On Monday October 6, we were fortunate enough to engage in a lunchtime discussion with Dr. John Johnson, professor of astrophysics at Harvard. Dr. Johnson is the first tenured black professor at Harvard in the physical sciences. He was invited to give a talk at Brown as a part of Brown's Thinking Out Loud speaker series. Watch Dr. Johnson's riveting talk, Searching for Life Basking in the Warmth of Other Suns below. Our discussion was focused not on astrophysics, but rather on Dr. Johnson's lived experiences and his insight into the issues we are discussing in this course. Our discussion ranged from the ineffectiveness of the GRE to the necessity of attacking actions, and not people. Dr. Johnson has spent a lot of time reading up on and thinking about the issues we are discussing in this course. We really enjoyed hearing his thoughts and reading his blog.
On Monday we explored the scientist identify and specifically how it intersects, interferes or conflicts with other identities. We used a mixture of history, data, narratives and observations to inform our ideas about the “ownership” of the scientist identity. Our discussion started with a short history article detailing the transition from a female dominated computer science world to the male dominated one we have today. This piece highlighted the institutional barriers and cyclic controls that are intentionally established to push women out (and keep them out) once computer science became a science and computer scientists became scientists. Women could not own the identity scientist as long as they were women, not because these identities actually are incompatible, but because society says they are. The characterization of science and scientists by society is the root of the conflict between certain identities and the scientist identity. This is why when children are asked what a scientist looks like they all describe Albert Einstein. This is not only problematic because it is not always true, but because misrepresentation and underrepresentation do effect one’s feelings towards science and one’s ability to do science and to be a scientist. This relationship is expressed well in a paper we read that used data collected from thousands of students in many different countries to show that there is a relationship between the female/male academic performance gap and the degree to as which science is seen as male or female. Through our discussion, we affirmed how damaging the narrow description of scientist can be, but we also discovered a simple way to begin to combat it: validation. This is in no way a solution, but it is a place to start. Validate the “non-traditional” scientist and own the identity of scientist no matter one’s other identities.
Our class discussion on Wednesday the 24th focused exclusively on one reading: Whistling Vivaldi by Claude Steele. We invited Professor James Valles, chair of the physics department, in to contribute to our discussion, as we knew he had read this book before and had experience dealing with the issues surrounding stereotype threat within his own department. The sections we read in Whistling Vivaldi were Chapters 1, 2, 9, and 10. These sections first outline the definition of stereotype threat and the preliminary studies that initially outlined the phenomenon, then provide a variety of interventions and strategies that may be used to alleviate the reduced intellectual performance of groups affected by it. At its most basic level, stereotype threat occurs when the fear of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group (ex. Girls can’t do math as well as boys, Latino students aren’t as intelligent as white students, white athletes aren’t as talented as black ones, etc.) causes a type of background anxiety which impairs performance and thereby perpetuates the stereotype. Studies show that, since most people have already been exposed to our society’s set of stereotypes countless times, this threat is often “in the air” even when racial or gender stereotypes are not mentioned explicitly before people perform tasks relating to them. What this means is that it often takes a conscious effort to alleviate the problem at hand and to reduce underperformance by stereotyped groups. We started discussion by polling the room to see who had previously heard the term “stereotype threat” outside of the context of our GISP. Although quite a few students had heard it used before, some had not, and even more stated that reading sections from Steele’s book had changed the way they understood the term. A few people said that they had thought of stereotype threat as a purely individual issue rather than a systemic problem. After this reading, however, we all came to see the term as referring to something much broader and more insidious. Still, many students in the group claimed to have individually experienced this phenomenon themselves in science and math settings at Brown. A large part of this class was devoted to writing up the following list of “interventions”, many of which were suggested in Whistling Vivaldi, as strategies to alleviate stereotype threat among students at Brown:
This week we talked about feminist philosophy of science, diversity arguments, and the history of science. We read about other knowledge communities, e.g. polynesian navigators, and used this to discuss what we mean by "science". Are polynesian navigators scientists? We came up with the following list of attributes often used to describe, or even define, western science.
How Scientists would define Science
After discussing what it means to be a "scientist", we spent a significant amount of time writing down our most recent goals for the course (also known as the GISP, short for Group Independent Study Project). GISP Goals
On Monday, we looked at this NSF document and discussed whether the numbers given matched our experiences, and what we thought the report left out. We then moved on to look at an article written by Professor Anne Fausto-Sterling about a class taught at Brown in the 80s similar to ours in subject area but different in structure. For example, our class will look less at narratives and non-traditional forms of science, and more at social science. We discussed the merits of these two approaches, and decided that we were comfortable with our focus but would like to take a second look at our syllabus in light of this article and will include more readings about minority-serving institutions.
