Who gets to learn through research? Rethinking undergraduate research as inclusive pedagogy

Drawing on program records and interviews with administrators of Drexel University’s STAR program – a paid ten-week summer research experience for first-year undergraduates across disciplines at – this article examines how participation in research-based learning has been organized over twenty years. Using feminist and institutional perspectives, we analyze patterns of participation by recorded gender and academic unit to show how access to undergraduate research is shaped by disciplinary hierarchies and program design. Participation expanded over time, and that the recorded gender distribution shifted substantially, yet participation remained concentrated in STEM-oriented units and data remained limited for assessing intersectional equity. We argue that undergraduate research should be understood not only as enrichment but as pedagogy. Inclusive research pedagogy, however, depends on investment, distributed mentoring, and attention to material constraints on access. As a bounded institutional case, STAR shows how universities can assess use how research-based learning is defined, supported and made available.