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Love talking with people outside my disciplines & twice recently had the opportunity to talk diversity with STEM people: "How can I possibly address diversity in my area when all of our theorists look THE SAME?" What a great question! /1
I encouraged them to lead conversation around WHY the field lacks diversity and -- a critically important point -- HOW that sameness has led to what is considered "objective" in science. Historically, what was happening that rendered this group able to do science? Were they /2
caring for children, making their own meals, and handling their laundry....or no? What was academic life like? Who got support for research? Who was considered a scientst? Then, let's ask our modern day students to close their eyes and envision a scientist. Does their current /3
vision align with the history? If so, why? Where does that come from? How do we come to envision "scientist"? (My own students are consistently floored by this exercise, btw, when I talk about role congruity theory in the context of their course evals *outside* of my class./4
They expect to see someone like me teaching them writing, but what happens when BIPOC and women are teaching them SCIENCE? I digress). From there, we might pull some data about the current state of STEM. Who is currently represented in X discipline, and why? What does the /5
literature say about the state of science for those who are not the identity of the traditional "scientist"? What are the *structures* that determine who gets to DO SCIENCE? Who is DOING SCIENCE at this very institution?
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These conversations are applicable to any discipline, I think, and I offer the ideas not as an expert but as a fellow traveler. Some of our curricular conversations are just about tilting them a bit and viewing them from a different angle. /end
