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Reflections from Anne van Loon and the WCR group at IVM

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Last week we had several discussions within our research group in Amsterdam about #BlackLivesMatter, #ShutDownSTEM & racism in academia. I'm really grateful for the open exchange we had about this sensitive subject, which I think is very important. We feel we should share the outcomes of these discussions, so that others might be inspired to do the same. This is by no means a finished process; we have work to do to make academia a more diverse and inclusive place where also black people and other ethnic minorities can feel they belong and can thrive.
These are the resources we read: These are the aspects we discussed:

Our department within IVM-VU (WCR) is not ethnically diverse (staff nor PhDs)

The global protests give momentum to this discussion, help us realise the situation and think of actions

Feeling able to share is important

It takes time to evaluate people who are different from you (f.e. PhD applications, how do we evaluate an older PhD applicant with a lot of working experience)

As colleagues we need to be aware it is an extra challenge working in a Dutch culture for non-Dutch people

Also Dutch ethnic minorities face challenges in society and academia. Often the differences arise earlier (before / during / after high school), so that there are already less Dutch minorities in BSc and MSc programmes. University rankings take into account international staff & students, but not national minorities.

There are parallels with the climate change discussion and gender and other minorities (f.e. those with disabilities) in academia

Diversity has a value in itself that should be recognised

International projects should work with local scientists, employ local students, see value in being from the region (speaking local language, understanding local culture)

Why do international PhD students often get paid less (f.e. in Sandwich programmes), esp. when they often have more family responsibilities?

Role models and creating a sense of belonging are important: sometimes creating a critical mass is needed, shaping imagination, research culture and action

Those in power have the responsibility to change things

This is what we think should be done:

Suggest reviewers from the area of your paper topic

Actively approach colleagues from ethnic minority backgrounds for suggestions for vacancies (as racisms affects minorities into thinking they don't deserve that PHD spot) - do not distribute the vacancies only in our existing networks, but specifically ask other to send it around in their network (i.e. more that the "feel free to share with your network"-sentence at the end of an email)

Think of papers by people from underrepresented groups to reference in papers (this has to do with access to (publishing in) journals - an issue harder to solve but you can also work on it yourself: do not cite that paper that is cited 100times about the climate in african country X but the paper written by a scholar from african country x about african country x. Read papers originating from your study area

DO NOT WORK ON A TOPIC IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY WITHOUT GOING THERE AND CONTACTING LOCAL ACADEMIA AND OTHER STAKEHOLDERS (forcing funds to provide money to 'go on the field' will enhance our networks get more diverse)

Invite partner universities from diverse backgrounds in proposals (so not just Deltares and the Dutch Red Cross)

Sister-universities are still a thing, right? Why don't we collaborate more with other water-climate-risk research groups

General rule: Try to have the PHD group AT LEAST AS diverse as the hydrology / environmental sciences / GECP master students

Diversify the application-committee that decide on which candidate will be employed + make a list of criteria that go beyond the criteria listed in the application (i.e. did you learn a skill on your own before rather than: do you know python) - define competence / quality of phds (not only publication quality)

Write proposals with topic speaking to people from diverse background in mind / with institutes locally embedded

Do science outreach in schools, especially in schools with many minority children or as role model for girls

And based on these discussions, this is my personal list of actions (recognising that I'm one of those people in power). I will:

Be aware of my own implicit bias and privileges

Discuss diversity issues regularly with research group and department staff, listen to everyone's experience & ideas

Keep up with VU initiatives (f.e. the VU international office supporting international PhDs)

Think of underrepresented groups for references in my papers

Update lecture materials and reading assignments with papers from underrepresented groups

Nominate someone from an underrepresented background for an award

Make seminars, committees, and conferences more ethnically diverse without placing an unjust burden on underrepresented groups , at meetings: make sure everyone gets a chance to speak, at conferences: make an effort to talk to those outside my network

Create a research culture within my research group / department / international working group where everyone can feel that they belong

Advocate for diversity in hiring procedures, actively approach people from academic minority groups to encourage them to apply

As journal editor: be supportive of scientists from underrepresented groups, for example by explaining the procedure

Try more to call out or report racism, micro-aggressions when I see them or hear about them

Amplify black and other ethnic minority voices on Twitter

Figure credits: https://thelatch.com.au/black-square-instagram-movement/

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Last week we had several discussions within our research group in Amsterdam about #BlackLivesMatter, #ShutDownSTEM & racism in academia. I'm really grateful for the open exchange we had about this sensitive subject, which I think is very important. We feel we should share the outcomes of these discussions, so that others might be inspired to...

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Setting a diverse workforce up for success requires a commitment to the practices of inclusion. This means more companies need to create meeting cultures where diverse contributors have equal impact. Leaders should focus on three key areas. First, create psychological safety before the meeting even begins: send the agenda out ahead of time, welcome people by name as they enter the room, and make sure the seating accommodates everyone. During the meeting itself, manage conduct. When strong personalities over-reach, tamp down offenders, and actively bring all voices into the conversation. Finally, commit to inclusion. Explicitly define what it means, be clear about what it looks like, and hold your team accountable.

Chances are you've attended a meeting today. Was it time well spent or a soul-draining exercise in futility? Although no two meetings are the same, their collective impact on the culture of a company is significant. Meetings matter. They are the forum where people come together to discuss ideas, make decisions, and be heard. Meetings are where culture forms, grows, and takes hold.

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To Build an Inclusive Culture, Start with Inclusive Meetings

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Setting a diverse workforce up for success requires a commitment to the practices of inclusion. This means more companies need to create meeting cultures where diverse contributors have equal impact. Leaders should focus on three key areas.

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Ten easy ways you can support diversity in academia

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Ten easy ways you can support diversity in academia

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by Jacquelyn Gill:
1. Start a diversity journal club
2. Write a lab mission statement
3. Ask your chair for a diversity training or workshop
4. Nominate someone from an underrepresented background for an award
5. Make your seminars, committees, and conferences diverse
6. Have discussions with your students about harassment and safety
7. Focus on hiring and retention
8. Model good behavior
9. Support diverse work and ideas with your voice and your dollars
10. Talk openly about your struggles as well as your successes

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It's resolution season, which means we're spending more time than usual assessing ourselves, our efforts, and our goals. I've had a few people reach out to me lately asking me for suggestions on how to actively promote diversity in their departments, so I thought I'd share some strategies that are relatively easy. Not everyone is in a position where they can rock the boat - you can't always call out a senior colleague, or start a letter campaign about an unfair policy - and many diversity issues are likely outside most of our scope of influence (It might be ineffective to put "improve maternity policy" on your list of things to do this year, because you're not likely to personally make traction in that regard).

So what do you do if you have good intentions and a desire to do your part for diversity in 2016, but you're not in higher administration? Let's say you're educating yourself on diversity issues, and you're ready to add something tangible to your annual list of goals. Here are some suggestions:

1. Start a diversity journal club. A regular gathering where you talk about diversity research is a really great way to start conversations, to subtly educate your colleagues and students, and to highlight areas for improvement. The beauty of this is that, as academics, we tend to appreciate scholarship, and so we give it a certain cachet over personal anecdotes. We have data on what works and what doesn't work to improve diversity! Data! Who doesn't love data!? You can pair this up with #diversityjc on Twitter, or you can focus on your discipline or a subset of diversity issues relevant to your department's needs - maybe focus on teaching, for example. This is something anyone can do, from graduate students to department chairs. I recommend having a rotation of people suggesting papers and leading discussion, and modeling pro-diversity structures in your meetings (sit in a circle, have moderators who don't let just a few people dominate discussion, let students speak first, etc.).
2. Write a lab mission statement. One thing I found really valuable was to sit down with my lab and write our mission statement: who we are, what we do, and what we stand for. We made a special effort to include everyone, from undergrads to lab techs, and we explicitly addressed diversity. The mission statement then goes on your lab website, where it lets prospective students, your colleagues, and others know that diversity is something you value as much as your scholarship. This was inspired by my grad lab (you can read the Williams Lab mission statement here). You can read the BEAST lab's mission statement here.
3. Ask your chair for a diversity training or workshop. There are professionals and nonprofits dedicated to bringing discussions about diversity to professional settings. Not all of these are equally good, so it's worth asking around about local options. While the Ada Initiative no longer offers the Ally Skills Workshops, it's still possible to contact them to find a trainer (I'm one!), and all the materials are online. ESA's SEEDS program also does a nice training for mentors. A workshop, either for your department, through your university's ADVANCE program, or even in your lab, can be a great way to get some hands-on skills and ideas. One thing, about these, though: there's evidence that making them mandatory backfires, so it's better to research what's available, find a good fit for your program, keep it optional, and then find as many people as you can to go.

4. Nominate someone from an underrepresented background for an award. Women, people of color, GLBTQ folks, and people with disabilities are highly underrepresented in awards, especially at the national level. Awards like these can help with tenure and promotion, and also help raise the visibility of underrepresented scholars. Find out what medals your society gives out each year, and make a pledge that you'll nominate someone from an underrepresented group for one of them. Put the nomination deadline on your calendar, and give yourself another note well in advance to start preparing a nomination. Note: try to do this for regular, not "diversity" awards. Women, for example, are often ignored for regular awards under the assumption that they'll be eligible for "women's" awards.

5. Make your seminars, committees, and conferences diverse. If you're an organizer, make sure your department seminars, panel discussions, symposia applications, workshops, and other scholarly endeavors are balanced and diverse - and don't be afraid to ask for help if you need suggestions for great speakers to add (Twitter is great for this). Make a personal pledge to decline to participate on all-male panels, and let organizers know why you're turning them down. I guarantee there are strong scholars out there from underrepresented backgrounds, and finding names will not be hard. If someone turns you down (which they may, especially if they get hit up a lot), don't just give up; ask for some alternatives, and keep trying until you succeed.

6. Have discussions with your students about harassment and safety. Last year, Josh Drew and I hosted a workshop at ESA about ways you can make your fieldwork safer for everyone (we're coming up with some best practices now, so stay tuned). You can start a conversation with a lab reading of the Clancy et al., 2014 SAFE paper on the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault in the field, and brainstorm some ideas about policies that will make your fieldwork safer. Familiarize yourself with your university's policies - are you a mandatory reporter? Do you or your students know who to contact if they've been assaulted or harassed? Do your conferences have harassment policies? Where are the gaps, either in your knowledge or in university regulations? This may be a tough conversation, so do some background reading, and reach out to colleagues first. Consider inviting someone to help lead this discussion if you're really uncomfortable (we had Katie Hinde, an author of the SAFE study, lead a presentation in our lab when she gave a departmental seminar, and invited students from other labs). Go into this from a reporter-centered place; university policies are often designed more to protect themselves from liability, which means that the people who report harassment are often left without a lot of support. You probably won't have all the answers, but having the conversation is important, especially in letting your students know that you support them and that you won't tolerate harassment of any kind in your lab.

