hubs of STEM culture, are more recent. Markers of inclusion that are sometimes overlooked at these events can include the composition of panels, how workshops are run, the affordability of conferences, and various other mechanisms that maintain pre-existing hierarchies and norms that limit the participation of early-career researchers and individuals of minoritized cultural, linguistic, and economic backgrounds. The Inclusive Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research (iEMBER) network coordinates efforts of researchers from many fields interested in diversity and inclusion in biology education. Given the concerns regarding inclusion at professional meetings, iEMBER has developed and implemented several practices in planning and executing our meetings to make them more inclusive. In this report, we share our experiences developing inclusive meetings on biology education research and discuss the outcomes of such efforts. Specifically, we present our approach to planning and executing the iEMBER 2019 conference and the National Association of Biology Teachers iEMBER 2019 workshop. This report adds to the growing body of resources on inclusive meetings, provides readers with an account of how such an attempt at implementation might unfold, and complements existing theories and work relating to the importance and functioning of such meetings in terms of representation in STEM.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Yang Dan

  University of California, Berkeley

  10 shared

• Ehud Y. Isacoff

  7 shared

• John G. Flannery

  7 shared

• Kathleen D. Kolstad

  University of California, Los Angeles

  7 shared

• Hilary P. Benton

  Foothill College

  5 shared

• Linda Wilbrecht

  5 shared

• Peter Ingmire

  San Francisco State University

  5 shared

• Dirk Trauner

  4 shared

Labs

• Caporale STEM Education Research LabPI