Impacts of Sharing an Instructor's Religious Identity on Students in a Large-Enrollment Introductory Biology Course

Stereotypes about scientists narrow how students relate to them and influence how students see themselves in science. However, sharing identities and interests of contemporary scientists enables students to see aspects of their possible selves in that role. Previous work has demonstrated positive impacts of scientist role models on students who share marginalized identities in society and STEM, though less work has addressed whether the same positive effect would occur if the shared identity is more common in a broader societal context. We address this question by exploring the impact of an instructor revealing that she is Christian as a counter-stereotypical scientist identity in a large-enrollment undergraduate biology course. Scientists are less religious than the general population and are often stereotyped as non-religious. We found that briefly revealing the instructor's religious identity had a neutral impact on most students and that Christian students were most likely to report that the information was appropriate, positively impacted their course experience, and positively impacted their sense of inclusion. We contribute to the role model literature with an example of how shared identities positively impact students who most relate, even when the identity is not underrepresented in the educational context or across the United States.