7. Focus on hiring and retention. If you sit on a hiring committee this year, you can advocate for diversity in your candidates. On a recent hire I was involved with, the chair sent out resources on things like implicit bias and gendered language in letters of recommendation, and coached us to avoid certain kinds of wording when we ranked candidates. This was all really helpful! However, many departments are focusing so strongly on hiring that they miss a crucial aspect of diversity: retention. This is more of a task for the department chairs out there, but make it a point to find out why people leave (do you do exit interviews?), what your current faculty need to succeed that they may not be getting, and find out whether you're modeling good behavior as a leader in your department. If your department doesn't have a structure in place for mentoring or supporting new faculty members, start one (and request one if you're a new professor).
8. Model good behavior. Often, we get so concerned with the big picture that we miss the small things, including how our own actions might be contributing to a hostile climate for underrepresented students or faculty. Volunteering do work like that's historically been considered "women's work," like note-taking or hosting a department social is a really good resolution for male faculty. If your partner is an academic (which is likelier for women than for men, so this becomes a diversity issue) do a long, hard assessment of whether you're doing an equal share of domestic work and childcare. Tenure, She Wrote's Don't Be That Dude has some really handy suggestions for male faculty on how to avoid bad behavior.
9. Support diverse work and ideas with your voice and your dollars. There are lots of people doing great work, and if you have a voice, consider being generous with how you use it to support people from underrepresented backgrounds. Seek out, read, share, and promote diverse scholarship, blog posts, achievements, opportunities, and efforts. Put your money where your mouth is: contribute your funds to crowd-sourced science by underrepresented scholars, and donate to diversity initiatives (like ESA's SEEDS or your local SACNAS chapter) and scholarships.

10. Talk openly about your struggles as well as your successes. Scholars from underrepresented backgrounds face unique challenges, but there's one that we all share: rejection. Having a paper or proposal declined, or an experiment go terribly wrong, can be really demoralizing even for the most successful amongst us, but for someone weighing whether to stay in academia on a daily basis, they can be devastating. Whenever I've shared my failures or struggles, whether with math anxiety in college, the death of a parent, a rejected proposal, or the challenges of a long-distance partnership, I'm contacted by women (usually grad students) who are grateful to hear they're not alone. Hearing that even successful academics struggle can be surprisingly helpful. One colleague of mine has a Wall of Rejection, where everyone (including him!) tapes print-outs of paper and grant rejections. It's surprisingly inspiring, and it normalizes failure as something related to success.

These are just a few suggestions to get you started; feel free to add more in the comments. One important thing I've learned is not to leave it to women and underrepresented minorities to do all the diversity work - if you're in a position where you can say something and be an advocate, as long as you're not speaking over (or for) others, that can make a huge difference. You should involve a diverse group of people in your efforts, but also don't be afraid to reach out to your "overrepresented" colleagues and invite them to join conversations or efforts to improve.

Categories: Academia Diversity Good Causes Professional Development Tips & Tricks Women in Science

Tagged as: faculty life lab life mentoring STEM diversity

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Ten easy ways you can support diversity in academia

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It's resolution season, which means we're spending more time than usual assessing ourselves, our efforts, and our goals. I've had a few people reach out to me lately asking me for suggestions on how to actively promote diversity in their departments, so I thought I'd share some strategies that are relatively easy.

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Abstract

Informed by the theoretical lens of opportunity hoarding, this study considers whether STEM postsecondary fields stand apart via the disproportionate exclusion of Black and Latina/o youth. Utilizing national data from the Beginning Postsecondary Study (BPS), the authors investigate whether Black and Latina/o youth who begin college as STEM majors are more likely to depart than their White peers, either by switching fields or by leaving college without a degree, and whether patterns of departure in STEM fields differ from those in non-STEM fields. Results reveal evidence of persistent racial/ethnic inequality in STEM degree attainment not found in other fields.

In recent decades, scholars have directed considerable attention to disparities in educational outcomes in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This focus is motivated at least in part by the U.S. government's expressed need for more STEM workers to maintain not only the nation's economic prominence but also its status as the global leader of technological and scientific innovation ( National Academy of Science, 2010). Yet in contrast to the large body of research on the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields, there is much less research on postsecondary patterns of racial/ethnic inequality in STEM. To this point, despite a number of recent national studies showing that Black and Latina/o youth are as likely to enter STEM majors as their White peers ( Chen, 2009; Garrison, 2013; Riegle-Crumb & King, 2010; Xie, Fang, & Shauman, 2015), little national research examines their subsequent persistence to degree within a comparative context that also considers inequality across the larger U.S. postsecondary landscape.

Specifically, our study aims to contribute new insights regarding whether racial/ethnic inequality in patterns of STEM persistence might be distinct from inequality observed in other fields. Using a sociological lens, we consider whether STEM fields represent a key location of opportunity hoarding ( Tilly, 1997), such that White privilege on the one hand, and the relative exclusion of Black and Latina/o youth on the other, may be greatest in these fields with high levels of social and economic value ( Hershbein & Kearney, 2014; Xie & Killewald, 2012). Prior research provides some evidence of higher departure rates among underrepresented minority youth who initially declare STEM majors relative to their White peers. However, these studies are generally limited in scope as they typically fail to consider whether similar patterns are also found in non-STEM fields, and also omit students who leave college without a degree entirely (e.g., Chang, Sharkness, Hurtado, & Newman, 2014; Eagan, Hurtado, Figueroa, & Hughes, 2015). Regarding the latter point, as Black and Latina/o youth have lower rates of college attainment relative to Whites, it is critical to consider college exits, as well as changes in major, as pathways out of STEM for minority youth ( Snyder & Dillow, 2012). In sum, understanding whether STEM fields stand out as a particularly pernicious case of inequality in higher education-consistent with the theory of opportunity hoarding-requires the consideration of racial/ethnic differences in types of persistence pathways across different fields of study.

Thus, using national data on a recent cohort of college matriculates from the Beginning Postsecondary Study (BPS), we investigate whether Black and Latina/o youth who begin college as STEM majors are more likely to depart, and thus are less likely to earn a STEM degree, than their White peers. Accordingly, we focus on two distinct pathways for departure: switching to another major and leaving college altogether. Importantly, we consider whether patterns of racial/ethnic departure in STEM fields differ from those in business, social sciences, and the humanities. Our analyses also examine whether racial/ethnic persistence gaps across these different fields remain after accounting for inequality in high school academic preparation, given prior evidence of educational opportunity hoarding, for example, through the exclusion of minority youth from advanced high school coursework ( Lewis & Diamond, 2015). Results from this study will improve understanding of whether STEM fields stand apart by disproportionately excluding minority students who, at college entry, are comparable to their White peers on a host of critical factors. Ultimately, we seek to contribute new substantive and empirical knowledge that situates disparities in STEM degree attainment within the larger context of racial/ethnic inequality.

Literature Review

In outlining his theory of categorical inequality between social groups, Tilly (1997, 2000) proposes the concept of opportunity hoarding as foundational to understanding inequality. Within the opportunity hoarding framework, members of an in-group secure and subsequently maintain access to a resource that is both limited and highly valued-one that provides an advantage at present and into the future. According to Tilly, while the initial rationale for seizing the valuable opportunity is in-group favoritism, maintaining access (and all its related benefits) requires systematizing control and excluding out-group members through identity-defining boundaries, such that "whole sets of people on one side of a boundary or the other fare differently" ( 2007, p. 246). While more historical examples of hoarding focus on access to land or certain sectors of the labor market, sociologists of education argue that a clear example of opportunity hoarding emerges when groups create social advantages through some form of educational segregation and, thus, essentially gain control of education as a highly valuable resource ( Anderson, 2010; Lewis & Diamond, 2015; Lewis-McCoy, 2014). Further, education scholars building on Tilly's work argue that in contemporary times, one of the primary and most powerful mechanisms through which the in-group creates and maintains such advantages is the construction and perpetuation of stereotyped assumptions and beliefs regarding the attributes of members of the out-group, which are then used to justify their exclusion ( Anderson, 2010; Lewis & Diamond, 2015).

Recent studies have used the lens of opportunity hoarding to investigate racial/ethnic inequality both between and within K-12 schools ( Anderson, 2010). For example, Hanselman and Fiel (2017) examine how White and Asian families might hoard high-achieving or high-growth elementary schools as a way of maintaining their educational privilege. Similarly, Rury and Saatcioglu (2011) consider racial/ethnic segregation between suburbs and cities, arguing that this reflects a process of advantage-seeking on the part of White suburbanites that enables them to hoard the best educational opportunities. Other studies point to the hoarding of valuable educational resources within high schools, where privileged youth are often disproportionately represented in the most advanced academic classes ( Kelly, 2009; Kelly & Price, 2011; Lewis & Diamond, 2015; Lewis-McCoy, 2014), which provide them subsequent benefits for both access to and performance in college. Indeed, Lewis and Diamond's (2015) qualitative study of a high school serving an affluent and diverse district provides a compelling account of the mechanisms at work, where the biased beliefs and actions of White parents, their children, and the teachers in the school all coalesce in sometimes nuanced ways, ultimately leading to the systematic exclusion of many minority youth from advanced classes.

In this article, we extend these insights from research on K-12 schooling to the realm of postsecondary education. Specifically, we consider STEM postsecondary fields as a site of racial/ethnic opportunity hoarding among those who successfully matriculate to college. As STEM fields are highly esteemed and perceived as economically prosperous, we argue that they stand out amidst potential college majors as a highly valuable resource that leverages tangible earning and status potential. National studies confirm that STEM-related occupations are viewed as more prestigious and important than social science or business-related careers and that the lifetime earnings of those with STEM degrees tend to be substantially higher than those from other fields ( Arcidiacono, 2004; Hershbein & Kearney, 2014; Xie & Killewald, 2012).1 Coupled with prevailing public discourse about the importance of STEM ( National Academy of Science, 2010), it stands to reason that obtaining a STEM degree could be considered a highly valued opportunity. Indeed, Tilly argues that scientific-technical knowledge is increasingly important-"looming larger by the day" as an inequality-generating resource-contributing to a categorical distinction between scientists and nonscientists ( 2007, p. 252).

As such, we posit that the prevalence or overrepresentation of White students in STEM postsecondary degree attainment relative to their minority peers is a critical instance of opportunity hoarding. As noted earlier, national studies indicate that Black and Latina/o college students declare STEM majors at the same rate as their White peers ( Xie, Fang, & Shauman, 2015), which suggests that they enter college with comparable levels of interest in obtaining such a degree. Yet White privilege can be both enacted and preserved if minority students exit STEM majors at comparatively higher rates and racial/ethnic gaps in persistence are greater in STEM fields than in other majors. Thus, particularly high rates of switching majors or leaving college among minority youth in STEM majors or, put differently, particularly high rates of major persistence and degree completion among White STEM majors, would provide evidence consistent with theories of opportunity hoarding.

The extant empirical literature, although limited, provides some evidence of racial/ethnic gaps in STEM degree persistence. Indeed, a handful of recent studies investigating patterns within a single university or several selected universities have found that White STEM majors are more likely to persist than their minority peers ( Arcidiacono, Aucejo, & Hotz, 2016; Dickson, 2010; Price, 2010). For example, in an analysis of several public universities in Ohio, Price (2010) found that by the third year of college, 63% of White students who begin in STEM majors are still in their chosen field of study compared to only 48% of Black students. A few national studies also report gaps in STEM persistence ( Chang et al., 2014; Eagan et al., 2015; Griffith, 2010). For instance, a recent study by Eagan and colleagues (2015) found that 43% of White students who intended to major in STEM ultimately graduated with a STEM degree, compared to only 29% of Latina/o students and 22% of Black students with similar intentions. While such national studies are informative, they do not compare racial/ethnic gaps in persistence to those in non-STEM fields, making it impossible to determine whether this pattern is specific to, or at least more pronounced, in STEM fields. Moreover, despite evidence of markedly higher rates of college dropout for minority students than for White students ( Snyder & Dillow, 2012), national studies examining racial/ethnic differences in exits from STEM have not typically considered exits in the form of leaving college altogether (e.g., Ferrare & Lee, 2014).2

Thus, stepping back, we argue that extant research on racial/ethnic gaps in STEM fields has not examined how observed disparities fit within larger patterns of inequality pervading the national postsecondary landscape. The theoretical lens of opportunity hoarding provides reasons to expect that racial/ethnic gaps in persistence may in fact be unique to and/or particularly pronounced in STEM compared to other majors, as the high social and economic value associated with STEM degrees makes them a prime location for hoarding on the part of those with privilege, namely, Whites. Conversely, it is possible that relatively higher rates of switching majors for minority versus majority youth, and in particular higher rates of leaving college without a degree, are quite consistent across different postsecondary fields. If so, then evidence of opportunity hoarding by Whites would arguably be found through the relative exclusion of minority youth from college degree attainment more generally, but not particular to certain fields.