Wednesday’s class centered on establishing background in some theories in the philosophy of science, as well as drawing connections between these theories and the main subject matter of our GISP. We began by discussing Thomas Kuhn, a philosopher of science who asserts that what we think of as “normal science” exists within a given “paradigm,” and argues that transitions between paradigms are important “scientific revolutions,” which are highly influenced by non-objective/non-scientific forces. We then moved to discussing Helen Longino’s “Science as Social Knowledge,” which stresses the social factors that play into the production of scientific knowledge, and begins to critique the purported objectivity of science based on this intrusion of social forces. We then discussed the implications of these readings for the main subject matter of this GISP, i.e. race and gender in the scientific community. We discussed how social forces could lead to underrepresentation and bias within scientific fields, as well as how the social nature of science plays into paradigm choice. Of particular interest near the end of our discussion was how to translate the lessons learned from these readings into actual change. For instance, we discussed the difficulty of bringing up these issues with scientists who have never thought about them before. On Friday, influenced by Kuhn's definition of paradigm, we discussed who gets left out of the scientific community and why. We looked at the peer review process and noticed that this process allows the current scientists to shape the future generations of scientists, allowing for a conservative social structure. We then thought about what a more fair system for determining merit in the scientific community might look like. During our discussion we asked ourselves whether survival (i.e. integrating into the scientific community, and perhaps forfeiting one's unique identity in the process) or resistance (i.e. broadening the definition of a scientist to include oneself) is more important for underrepresented individuals in the scientific community. We ended our discussion with a conversation about our midterm projects, which will focus on data collection and fact finding at Brown. The goal of the first class was to create a safe space where everyone could feel comfortable sharing opinions, analysis, and experiences. Creating a safe space can be an interesting balance between promoting risk taking and critical thinking while also making sure everyone is comfortable. Although pedagogically, risk taking and being comfortable aren’t distinct and we recognize that some discomfort is indicative of learning, when dealing with the topics of race and gender, our class must also create an environment where we practice overcoming entrenched and often invisible racism and sexism. Here are some of the guidelines that we came up with and some of the discussion around them:
The problems being studied by this GISP are embedded in our society at a fundamental, structural level. But despite this large-scale nature, it is important that we not neglect the crucial role of the individual experience. To that end, our second class meeting was dedicated to a discussion of personal experiences.
Before class, each GISP member was asked to write a personal narrative piece, in which they would reflect on their personal experiences in the context of the issues being investigated in this course. During the class discussion, each student summarized the main themes of their narrative and/or shared a few excerpts from the piece. While each student’s story was unique, there were a few common concepts present in multiple narratives. One such concept was the trend of explicit exclusion. One story told of how a student was informed by a professor that their background might be insufficient for a certain class, despite this professor knowing nothing about the student’s background; quite evidently, the professor’s remark was based on the student’s demographics. Another story involved students of certain demographic groups being given explicitly different academic and career advice than students of the dominant demographic groups. Whether intentional or not, this act served to directly exclude the students in question from fully succeeding in their scientific careers. Not all interactions were as explicit as these, however. Some experiences were much more subtle, falling into a category of events known as microaggressions. Microaggressions can be defined as “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership" (Granger 2012). Multiple students shared stories of specific microaggressions that they have encountered within the scientific community. Since microaggressions are often not evident to those not directly involved, this part of the discussion was incredibly beneficial in helping the class gain a better understanding of how pervasive microaggressions are in the scientific community and why that is problematic. Another recurring concept was the higher level of expectation applied to members of underrepresented groups. One student described how, unlike members of well-represented groups, they felt that they were expected to, in some sense, earn their place in the sciences. Another student explained that they felt they only deserved to stay in their field if they were at the “top of the curve”; if their performance declined below the very best, they experienced a sense of shame that caused them to consider leaving their field. The last pervasive concept was the dichotomy between different communities at Brown with respect to these issues. Several students described the harsh difference between progressive communities at Brown, where issues of race and gender were constantly discussed, and the scientific community at Brown, where issues of race and gender were essentially never mentioned and where structural inequalities were still strongly present. Overall, the class discussion of the personal narratives proved incredibly fruitful. It enabled students to better understand the backgrounds and motivations of their classmates, and it highlighted several key issues that will undoubtedly resurface again over the course of the semester. References Granger, Nathaniel. "Microaggressions and Their Effects on the Therapeutic Process." Society for Humanistic Psychology Newsletter (Oct. 2012). APA Division 32: Society for Humanistic Psychology. American Psychological Association. Web. 17 Sept. 2014. |