To better understand these issues, we turn to a large-scale empirical investigation that examines patterns of departure (both switching and leaving) by race/ethnicity in both STEM and non-STEM fields. To ascertain the degree to which STEM fields may stand out, we account for an array of precollege individual characteristics (e.g., social class background) and institutional characteristics (e.g., selectivity) that are likely associated with race/ethnicity as well as persistence in STEM fields and college in general ( Arcidiacono et al., 2016; Griffith, 2010). Importantly, we pay particular attention to the role of academic preparation in high school. As discussed earlier, White students have likely benefited from previous opportunity hoarding in the K-12 system ( Kelly & Price, 2011; Lewis & Diamond, 2015), providing them with higher average levels of academic achievement then their minority peers, which in turn enables White students to enter college in a more academically advanced position. Indeed, some prior research points to racial/ethnic differences in academic preparation as a prominent explanation for subsequent disparities in STEM persistence ( Chang et al., 2014; Price, 2010; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997). And while prior achievement gaps likely impact attainment across the postsecondary landscape, such gaps may be particularly consequential for persistence in STEM fields, whose norms prescribe that entering students have already mastered an established corpus of knowledge and acquired high levels of prerequisite skills (National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016).

Thus, our analyses address the following research questions:

1. Are Black and Latina/o youth who begin college in STEM majors more likely to depart than White students, either by switching fields and earning a degree in a different major or by leaving college without a degree?

2. If so, to what extent do racial/ethnic gaps in STEM persistence remain net of other factors, particularly high school academic preparation?

3. Do racial/ethnic gaps in persistence to degree appear to be unique or more pronounced among STEM majors than in other fields (i.e., business, social sciences, or humanities)?

Data and Methods

To answer these questions, we use data from the 2004/09 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS: 04/09), designed and administered by the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES). BPS is a nationally representative study of postsecondary students who began college in 2003-2004 (for more details, see http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012246.pdf). Our analytic sample includes Black, Latina/o, and White students who attended a 4-year, not-for-profit, degree-granting institution. As our focus is on racial/ethnic differences in earning baccalaureate degrees, we include students who began college at a 4-year institution, and also those who started in a 2-year institution and later transfer to a 4-year institution. Additionally, as our study examines persistence patterns in STEM and non-STEM fields, our analytic sample includes students whose first declared major was in a STEM field (e.g., biological sciences, computer science, engineering, mathematics, and physical science), as well as those whose first major was in business, the humanities, or social sciences. Analyses include the panel weight (WTB000) created by NCES to account for sampling design, unequal probability of selection into the sample, and probability of attrition from the sample ( Wine, Janson, & Wheeless, 2011). Missing data were replaced using multiple imputation with chained equations in Stata, which combines results from multiple datasets according to Ruben's rules ( Royston, 2005).

Students' initially declared major was reported during their first year of college. For those who were initially undeclared, we used their response in the first follow-up survey instead (a dummy variable indicating late reported majors is included in multivariate analyses). As seen in Figure 1, our data reveal strong evidence of racial/ethnic similarities in choice of major. Specifically, 19% of White youth declare a STEM major, compared to 20% of Latina/o students and 18% of Black students.3 A strong similarity also exists in the selection of non-STEM majors, particularly for White and Latina/o students, who declare majors in business, humanities, and social sciences at virtually identical rates. The major choices of Black college matriculates deviate slightly, such that the only statistically significant difference across racial/ethnic groups is found when comparing Black students' rates of declaring business majors, as they are significantly more likely to do so than either White or Latina/o students. Yet overall, and consistent with prior national research, patterns for choice of major are strikingly similar across racial/ethnic groups.

Dependent Variable

Our focal dependent variable is a categorical measure that distinguishes between the following three outcomes: persisting in the initially chosen major field and earning a degree in that field, switching to a college major in another field and earning a degree in that new field, and leaving college altogether without obtaining a degree.4 Descriptive patterns for our dependent variable by race/ethnicity are shown in Figure 2. Beginning with those who declare a STEM major, while 58% of White students persist to earn a STEM degree, the percentage of Latina/o students (43%) and Black students (34%) who persist is significantly lower (than the percent who do not persist). Across the other columns, White students' persistence rates in non-STEM fields hover around 50%, revealing a statistically significant persistence advantage compared to both Black and Latina/o students in business, and compared to Black students in social science (although the gaps in both of these fields appear smaller than in STEM fields). Among humanities students, 50% or more of White, Black, and Latina/o students persist to earn a degree in their chosen field, with no significant differences between racial/ethnic groups.

Returning to pathways of STEM majors, we see that both Latina/o and Black students have significantly higher rates of switching (about 37% and 40%, respectively) compared to White students (29%). Latina/o STEM majors (20%) and Black STEM majors (26%) are also significantly more likely to leave school without a degree compared to White STEM majors (13%). Thus, the lower relative persistence-to-degree rates observed among minority STEM majors are the result of a greater likelihood of both switching to another field and leaving college without a degree in any field. By contrast, a review of patterns for other fields reveals that Black and Latina/o youth have comparable switching rates to White youth. The only exception is the humanities, where Black students are significantly less likely to switch than White students. For rates of leaving school altogether without a degree, we see a similar pattern for business and social science as we did for STEM, namely that Latina/o and Black youth have significantly higher rates of departure than their White peers. Once again, the Humanities stand in contrast, with comparable percentages of students from all groups leaving school.

In sum, these descriptive statistics provide some initial evidence of racial/ethnic differences in persisting to degree in some non-STEM fields (business and social sciences) as well as in STEM fields. Notably, for students in STEM fields, this is the result of gaps in both rates of leaving school and rates of switching majors; whereas in the non-STEM fields mentioned, differences in persistence to degree are primarily driven by differences in rates of leaving school without a degree.

Independent Variables

Since majority and minority youth are likely to have divergent social and academic backgrounds and also likely to attend different institutions, our multivariate models control on such factors. For social background, we include measures of parental education, family income, place of birth (U.S. vs. not), and gender. We also include students' age and an indicator of working full-time or part-time (vs. not). Additional controls include transfer status and an indicator distinguishing those who declared their major after their freshman year. As research has found that institutional characteristics are related to college persistence overall, as well as persistence in STEM fields ( Arcidiacono et al., 2016; Griffith 2010), we include measures for sector and selectivity, and separate indicators for whether the institution is a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) or a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). The coding of all variables is explained in detail in the online Appendix (see Tables A.1-A.4, which are available on the journal website, for descriptive statistics by race/ethnicity and field of study).

Finally, as we are particularly interested in the role that prior academic preparation may have in explaining disparities in persistence, our subsequent multivariate analyses also include four separate measures: SAT score, high school GPA, advanced math course-taking (pre-calculus or calculus vs. not), and science course-taking (4 years of science vs. not). Before turning to these multivariate analyses, we also explore racial/ethnic differences in these independent variables. Specifically, to ascertain whether minority STEM majors enter college with very different academic profiles than their majority peers, and how this compares to patterns in other fields, we calculated effect sizes (differences between group means divided by the pooled standard deviation) for each measure of prior academic preparation.

Figure 3 displays the effect sizes for both Black-White and Latina/o-White differences. Across the board, we see that gaps in academic performance between Latina/o students and their White peers are smaller than those observed between Black and White youth. Across majors, Black-White gaps in SAT scores are greater than those for high school GPA or math course-taking. But in general, gaps in academic preparation look quite similar across STEM, business, and social science majors, while being somewhat smaller among humanities majors. For Latina/o-White comparisons, gaps in academic preparation appear very similar among STEM, humanities, and social science majors, with the smallest gaps observed among business majors. Thus, there is little evidence to suggest that STEM fields are unique in terms of their population of students from different racial/ethnic backgrounds or the disparate levels of academic preparation of these students. Given the prevalence of reduced opportunities to learn, including opportunities to both encounter and master college preparatory material, among minority youth in K-12 schools across the country compared to the opportunities available to White youth, this is perhaps not surprising.

Analytic Plan for Multivariate Analyses

To further examine racial/ethnic differences in the likelihood of switching, leaving, and persisting from initial major, we turn to multivariate models. Specifically, we estimated logistic regression models predicting the likelihood of switching versus persisting ( Table 1) and leaving versus persisting ( Table 2).5 We perform separate models for students based on their initial major to show potential racial/ethnic differences in persistence patterns across fields. All models account for the clustering of students within institutions, as well as the multistage design of the BPS ( Wine et al., 2011; see the online appendix [on the journal website] for more details). The baseline model includes only race/ethnicity; to ensure that observed racial/ethnic patterns are not confounded by social background or the characteristics of the institutions that students attend, in Model 2 we add the control variables mentioned earlier. Finally, in Model 3 we add measures of high school academic preparation to assess whether any racial/ethnic gaps in persistence may be explained by their inclusion. Consequently, any remaining inequality is strongly suggestive of something particular to the field itself rather than other characteristics of individuals or their institutions. All results are presented as average marginal effects, such that the race coefficients represent the percentage point difference in the likelihood of switching versus persisting ( Table 1) or the likelihood of leaving versus persisting ( Table 2).

Predicting the Likelihood of Switching Fields Versus Persisting to Degree: Marginal Effects

Predicting the Likelihood of Leaving College Versus Persisting to Degree: Marginal Effects

Results

Switch Versus Persist

Beginning with STEM majors, in the baseline model we see that compared to their White peers, both Black and Latina/o students have significantly higher probabilities of switching out of a STEM major and completing a degree in a non-STEM field than persisting and earning a STEM degree. Specifically, the probability of a Black student switching majors rather than persisting in the major field is about 19 percentage points higher than the probability of a White student; the corresponding probability for a Latina/o student is about 13 percentage points higher than that of a White student. With the addition of social background and institutional characteristics (Model 2), the marginal effect comparing Black students to White students is not reduced and remains significant. However, the average marginal effect for Latina/o students is reduced and no longer statistically significant; additional analyses reveal that it is the inclusion of social background measures that accounts for the difference between models. Finally, once we condition on academic preparation in high school in Model 3, the average marginal effect comparing the probability of switching for Black students compared to White students decreases to about 14 percentage points. Thus, it appears that while academic preparation does contribute to Black students' higher likelihood of switching versus persisting in STEM majors relative to their White peers, it clearly falls short of explaining this disparity.

The remaining columns present parallel results for students who enter non-STEM fields in college. Across baseline models for business and social science majors, there are no statistically significant racial/ethnic differences in the likelihood of switching majors versus persisting to earn a degree in the original field; this remains the case with the addition of other variables in Models 2 and 3. However, among students who initially declared a major in the humanities, Black students are significantly less likely than White students to switch fields; this disparity remains robust across subsequent models. Stepping back, the results in Table 1 reveal that higher switching rates for minority students relative to White students is a pattern that is indeed specific to STEM fields; further, a Black-White gap remains even after accounting for differences in high school academic preparation, as well as other individual and institutional characteristics. To better illustrate this disparity, we estimated average adjusted predictions from the final model, which reveal that while the probability of switching for White students in STEM majors is .35, the probability for Black students is .40.

Leave Versus Persist

Table 2 presents results for the likelihood of leaving school without a degree versus persisting and earning a degree in the chosen field (the reference category). Relative to their White peers (and again consistent with Figure 2), results reveal that Black and Latina/o STEM majors are significantly more likely to leave school than persist in their original field. Looking across the baseline models for other fields reveals some significant racial/ethnic gaps in non-STEM fields as well. Specifically, Black and Latina/o students in both business and social science majors are significantly more likely than their White peers to leave school rather than persist to earn a degree in their chosen field.

Returning to results for STEM majors, with the addition of social background and other control variables in Model 2, racial/ethnic gaps remain quite robust. Finally, with the addition of academic preparation in Model 3, the average marginal effect comparing Black and White youth decreases, but remains statistically significant and substantial in size, such that the difference in the probability of leaving school for Black versus White students decreases to about 15 percentage points compared to about 20 percentage points in previous models. Latina/o students also remain significantly more likely to leave school compared to Whites, with an average difference of about 14 percentage points.6

For non-STEM fields, a different pattern exists. Specifically, among students in business majors, racial/ethnic gaps in leaving school (vs. persisting to earn a business degree) for both Latina/o and Black students compared to White peers are explained in Model 2; additional analyses confirm that social background characteristics account for the different results across models. This is also the case for the Latina/o-White gap in leaving rates among students in the social sciences. For Black students in this last field, however, it is the inclusion of academic preparation measures in Model 3 that accounts for their higher relative likelihood (compared to White students) of leaving college without a degree. Thus, for non-STEM fields, racial/ethnic differences in the likelihood of leaving school versus persisting in a chosen field are fully explained, whereas substantial and significant persistence gaps that favor Whites only remain in STEM fields. Average adjusted predicted probabilities from the final model for STEM majors indicate that the probability of leaving school remains higher for both Black and Latina/o STEM majors (.33) than for their White peers (.25).

Discussion and Conclusion

Although there is much concern about the underrepresentation of minorities in STEM fields, the extant empirical literature has yet to provide a clear understanding of whether STEM fields nationwide comprise an important and unique location of racial/ethnic inequality or, instead, one of many manifestations of White privilege consistent across postsecondary fields. Using the theoretical framework of opportunity hoarding ( Tilly, 1997), our study addresses this issue by examining whether these fields, which are highly valued both socially and economically, stand apart via the disproportionate exclusion of Black and Latina/o youth from degree attainment, net of an array of factors. Consistent with this theory, our results reveal that STEM fields do indeed appear to be unique from other fields.

First, regarding departures via switching majors, we note that STEM is the only field where Black and Latina/o youth are significantly more likely than their White peers to switch and earn a degree in another field. For Latina/o students, this difference is explained by social class background; however, for Black students, this disparity remains pronounced and significant even after accounting for the differences in high school academic preparation. Additionally, while minority youth in other non-STEM fields are more likely than their White peers to leave school rather than persist to earn a degree in their chosen field, our analyses reveal that these disparities are fully explained by social background and other model controls. But this is not the case for STEM fields, where substantial gaps remain. Indeed, we find these gaps the most troubling, as they reveal a comparatively high probability of exit from college specific to minority youth who enter college as STEM majors. In summary, we find evidence of White privilege in STEM degree attainment that is not mirrored in other major fields.

Although our study finds empirical evidence consistent with theories of opportunity hoarding, we cannot unpack the specific causal mechanisms that underlie the relative hoarding of these socially and economically valuable degrees by White students. Past qualitative research makes a compelling case that STEM degree programs and college classrooms are purposively constructed as exclusionary spaces where students must essentially prove that they deserve to stay ( Beasley 2011; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997). While such spaces are challenging to navigate for most students, minority students experience these spaces while subjected to specific stereotypes about their presumed inferior cognitive and mathematical ability. Put briefly, in STEM contexts, the presence of stereotype threat is likely to be very high ( Beasley & Fischer, 2012; Woodcock, Hernandez, Estrada, & Schultz, 2012). Indeed, theories of opportunity hoarding point to the role of stereotypes as a key factor through which the in-group creates and maintains privilege, particularly in contemporary times when "egalitarian norms have forced boundary practices underground, to unconscious cognitive processes" ( Anderson, 2010). Thus, micro-aggressions and a relative lack of support and inclusion on the part of faculty and fellow classmates (both of whom are predominantly White) likely contribute to minority students' experiences and feelings of exclusion ( McGee, 2016; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997) and, as such, are strongly implicated in the hoarding of STEM degrees among White students.

Notably, compared to the results for Latina/o students, results for Black students appear more substantial in magnitude and more robust to the inclusion of covariates. While our study is unable to assess why this might be the case, it is consistent with other research finding larger educational disparities between Black and White students than between Latina/o and White students ( Kao & Thompson, 2003). As discussed earlier, we also find that Black-White differences in high school academic preparation are more pronounced than Latina/o-White differences. Regarding remaining disparities in the likelihood of switching majors, research on the history and persistence of racialized bias and deficit thinking directed particularly to Blacks (and less so toward Latinas/os) speaks to the perhaps unique, socially isolated position of being Black in a college STEM classroom ( Valencia, 1997). Finally, due to data limitations, our study was not able to unpack differences across fields within the larger category of STEM; the literature on gender inequality in STEM fields has called attention to the value of doing so ( Xie et al., 2015), and comparative studies with new data sources focusing on race/ethnicity should surely add to this foundation.

In acknowledging the limitations of our study, we hope that future research will critically investigate the factors that may deter or block the STEM ambitions of minority students to the relative advantage of White students and, in doing so, examine the classroom cultures and related experiences of students in different STEM fields as well as other non-STEM fields. Through a comparative study of such issues, researchers (as well as educators and policymakers) can continue to gain insight into how STEM fields stand apart in their relative exclusion of minority youth and also learn whether and how some fields may construct more inclusive environments. Relatedly, in recent years, there has been a proliferation of very promising efforts to make STEM college classrooms more inclusive and more engaging for all students, for example, by using less direct instruction and incorporating more research opportunities and mentoring; however, we need a better sense of whether and how such efforts are successful in reaching minority youth in STEM fields across the country ( Chang et al., 2014; Lane, 2016; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016).

Finally, some research posits that minority students often place a high value on using their education as a way of giving back and improving the lives of others ( Beasley, 2011; Guiffrida, 2003; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997). We do not discount the possibility that as such, minority students may perceive that a sense of social responsibility is incompatible with STEM fields, shaping their decisions to depart. This explanation arguably views minority students as having more agency and actively making a choice to pursue degrees they perceive to align more closely with their priorities. But returning to the framework of opportunity hoarding, we caution that narratives dictating who belongs in STEM, as well as pervading images of STEM fields as inconsistent with the values of social justice or communal goals, are largely created and reinforced by those who have successfully hoarded access to STEM fields in the first place. Much more research is needed to fully understand the complex processes that maintain STEM fields as exclusive and racialized spaces.

Notes

References

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Authors

CATHERINE RIEGLE-CRUMB is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd Street, Mail Stop G1800, Austin, Texas, 78712; [email protected]utexas.edu . Her research focuses on inequality in educational experiences and outcomes, with a particular focus on how social contexts shape inequality in STEM fields.

BARBARA KING is an associate professor at Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th St., Miami, FL 33199; [email protected]edu . Her research focuses on gender and racial/ethnic inequality in college STEM majors.

YASMIYN IRIZARRY is an assistant professor at The University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd Street, Mail Stop G1800, Austin, Texas 78712; [email protected]utexas.edu . Her research focuses on inequality in K-16 schooling contexts, with special attention to racialized tracking and the STEM-related experiences and trajectories of Black and Latinx youth.

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Does STEM Stand Out? Examining Racial/Ethnic Gaps in Persistence Across Postsecondary Fields - Catherine Riegle-Crumb, Barbara King, Yasmiyn Irizarry, 2019

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Abstract Informed by the theoretical lens of opportunity hoarding, this study considers whether STEM postsecondary fields stand apart via the disproportionate exclusion of Black and Latina/o youth.

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what were the currents that helped us along our path without us realising it?

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This isn't explicitly bike related, but I've been thinking a lot about equity lately. In part, it's because of a post over at BikePortland, the blog for bike-related news and thoughts here, that describes a newly-created position in the Portland Bureau of Transportation: an Equity and Inclusion Manager.

As I write this, many of the comments left by various readers can be summed up as "what a humongous waste of money" - which in some cases sounds a lot like shorthand for "equity is not worth prioritizing." Which worries me.

I get that nobody ever wants another manager, or that maybe something like equity can be prioritized without creating a whole new high-paying job. What I'm worried by is the bigger picture.
(unimproved roadways and lack of sidewalks, some of the most oft-cited transportation and safety disparities in different parts of Portland)
I'm using the BikePortland article only as a jumping-off point. As I re-read the comments I see that there are many people on either side of the issue and for various reasons, but that article is only a really small example of something I see over and over, often in online commentary but really anywhere in this world: the denial of privilege and the tacit perpetuation of the status quo.

It sounds like this: we don't need to explicitly think about things like equity or equality or inclusivity; we're already trying hard enough.

Or like this: if people want the same "privileges" that I have, they should work harder for them.

Or like this: people who yammer on about equity are bleeding-heart liberals just getting off on feeling guilty about past issues that we've long since moved beyond.

In short, it's the (false) assertion that everyone in this world really does have an equal shot at success.

The uncomfortable truth is that we're still really, really far away from that ideal in the US, and if we look globally, we're even further. As things stand now, everyone does not have an equal shot at success. Everyone doesn't even have an equal shot at survival. But saying so threatens the self-concept of privileged people, including me, who feel they have worked hard for their success. Most of us have worked hard for our success. But hard for a person from the dominant culture, especially if that dominant culture crosses racial, class, and gender lines (i.e. a white, well-educated, well-off, straight man), does not take nearly as much work as it does for someone who does not experience privilege in those areas.

It's like the adage about the triathlete who has trained really hard for his race. He's prepared for months, and as he swims along he feels strong and powerful - until he turns around and realizes that he's been swimming with the current the whole time. Privilege is like that current, helping you in mostly invisible ways that nevertheless support your own efforts. The triathlete did train, after all, and did work hard to get in good physical shape, but the swimming was still much easier when the outside world was working with him instead of against.

Does that mean every white, straight, educated, middle-to-upper-class male is going to be conventionally successful, or even that life is easy for him? No, of course not. But it does mean that he has way fewer barriers to "success" than someone who doesn't experience the privileged positions he's born into.

All of this makes privilege a hard issue, because no one wants to believe that they haven't earned what they have. But you know what? It's kind of true. Many of us have not earned what we have, not really, not the way others have. If you asked me, I would say that I've worked somewhat hard to be where I am in life. (Not that I'm the epitome of success here, either;) But I know that mostly, I've just been the recipient of unwarranted benefits because I'm white. Because my parents were able to feed me, clothe me, and send me to a good college. Because I had present, healthy, loving parents. Because, heck, I was raised in a middle-class part of the United States instead of Sub-Saharan Africa. Because I've been insulated from war, from disease, from hunger. I am an incredibly lucky woman, not an incredibly deserving one.

There's absolutely no reason why I should be the lucky one and someone else shouldn't. So what worries me, to get back to the BikePortland comments and thoughts about equity in general, is that when people are unwilling to acknowledge their privilege - when people maintain that the average person really can pull herself up by her bootstraps regardless of any social context - it dismisses entirely our entrenched, institutionalized systems of oppression. The systems that incarcerate black people at nearly 6 times the rate of white people, or that allow us to buy delicious and fresh organic produce on the backs of undocumented, uncared-for migrant workers. Essentially, discounting privilege is like saying that if someone hasn't become as successful as you are, it's because they, personally, didn't work as hard. It removes everyone from their context, but more perniciously, it also works to totally erase any responsibility you may have for abdicating your own power so as to share it more equally.

.

There are always anecdotes. The boy from the hood who was able to leave behind the gang life, start a successful internet company, and make millions. The poor kid who got scholarships to go to school and now lives comfortably teaching other poor kids. The insert-your-feel-good-story-here. Sure. There are cases like that. But individual cases do not the whole system make. There are always outliers. And those anecdotes are exactly that, anecdotes, because they're not normal. Because it's so damn hard to overcome the layers and layers and layers of oppression that are systematized into our society. Especially when people with privilege, people who benefit from that oppression, are unwilling to accept that it's even a problem, or even that it's something worth thinking about.

.

I'm a little reluctant to post this not only because it's a crazy deviation from the usual bent of this blog but also because I feel like if I spew all this I should also be prepared to offer a solution. And I don't have one. But I think the hints of one begin with awareness. With a willingness to acknowledge my privilege, to look hard at it and what it's won for me, to acknowledge that not everyone has the same experience of life and that for some people, it's a whole heck of a lot harder. And here's the most difficult pill to swallow: I and maybe you benefit from the fact that it's harder for some people - because that makes it easier for us. It's not individually our fault; we're part of a humongous system that has existed way longer than we have. But we still play a very important role in either perpetuating or preventing it.

It's a fricken privilege to not have to think about this on a daily basis, which is why it irks me so much when I see people pretending like it doesn't exist, and why some of the BikePortland comments annoyed me so thoroughly. If I and many other people never think about our privilege, we will most likely happily go about our normal lives feeling good about the work we've done. We will simply embrace the fact that our outlook, our worldview, our skin color, or our gender identity will be accepted and shared by a majority of people, without remembering that for some people that is decidedly not the case. And those people can't not think about privilege on a daily basis, because every day it's rubbed in their face that they don't have it.

But the privilege to ignore is not a privilege that I have to accept. Like I said, I'm a little reluctant to post this, but I'm going to, despite the fact that I'm still and always learning about this, despite the fact that I'll probably read it later and marvel at how naive I was - I'm going to post it, because I don't want to accept the privilege of being able to stay silent. For me, this is not a matter of life and death. But for some people, it is. Equity is a seemly thing to talk about if you're in a position of power; it's a determinant of your very quality of life if you're not. We owe it to each other to remember that.

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What's Portland's (and your, and my) role in equity?

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This isn't explicitly bike related, but I've been thinking a lot about equity lately. In part, it's because of a post over at BikePortland, the blog for bike-related news and thoughts here, that describes a newly-created position in the Portland Bureau of Transportation: an Equity and Inclusion Manager.

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Racism in Academia - #ShutDownAcademia #ShutDownSTEM

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Host Kimberlé Crenshaw (a leading scholar of critical race theory) explores different topics through an intersectional lens. The most recent episodes are part of a series about COVID-19, titled "Under the Blacklight."

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Evidence-based strategies for more inclusive labs

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Evidence-based strategies for more inclusive labs

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Examples:
- active recruitment
- learning about implicit biases
- using clearly defined and standardised selection criteria
- broadening the selection criteria used
- mentoring to retain students
- ally behaviours
- expand diversity discussions towards intersectionality (so that everyone feels included in diversity initiatives)

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Institutions of higher education strive to support diversity and inclusion efforts as they recognize the benefits at the undergraduate, graduate, and faculty levels (Terenzini et al., 2001; Denson and Chang, 2009; Pascarella et al., 2014; Moriña, 2017). Diversity can be defined as "the varied perspectives and approaches to work which members of different identity groups bring" (Thomas and Ely, 1996) and inclusion can be described as a person's ability to contribute fully and effectively to an organization (Miller, 1998; Mor Barak and Cherin, 1998). One strategy to diversify higher education is by focusing on creating a diverse pipeline, whereby undergraduates from different backgrounds engage in high quality research. These experiences provide students the ability to build competencies and achievement records that propel them to and through graduate school as well as beyond.

Previous research has demonstrated that undergraduates who participate in research projects and positively interact with faculty are more likely to pursue and attain post-baccalaureate degrees as well as subsequent careers as faculty or research scientists (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991; Astin, 1993; Tinto, 1993; Adedokun et al., 2013; Yaffe et al., 2014). Opportunity and mentorship are particularly critical for underrepresented students, as previous research has found that students' interactions with faculty members have a stronger influence on their decisions to pursue graduate education than their initial background characteristics (e.g., socio-economic status; Ethington and Smart, 1986; Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991; Carpi et al., 2017). While many mentors may intend to support minority student researchers, they may not be aware of how to do so. Thus, this paper will highlight some of the challenges faced by underrepresented students (i.e., students of color, lower socio-economic status, LGBT) and provide evidence-based solutions on how to recruit, select, retain students from diverse backgrounds to promote diversity and inclusion in undergraduate research labs working toward publishable research.

Promoting an Inclusive Research Lab

Multiple studies have found that minority students report feeling isolated, unwelcomed, invisible and distant from faculty (Fullilove and Treisman, 1990; Rankin, 2003; Suarez-Balcazar et al., 2003; Love, 2008; Cherng et al., 2014). Inclusive research lab practices related to recruiting, selecting and retaining diverse student researchers can reduce the effects of these negative experiences.

Recruitment

As recruitment may be one of the first barriers faced in achieving a diverse research lab, active recruitment efforts must complement other efforts to get diverse students in the door. Active recruitment is defined as efforts that may aid in an increase in applicants and have been used to attract minority applicants to different graduate program and professions (George et al., 1997; Muñoz-Dunbar and Stanton, 1999). Researchers in organizational psychology have found that more diverse recruitment advertisements positively impact perceptions of organizational attractiveness, perceived compatibility, and evaluations of the organization's image (Perkins et al., 2000; Avery et al., 2004; Lambert, 2015; Baum et al., 2016). Based on these findings, we suggest that advertisements for student research opportunities should include pictures of diverse students and explicit statements encouraging students of all backgrounds to apply. Additionally, it is important for recruitment advertisements to use language that can directly combat some of the misperceptions about research labs that may persuade students from various backgrounds to select-out of participating, as they feel that they may not fit in. For example, students from lower socio-economic status backgrounds may be juggling both work and academic demands and feel that they are not able to participate in research. However, recruitment messages may be tailored to address this need by mentioning the option of flexibility in hours and location for work to be conducted, if applicable. These recruitment efforts may help to attract students from all backgrounds who typically feel excluded from these opportunities as they signal inclusiveness through pictures and messages.

Proactive types of recruitment efforts can take place by both faculty and lab members. For example, faculty members can engaging in mentoring behaviors during the recruitment process. This can be done by faculty identifying and encouraging strong minority students in the classroom to apply for research opportunities. Oftentimes, students from underrepresented groups are anxious and feel they do not belong due to a lack of representation. Previous work in educational psychology found that high school students express self-doubt based on an unwelcoming culture of seeing an all-white AP classroom, even after being accepted to these challenging courses (Belcher, 2017). However, with further encouragement and longer discussion from mentors, 90% of those who opted not to originally take AP courses did eventually do so. Similarly, it is likely that minority students doubt their abilities to work in high quality research labs, but may overcome this barrier with appropriate mentorship.

Current lab members may also take an active role in recruitment diverse students. For example, research assistants can set time aside for community outreach events where diverse students may be involved in, such as sports, student clubs, or special events on campus. This can allow for the opportunity for current students to engage in conversation about their experiences working in a lab and the benefits of research for their future goals, specifically, articulating that they are working on publishable research which will be instrumental for pursuing graduate education.

Selection

Biases can negatively influence minority students' experiences in being provided opportunities in a research lab. Research has found that minority students report experiences of discrimination and differential treatment from their advisors and from prospective advisors (Rankin, 2003; Suarez-Balcazar et al., 2003; Shammas, 2017). For example, faculty were more responsive to White male undergraduate students when contacted about prospective research and mentorship opportunities compared to female or ethnically diverse students (Milkman et al., 2015). Additionally, faculty members rated male lab manager applicants (identical to female counterparts) as more competent and hireable, as well as deserving of a higher salary and more mentorship (Moss-Racusin et al., 2012). Biases are held by all, and faculty who consider themselves free from bias (Staats et al., 2015) or who share these minority characteristics are not immune (Durso and Latner, 2008; Herek et al., 2009, 2015).

In light of these findings, it is important for mentors to actively strive to minimize the influence of unintentional bias. One way to determine whether selection processes are impacted by these biases is to conduct regular audits of one's lab to ensure that certain types of students are not systematically being evaluated more poorly than others (Tetlock and Mitchell, 2009). To improve the fairness and accuracy of evaluations, faculty need to set clear, objective, behavior-based performance metrics. Indeed, more general and subjective ratings allow for a greater reliance on these subtle biases (Prendergast and Topel, 1993; Aranda et al., 2014). Research has also demonstrated the importance of learning about implicit biases and taking efforts to recognize and reduce behavioral manifestations of such biases. Ignoring implicit biases will negatively impact the validity of faculty's selection and evaluation systems preventing diverse students from working on impactful research.

Faculty members, especially at larger institutions, often develop some type of selection system for their research labs to engage students to support publishable projects. This process often involves using different sources of information, including SAT scores. However, standardized testing generally disadvantages marginalized applicants (Roth et al., 2001; Dean et al., 2008; Fagioli, 2013) due to several reasons including economic and socioeconomic factors, psychological factors, societal factors, cultural factors, test constructruction, and valdiation factors (Ployhart et al., 2003; Berry et al., 2011). As a consequence, organizational psychologists encourage decision makers in the workplace to broaden perspectives on selection in general. McKay and Davis ( 2008) argued that in addition to relying on valid, standardized selection instruments, organizations must "expand the number of predictor constructs measured by selection systems beyond cognitive-based tests" (p. 152). They further argue that, "personnel practitioners should include non-cognitive constructs in selection systems to complement organizations' diversity efforts" (p. 153). Following the model of workplace selection practices and extending them to selecting undergraduate researchers, faculty should conduct a job analysis to identify the responsibilities and qualifications that are necessary to be successful in working on publishable research projects and consider alternative ways to assess these skills.

For example, additional criteria that can be used to evaluate student researchers may include factors, such as motivation and research interests. The Council on Graduate Medical Education found motivation to commit time and effort to studying in high demanding programs to be a predictor of success among medical students from minority groups (Pacquiao, 2007). Additionally, we recommend incorporating qualitative approaches to elicit this information by asking students to write a short essay describing their reasons for wanting to join a specific lab, their future career plans and research interests. Educational psychologists have found the essay approach to be useful in assessing underrepresented students' motivation for advanced placement (AP) courses in high school (Belcher, 2017).

Retention

To retain and support diverse students after the recruitment and selection process, it is important for faculty to engage in mentorship, ally behaviors and encourage diversity more broadly to promote an inclusive lab environment.

Mentorship

Students from diverse backgrounds report that a lack of mentorship is a challenge in navigating their educational experiences. Previous work has found that mentoring can be particularly vital to maintaining persistence toward a degree for African American students (Freeman, 1999; Dodson et al., 2009; Blackwell and Pinder, 2014). Notably, African-American students reported higher satisfaction with research-focused faculty support than other types of mentoring (Ishiyama, 2007; Strayhorn and Saddler, 2009; Kendricks et al., 2013; Castellanos et al., 2016).

Therefore, once students are in the lab, faculty members can take an active role in mentorship by providing developmental opportunities (i.e., co-authorship for publications or conferences) and feedback on research related tasks to build the skills of these students at the undergraduate level. These mentorship relationships between diverse students and faculty can foster research publications as well. A research study found that faculty members who had mentored Black or students with disabilities were more productive in publishing with their undergraduates (Morales et al., 2017). The authors suggest that research publication success is likely due to a mentor's commitment given that often additional time and support is needed for socially marginalized students (Sax et al., 2002; Eagan and Garvey, 2015) and team diversity contributing to broader knowledge and skills (Barjak and Robinson, 2008).

Mentors can also provide support for students working toward graduate degrees. The work of several researchers suggests that providing graduate applicants with guidance on what is being sought in professional statements, how to approach letter writers and what to share with them, and how decisions are made can help put those with less experience in higher education (e.g., first generation college students or graduate students, persons from under-represented groups) in a better position to pursue graduate studies (McKay and Davis, 2008; Sedlacek, 2017; Mathur et al., 2019). This process provides everyone with required information and support, creating a more level playing field for pursuing graduate education that otherwise might only be accessible to some. Overall, faculty mentorship enables the process of engaging diverse students in publishable research and beyond.

Promote Ally Behaviors

Allies can be both faculty or other lab mentors with similar characteristics and background as diverse students (i.e., faculty of color) or from a majority group (i.e., White student). Faculty can use their own positions of privilege to be allies and model these behaviors for all lab members. To be effective allies, lab mentors can educate themselves on the various barriers faced by each group as well as the strategies that are most effective at supporting and advocating for these groups (Sabat et al., 2013). This can be done by attending ally and other optional diversity training programs, reading, and staying current on research pertaining to organizational diversity and discrimination, participating in diversity-related events, examining one's own biases, and the ways in which they may be perpetuating systematic inequalities, and by developing and fostering diverse social support networks. Using this knowledge, mentors can engage in behaviors that outwardly support diversity by proactively expressing their ally identities and by role modeling their support for all diverse groups. Specifically, they can emphatically state their genuine support for minority groups and diversity-supportive causes, advertise diversity-related events on campus, and post-ally/diversity-supportive stickers in their offices. Individuals who express their ally identities in these ways are likely to create safe spaces.

Promoting an Inclusive Lab

The positive environment cultivated in the research lab will likely support both minority and majority students. Mentors engaging and promoting inclusive behaviors may encourage students with concealable stigmas feel comfortable disclosing their identities within the research lab (Sabat et al., 2017). This will likely have a positive impact on marginalized research assistants as disclosure of more hidden identities (i.e., sexual orientation) has been consistently linked to improved satisfaction, commitment, and workplace health (Sabat et al., 2017). Additionally, mentors who disclose their ally identities are also likely to encourage majority members within the lab to feel comfortable acknowledging or disclosing their own ally identities, which will continue to spur a cycle of support allowing all students to thrive in the research lab.

Research has demonstrated that celebrating diversity and taking a multicultural, identity-affirming approach is more beneficial than taking a color-blind approach in which one ignores identity-based differences (Meeussen et al., 2014). Diversity likely already exists in all labs when considering an intersectional framework. Engaging in discussions regarding gender diversity, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, rural/urban upbringing, religious variations, and then seeking to diversify in specific ways (e.g., ethnic diversity) can help all members feel included in diversity related initiatives.

Diversity impacts all aspects of one's experiences and denying this perpetuates systematic disadvantages faced by minority groups (Purdie-Vaughns et al., 2008; Fryberg and Stephens, 2010; Offermann et al., 2014; Bonilla-Silva, 2015). For these reasons, as issues pertaining to diversity arise in the local or national contexts, faculty can allow their lab to be a safe place to address them. Previous evidence has found that broader diversity issues can impact the motivation, well-being, and performance of students, particularly those who are underrepresented (Cokley, 2000; Pugh et al., 2008; Sliter et al., 2014; Prewitt, 2015). Consequently, engaging in these potentially challenging conversations in the lab can help to foster inclusion, model civil conversation, and allow the opportunity for diverse perspectives to be shared. These inclusive practices related to recruitment, selection, and lab management can allow diverse students to feel supported working on high quality research.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have identified some ways to overcome the challenges faced by underrepresented students including experiences of bias, feelings of isolation, and a lack of mentorship. We have offered solutions to overcome these challenges with regards to recruiting, selecting, and retaining diverse undergraduate researchers working toward publishable work. As the country diversifies and the education system broadens to include online learning, all types of opportunities, including participation in research labs should be accessible to everyone. Together, with our collective efforts, we can move toward more equitable educational institutions that can lead the way in providing equal educational opportunities to all. As noted by the Dean of Harvard College at commencement, "Diversity in the student body is important for the same reason that it is important in research. It is the only way to advance a field... through a diversity of perspectives" (Powell, 2018).

References

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Evidence-Based Strategies for Improving Diversity and Inclusion in Undergraduate Research Labs

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Institutions of higher education strive to support diversity and inclusion efforts as they recognize the benefits at the undergraduate, graduate, and faculty levels (Terenzini et al., 2001; Denson and Chang, 2009; Pascarella et al., 2014; Moriña, 2017).

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If you're white, you may not think of yourself as racist. Maybe you hardly think about race at all. But Robin DiAngelo, the author of White Fragility, says white people need to think about how they fit into racist systems if they want to be anti-racist. She calls for a more nuanced and informed understanding of racism so white people can take accountability for the ways they benefit from these structures:

"The simplistic idea that racism is limited to individual intentional acts committed by unkind people is at the root of virtually all white defensiveness on this topic," writes DiAngelo in White Fragility.

Here are some tips and takeaways from our interview with DiAngelo to help you combat racism:
Start by reflecting on your own experience of being a white person.
"We live in a society that turns race over to people of color. They have a race, and we're just people. And so we see ourselves as outside of race," says DiAngelo. "If we can start our work by reflecting on our own experiences - specifically as white people - and not only as objective individuals outside of race, there's so much insight to be gained there. Start by asking yourself: What does it mean to be white? How has being white shaped my life?"
We need to change our definition of racism.
( Merriam-Webster recently agreed to revise its dictionary's definition.) It's important to recognize that all white people have been socialized into racist systems and it's inevitable that we all have blind spots, says DiAngelo. It is akin to swimming with a current, rather than against it. Instead of asking if you've been shaped by these systems, ask yourself how you've been shaped by them.
We're complicit in racist structures even if they go against our values or beliefs.
DiAngelo explains that when bias is upheld by legal authority and institutional control, it's transformed into systems of racial inequality. Racism's survival doesn't depend on our agreement or beliefs - even if you don't think people should be treated differently because of their race, they automatically will be mistreated across those systems: education, health care, criminal justice, housing, banking, economics, language, technology, media representation, ideology and so on. If we don't interrupt the systems we live within, then we're complicit in them, says DiAngelo. "In that way, we can say that nice white people who do nothing further to challenge racism are racist."

Educate yourself by reading, watching and listening to work by people of color.

DiAngelo recommends reading Layla Saad's book Me and White Supremacy and taking the 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge by Eddie Moore. These resources will help start you on what must be an ongoing process of both recognizing how you are complicit within a racist society and interrupting that complicity, says DiAngelo. A momentary interest is not enough.
Humility is key - you can't know all you need to know.
It is a bit like asking how to get in shape by Monday morning. You won't be. You can only get started by Monday. And it will be a multipart process. Diet, exercise, sleep and so on. And you will never be in a fixed state of shape. It is an ongoing practice that must be integrated into your life. Anti-racist practice is an ongoing practice, says DiAngelo. You will never "arrive." It is a journey, not a destination.

Of course, we all have an opinion on racism. But be willing to consider that if you are white, maybe your opinions are not as informed as you think they are. For example, you can go from elementary school through graduate school in this country without discussing systemic racism at all or in any sustained depth. Think about that.

"The social contract underwriting all other social contracts in the Western world is white supremacy," says DiAngelo. "But it is rarely if ever discussed in mainstream education. You can be seen as qualified to lead thousands of people, in an organization that professes to 'value diversity,' and you won't even have been asked if you can engage in these issues with any skill during the hiring process."
If you feel overwhelmed about where to start, take out a piece of paper and jot down why you don't know what to do or how to get started. For more Life Kit, subscribe to our The audio portion of this story was produced by Mallory Yu, Sarah Handel and Clare Schneider. The story was adapted for digital by Clare Schneider. weekly newsletter.
DiAngelo says she's often asked by other white people, "What do I do?" She advises, "Make a list of why you don't know what to do. Maybe you never talk about racism with your white friends. Maybe you never talk about racism with your black, Indigenous or friends of color. Maybe you don't have any black, Indigenous or friends of color. Maybe you haven't cared enough to find out before now."

Whatever is on your list, let it guide you. Addressing the reasons you've observed won't be quick and easy, but you can start educating yourself today. Google is your friend: "So many black people are publishing and putting out really excellent lists [of resources]. We have to break with the apathy and seek those out."

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'Interrupt The Systems': Robin DiAngelo On 'White Fragility' And Anti-Racism : Life Kit

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You may not think of yourself as racist, but Robin DiAngelo says that "nice white people" are still complicit in racist structures. DiAngelo has tips to help white people break from apathy, interrupt racist systems and commit to anti-racist practices.

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For decades, we've heard that race is a social and cultural idea - not scientific. But with the changing world of genetics, is race science back? We speak to sociologist Prof. Dorothy Roberts, evolutionary biologist Prof. Joseph L. Graves Jr. and psychological methodologist Prof. Jelte Wicherts.

Check out the full transcript here: http://bit.ly/2nTDU8w

Selected references:

Credits:

This episode was produced by Rose Rimler, with help from Wendy Zukerman, as well as Meryl Horn and Michelle Dang. Our senior producer is Kaitlyn Sawrey. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, Meryl Horn, and Michelle Dang. Mix and sound design by Peter Leonard. Music by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, and Bobby Lord. Recording assistance from Botte Jellema and Shani Aviram. A huge thanks to Stillman Brown, Morgan Jerkins, Amber Davis, Cedric Shine, Emmanuel Dzotsi, and to all the scientists we got in touch with for this episode, including Noah Rosenberg, Rasmus Nielsen, Mark Shriver, Garrett Hellenthal, Sarah Tishkoff, Kenneth Kidd, John Protzko, Dan Levitis, and others. Finally, thanks to the Zukerman Family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson.

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Race: Can We See It In Our DNA? | Science Vs

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For decades, we've heard that race is a social and cultural idea - not scientific. But with the changing world of genetics, is race science back? We speak to sociologist Prof. Dorothy Roberts, evolutionary biologist Prof. Joseph L. Graves Jr. and psychological methodologist Prof. Jelte Wicherts.

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listen to stories about being a minority within our society and within academia

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5 Must-Do’s for Writing Inclusive Job Descriptions

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5 Must-Do’s for Writing Inclusive Job Descriptions

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When Buffer realized that less than 2% of its candidates for developer positions were women, its leaders naturally wanted to figure out why. To do that, they met with Angie Chang, VP of Hackbright Academy, who pointed to one surprising reason: a single word they were using in their job descriptions.

The word was "hackers," which Buffer was using to refer to its developers. Angie explained that certain words, like hacker, are difficult for some candidates (namely women) to identify with and was likely turning them away. This was an eye-opening lesson for Buffer's execs and they quickly started adjusting their job descriptions.

Cleary, even something minor-like a word-can affect whether or not you are attracting a diverse talent pool. And, with diversity and inclusion among the biggest and most important trends in talent acquisition, companies need to make sure their job descriptions are inclusive too. Here are a few simple tweaks you can make to your job descriptions to do just that:

1. Avoid gender-coded words, like "rockstar," "ninja," and "dominate"

As Buffer learned, being mindful with your job description vocabulary can make a big difference. Studies show that gender-coded words can significantly reduce the number of women applying to your open positions, even though this type of bias is usually unconscious.

To make your job descriptions more inclusive, start by taking gendered words like "ninja," "rock star," or "guru" out of your job titles and replacing them with more straightforward titles, like "developer" or "sales representative." These titles may have less flair, but they're also more inclusive and less likely to turn off candidates who feel they don't fit the image you're putting out.

Next, go through and remove any other gender-coded words that might pop up throughout your descriptions-for both men and women. Here is a list of gendered words, according to a study from Duke University and the University of Waterloo:

Keep these words in mind when writing your job descriptions and, to make things simple, you can also use Textio Hire-an online tool that analyzes job descriptions and suggests improvements to make the language more appealing to all applicants. Similarly, the Gender Decoder tool can tell you right away whether your job ad leans too much towards either feminine or masculine-coded words.

2. Limit your job requirements to "must-haves"

Your hiring manager might have an unending list of qualifications in mind for a given role, but in order to highlight your commitment to inclusion, it's important to trim the list down. That's because studies show that while men are likely to apply to jobs for which they meet only 60% of the qualifications, women are much more likely to hesitate unless they meet 100% of the listed requirements.

Instead of including all of the "nice-to-haves" that a dream candidate might possess, stick to the "must-haves," and you'll likely see your applications from women candidates increase. Or if you'd still like to call out certain desired skills, you can soften the message with language like "familiarity with," "bonus points for," or "if you have any combination of these skills."

That said, it's a good idea to cut down your long lists not matter what- one study found that the average jobseeker spends just 49.7 seconds reviewing a listing before deciding it's not a fit.

3. Avoid using unnecessary corporate speak and jargon

One of the quickest ways to turn off candidates is to include loads of unnecessary jargon in your descriptions. That includes things like KPIs, procurement, SLAs, P&L, and so on. While candidates with plenty of experience in a similar role might know what you're talking about, studies show jargon and corporate language in job postings is one of the biggest barriers keeping talented young people from applying to entry-level positions. These subtle word choices can make some candidates feel unqualified for a position that they're absolutely qualified for.

"Insider language is a quick way to make someone else feel like an outsider, but if you're not watching out for it, acronyms and 'company speak' will inevitably creep into your job descriptions," says HubSpot's Hannah Fleishman. "When in doubt, assume the candidate doesn't know the ins-and-outs of your company."

For example, instead of using mystifying acronyms and sales terms in your requirements, aim for more universal wording, like "pays attention to details" or "personable with customers."

4. Emphasize your company's commitment to diversity and inclusion

If your company is already making major strides toward becoming a more welcoming and inclusive place to work, you might want to consider including this in your job descriptions.

While you can simply state at the bottom that you are "an equality opportunity employer," a statement in your own words is more powerful.

Here's an example from IBM:
IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.
And here is one from Viacom:
Viacom is an equal opportunity employer. Viacom recruits, employs, trains, compensates and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected status as required by applicable law. At Viacom, we have a clear vision: to be the place where a diverse mix of talented people want to come, to stay and do their best work. We pride ourselves on bringing the best entertainment to our audiences around the world, and we know our company runs on the hard work and dedication of our passionate and creative employees. Viacom's dedication to promoting diversity, multiculturalism, and inclusion is clearly reflected in all of our content and across all of our brands. Diversity is more than a commitment at Viacom-it is the foundation of what we do. We are fully focused on equality and believe deeply in diversity of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, national origin and all the other fascinating characteristics that make us different.
If appropriate, you can also mention inclusion-related initiatives, like hosting employee resource groups (ERGs) or mentorship programs for women or people of color.

5. Call out inclusive benefits like parental leave and childcare subsidies

You already know that benefits like paid parental leave, childcare subsidies, paid family sick time, and even health insurance go a long way toward supporting diversity and inclusion, while also boosting retention and morale. If your company offers these benefits, you may not realize the need to call them out in job descriptions-since not every employee will necessarily benefit from them-but mentioning them gives you an opportunity to prove your commitment to inclusion right away.

You don't have to include every benefit, but adding a few perks to your postings doesn't hurt. After all, your job posting is likely to be your first touch point with a candidate, and jobseekers with families (or who are looking to start families at some point) will see the benefits mentioned in your descriptions as signals of your larger company values.

Because we all have biases that can be unconscious and unintentional, it's always a good idea to revisit your job descriptions and make tweaks to make them more inclusive and, if applicable, showoff the great work your company is already doing to boost diversity and inclusion.

*Image from IBM
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5 Must-Do's for Writing Inclusive Job Descriptions

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When Buffer realized that less than 2% of its candidates for developer positions were women, its leaders naturally wanted to figure out why. To do that, they met with Angie Chang, VP of Hackbright Academy, who pointed to one surprising reason: a single word they were using in their job descriptions.

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You Don’t Know It, But Women See Gender Bias in Your Job Postings

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You Don’t Know It, But Women See Gender Bias in Your Job Postings

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Are a few gender-themed words in your job descriptions signaling women, unconsciously, to not apply?

A scientific study of 4,000 job descriptions revealed that a lack of gender-inclusive wording caused significant implications for recruiting professionals tasked to recruit women to hard-to-fill positions underrepresented by women.

This study addressed questions such as: do job descriptions that lack feminine-gender words repel female applicants? Could the lack of gender-inclusive wording in your job description influence women to opt out and not apply? Are there gender bias characteristics in your job advertisements? Could the lack of gender-inclusive words actually be perpetuating gender inequality in your organization?

Let's turn to a study published in the American Psychological Association by the authors Gaucher, Friesen, & Kay called, "Evidence That Gendered Wording in Job Advertisements Exists and Sustains Gender Inequality." Researchers studied gender wording in job advertisements and job descriptions and the effect of gender wording on job seekers. The researchers first established that women's style of communication is more communal, using more emotional and social words than men's style of speech. Secondly, the researchers tied women's perceptions of gendered words to previous research on the nature of subtle wording differences in job advertisements.

The researchers linguistically coded job descriptions found in a U.S. Department of Labor database that were predominately populated for masculine-themed words such as active, ambitious, analytical, competitive, dominate, challenging, confident, decisive, determined, independent, leader, objective, etc., as well as feminine-themed words such as committed, connected, cooperative, dependable, interpersonal, loyal, responsible, supportive, trust, etc. The results confirmed that job descriptions for male-dominated jobs contained more masculine-themed words associated with male stereotypes than job descriptions from female-dominated jobs and vice versa.

What impact could this subtle but systematic wording differences within job advertisements have on job seekers' perceptions and subsequent behaviors?

The authors hypothesize that to women, masculine-themed words alerts them to the possibility that they will not fit or do not belong. To test this hypothesis, the researchers used 96 randomly selected job seekers to read different job descriptions, each constructed with masculine-themed words or feminine-themed words. For example, the masculinity worded advertisement for a registered nurse stated "We are determined to deliver superior medical treatment tailored to each individual patient," whereas the femininely worded advertisement for the same registered nurse position stated, "We are committed to providing top quality health care that is sympathetic to the needs of our patients." After reading each job description, the job seekers rated each on job appeal and sense of belongingness.

Example of feminine and masculine-themed words used in a engineering job description:

Engineer Company Description:

Engineer Qualifications:

Engineer Responsibilities:

Feminine: Provide general support to project team in a manner complimentary to the company. Help clients with construction activities.

Masculine: Direct project groups to manage project progress and ensure accurate task control. Determine compliance with client's objectives.

Not surprisingly, the results showed that women found that jobs with masculinity worded job descriptions less appealing, compared with the same types of jobs which used feminine wording across all job types - whether they were male or female dominated occupations - even though these gender words composed a small fraction of the total words in the job advertisement.

The research results were obvious: women job seekers were more interested in male-dominated jobs when advertisements were unbiased, making reference to both men and women as candidates. In other words, women and men, for example, may equally like and desire an engineering job, but highly masculine wording used in the job posting reduces women's appeal of the job because it signals that women do not fit or belong in that job. In this way, qualified male and female applicants are opting out of jobs that they could perform well.

Generally, the findings found that gendered-themed words had the greatest effect on women. Perhaps many job descriptions, with their established gender wording, repels female applicants and maintains traditional gender inequality in male-dominated jobs. The results of this research suggest replacing the masculine-themed words with similar feminine-themed words, which would increase women's interest in those advertisements.

The nuance of gender-themed words makes it a particularly pernicious and powerful contributor to inequality because it was found, surprisingly, that not one participant realized the presence of the gendered language. Instead of attributing their perceptions to the use of gender language, participants attributed their reasons to personal lack of interest in the job or just general lack of appeal.

The implications to recruiting professionals, and especially those who are expending valuable time and resources on attracting skilled women in hard to fill occupations, are many. Are our traditional job postings repelling the same valuable candidates we are trying so hard to attract and recruit? Are we unintentionally contributing to the same gender inequality we oppose?

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You Don't Know It, But Women See Gender Bias in Your Job Postings - ERE

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Are a few gender-themed words in your job descriptions signaling women, unconsciously, to not apply? A scientific study of 4,000 job descriptions revealed that a lack of gender-inclusive wording caused significant implications for recruiting professionals tasked to recruit women to hard-to-fill positions underrepresented by women. This study addressed questions such as: do job descriptions that...

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Recruiting Diverse and Excellent New Faculty

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Recruiting Diverse and Excellent New Faculty

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Search committees often express frustration about the limitations of their applicant pool -- in many fields the job applicants are not diverse in terms of race and ethnicity, and in some fields few women apply. Departments can't hire people who don't apply: if minorities and women aren't in the pool, they can't become potential colleagues.

Ensuring a broad and diverse pool of applicants is an important goal for institutions and their search committees. So how can they change the features of the pool, especially in a field in which men and/or white people are numerically dominant? Based on our long-term experience and substantial research, we recommend that deans, department chairs and search committees members consider the following general suggestions.

Define the position in broad terms. A good place to start is with the definition of the position. If the job is defined in narrow terms -- a common strategy in many faculty hires -- it will focus on a single research area within a discipline or subfield and require use of particular methods. It may also dictate specific courses to be taught. Here's a typical example of this type of faculty advertisement:

The Department of Psychology at Terrific University is seeking an assistant professor with a promising program of research in the area of stigma and stereotyping in social psychology. The successful applicant will not only demonstrate excellence in this research area but also be able to teach courses in Social Psychology, Prejudice and Discrimination, and Attitude Change.

Every narrow qualification that is specified will lead some potential applicants to select themselves out of the pool of possible applicants, stimulating a process of self-evaluation of fit that will lead to a pool that is less diverse. Thus, if women and underrepresented minority potential job applicants, more often than white men, conclude, "I am not what they are looking for" or "I am not qualified" when reviewing the required qualifications for a position, our applicant pools may be unnecessarily homogeneous.

Provide cues of belonging. If we hope to attract a wide range of applicants, we should describe our jobs in the broadest terms that are accurate -- for example, by listing several alternative topics or approaches -- and offer a range of courses that might be taught rather than a specific and limited set. For example:

The Department of Psychology at Terrific University is seeking an assistant professor with a promising program of research in any area. The successful applicant will not only demonstrate excellence in this research area but will be able to teach courses appealing to undergraduates both in that area and in broader domains of psychology.

Cues of belonging -- or not belonging -- can also be conveyed by gendered language in job advertisements, such as the use of dominant instead of excellent. In a test in a laboratory setting, where the same job can be described in different terms, the use of "masculine" words for an administrative assistant job ( boasts, demanding, strong) attracted women (the only group tested) less than an advertisement with "feminine" or neutral words ( polite, sensitive, capable). The lower attraction was not because women did not think they could handle the job -- the language was off-putting.

Search actively and broadly. In 2006, the chemistry department at the University of Michigan decided to experiment with an open search approach that it hoped could simultaneously better its standing in the field and attract a more diverse applicant pool. Between the academic years 2001 and 2004, the "before" period when the department used conventionally narrow advertisements for positions, women candidates submitted about 15 applications each year. Between 2006 and 2009, the "after" period when they adopted a policy of "open searching," women submitted an average of 34 applications each year -- more than doubling their previous yield.

Not only did open searches increase the total applicant pool (as it would simply by broadening the areas of specialization), it also attracted a more diverse applicant pool.

Why? One main reason is that faculty members actively sought out diverse applicants at conferences and through colleagues they knew at institutions who had track records of mentoring students and postdocs from diverse backgrounds and who worked at institutions that had diverse student bodies.

Recognize the impact of expressed institutional values. Research has found that special hiring programs (including dual-career opportunities), family-friendly policies and job descriptions that mention institutional values that support diversity are more likely to yield diverse hires. Women and minorities are more likely than majority applicants to expect to be judged according to stereotypes, often leading them to assume that they may not fit or to anticipate discrimination absent such an explicit signal that the hiring institution will take their application seriously.
Effective Search Procedures and Practices
Once a job description exists, it is important to design search procedures and practices that will facilitate a more diverse pool of serious candidates than the current faculty displays. Search committees can adopt an explicit goal of identifying candidates who are different from existing faculty, and they can develop strategies for attracting those applicants.

In pursuing this goal, it is optimal to treat searching as an activity that is engaged in year-round by all faculty members. They can and should be continually on the lookout for rising young colleagues in the field, paying particular attention to those from underrepresented groups.

Faculty members may be tempted to rely on a narrow network of department members whom they know for recommendations of job candidates or the prestige of the institution where an applicant was trained. But the highest ranked departments are not necessarily graduating the largest numbers of female candidates and are unlikely to be producing the largest numbers of people of color. Therefore, depending on colleagues in those departments will not yield the most diverse pool of candidates.

A better strategy is to identify individuals who are mentoring women and minority doctoral students at other institutions and consider those faculty for senior positions at one's institution. Or, if one's own institution graduates significant numbers of well-trained women and minorities in fields where they are underrepresented, those graduates can become a good source of suggestions for other women and people of color as they move on to graduate, postdoctoral and faculty or research careers. It may make sense to recruit those graduates back on to the faculty in the future, in addition to relying on them as trusted references for women and minority applicants for faculty positions.

Each facet of the search process has implications for how candidates will be recruited and assessed. In requesting candidates' materials, committees can provide an open-ended opportunity for applicants to "make a case" for their fit and relevance to the position, so the committee can avoid having too little information to perceive an applicant's interesting qualifications. Increasingly, departments ask applicants to submit a statement about their past contributions to diversity and their anticipated contribution at the institution to which they are applying. The Davis campus of the University of California has developed guidelines for applicants in preparing such statements. These statements may help committees identify some faculty who have a track record of mentoring or contributing to institutional change that might matter to the department.

Other aspects of the search that should be considered include:

The search committee composition. Be careful about choosing who will serve on the committee that screens full applications and makes recommendations for hiring decisions. If the job has been defined broadly, having broad expertise represented among the reviewers of applications is helpful.

The competence of the committee. Those who serve on the review committee should be individuals who are knowledgeable about the possibility of implicit biases emerging. Knowledge does not ensure that the biases will not operate, but it does increase the likelihood of self-conscious efforts to use procedures that will minimize that possibility. Creating as diverse a committee as is feasible is crucial to the fairness of the decision-making process.

The credibility of the committee. Don't assume that a committee with many women or minority group members will be a committee biased in favor of hiring women or minority group members, since evidence shows that women and minorities can hold implicit attitudes much like those of majority group members. But a diverse committee composition is likely to reassure both applicants and people in the institution that a range of perspectives has influenced decision making. That is, committee composition can operate as a cue that diversity is welcome.

The training and education of the committee. Committee members should receive training and educational resources that increase their knowledge of the impact of evaluation biases and ways to overcome them. Workshops of this sort have been offered to search committee members at Florida International University; Northeastern University; the University of California, Davis; the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin, among others.

An alternative approach is to identify "equity advisers" who can serve on search committees in departments other than their own and provide input about appropriate procedures. This strategy has been successful at institutions like the University of California, Irvine, and Michigan State University. If the equity advisers are well educated, have a high degree of credibility and are not felt merely to be "policing" the process, this model can be quite effective. In order to offer either kind of program, institutions must create a small group of senior faculty who will take on the task of studying the literature and presenting it to their colleagues or sitting in on search committees.

Colleges can also consider creating a standing search committee with a term of a few years, composed of individuals who have been educated in and are committed to the twin goals of excellence and diversity. In this way, the institution may benefit from a slower, more deliberative hiring process and a cadre of well-educated faculty charged with performing it.

As the search committee seeks to attract diverse faculty members, they need to consider how the institution and the department represent themselves on websites and in other descriptions and materials that job candidates might review. Does the department appear to be diverse in its current composition? Open to a range of perspectives? Eager to increase its breadth and inclusion of a range of interests and types of students and faculty? To have policies that support faculty members' personal lives when there are increases in the complexity of responsibilities for family members requiring care?

If the department's self-descriptions don't provide enough good information about those issues, department leaders and search committee members might consider sending applicants packets of information that will improve their understanding of the institution's commitments. Some institutions have identified women or underrepresented minority faculty who are willing to meet with job applicants outside the hiring department, so they can provide them with information about the institutional and community climate and culture for their group.

Collecting, maintaining and reviewing accurate data about the pool of candidates and applicants; those on the long, medium and short lists; and the outcomes (offers made, rejected and accepted) is vital. Collecting and -- especially -- reviewing data can itself affect both search processes and their success.

One practice that several schools and colleges at the University of Michigan have adopted is to provide every department with annual data about the rate of Ph.D. attainment by women and minorities in the relevant field five years earlier at Ph.D.-granting institutions, at institutions Michigan faculty consider peers and at Michigan itself. In addition, data are provided about the current population of faculty and doctoral students in that specific department. It's also often gathered on the characteristics of the applicant pool, the interview list and the final short list of candidates.

Routine inspection of the figures provided at the outset of the search allows departments to examine and address when Ph.D. production at the institution in that field doesn't measure up to peer or national Ph.D. production. In the course of the search, these data can be monitored, and deans or provosts can hold search committees accountable for at least attracting an applicant pool that reflects the diversity of the doctoral-degree pool. In addition, mistaken assumptions about the potential availability of applicants can be corrected, and realistic aspirations can be developed.

When such data were first shared with departments at Michigan, many were surprised that they had graduated fewer women and minority Ph.D.s than they thought and that the pool of available applicants was larger than they had believed. Over time, at least some departments have used the data to challenge themselves to achieve the outstanding and diverse applicant pool they need if they are to hire the kind of faculty they want.

To sum up, we recommend that provosts, deans and department chairs:

Encourage the adoption of open searches and remind faculty that they can be used to enhance both the diversity and the excellence of applicant pools and subsequent faculty hires.

Publicly praise and consider rewarding departments or other units that succeed in increasing the diversity and excellence in their faculty. Describe the ways they accomplished this achievement to encourage others.

Provide new resources for hiring that may be needed to increase diversity (more funding for travel for applicants or costs of providing educational resources to committees, for instance).

Establish procedures that hold search committees and departments accountable for their procedures and their outcomes.

Ensure that institutional policies that support faculty in various family situations are clear and accessible in institutional self-descriptions on paper and the web.

Establish search committees that are diverse in terms of demographic characteristics and expertise but homogeneous in commitment to proactive, fair and equitable processes.

Provide search committees and/or equity advisers with appropriate educational or training resources to perform their job competently. Consider appointing search committees over multiple years to maximize the development of expertise at searching.

Ask search committees to document the procedures they use to maximize the diversity of the applicant pool, the fairness of their procedures, and their outcomes.

Provide institutional data on Ph.D. pools and department-level outcomes that search committees and departments can use.

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Advice to deans, department heads and search committees for recruiting diverse faculty (opinion)

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Search committees often express frustration about the limitations of their applicant pool -- in many fields the job applicants are not diverse in terms of race and ethnicity, and in some fields few women apply. Departments can't hire people who don't apply: if minorities and women aren't in the pool, they can't become potential colleagues.

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When working on / in a specific region, ensure that you include local people in the study (in the design, but also especially in the writing as a co-author).

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what are the benefits of having a more inclusive group/institution?

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what are the benefits of having a more inclusive group/institution?

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reflect about what we think we would gain if we had more diversity in our group/insitution
-> do we really mean it?

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While in a position to select & invite speakers, or members, such as PhD committees, conference panels, editorial boards, etc, ensure diversity (geographic as well as gender).

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sharing job openings with different communities

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sharing job openings with different communities

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different mailing lists? Or gatekeeping people?

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So, hiring more diversely may feel like risky business. This should be addressed

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allow for other measures of scientific performance than papers, citations, and funding

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allow for other measures of scientific performance than papers, citations, and funding

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always involve people from the region you are working in - always...

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Fix by encouraging diverse background ppl more, and by going beyond "distribute this job position in your network"

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is this possible?

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Write explicitly in the job calls that non-EU or people from the global south are welcome to apply :). (Many job calls explicitly say the contrary, so people are discouraged even to search)

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Write explicitly in the job calls that non-EU or people from the global south are welcome to apply :). (Many job calls explicitly say the contrary, so people are discouraged even to search)

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some resources on how to write more inclusive job postings:

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speak out and call racism out when you see it

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check our references and citations to try and include diverse backgrounds

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check our references and citations to try and include diverse backgrounds

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- Can we support people from other countries/cultures who are moving here better?
- Be inclusive when socialising

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eg MSc students
provide special support to students from different backgrounds as they experience more challenges 'fitting in'

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educate ourselves about racism and colonialism

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educate ourselves about racism and colonialism

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if we educate ourselves we learn to be aware and when we are aware we see it and can more easily do something against it

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there are many tests out there to help you with this

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Preliminary Information

On the next page you'll be asked to select an Implicit Association Test (IAT) from a list of possible topics . We will also ask you (optionally) to report your attitudes or beliefs about these topics and provide some information about yourself.

We ask these questions because the IAT can be more valuable if you also describe your own self-understanding of the attitude or stereotype that the IAT measures. We would also like to compare differences between people and groups.

On the IAT, you may find it easier to pair certain attributes with one group of people compared to another. Your IAT results may depart from your personal beliefs.

Note: This site is designed for adults, aged 18 or older.

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Important disclaimer: In reporting to you results of any IAT test that you take, we will mention possible interpretations that have a basis in research done (at the University of Washington, University of Virginia, Harvard University, and Yale University) with these tests. However, these Universities, as well as the individual researchers who have contributed to this site, make no claim for the validity of these suggested interpretations. If you are unprepared to encounter interpretations that you might find objectionable, please do not proceed further. You may prefer to examine general information about the IAT before deciding whether or not to proceed.

If you have questions about the study, please contact Project Implicit at questions@projectimplicit.net. To obtain more information about the study, ask questions about the research procedures, express concerns about your participation, or report illness, injury or other problems, please contact:

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I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed using a touchscreen OR using a keyboard.

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On the next page you'll be asked to select an Implicit Association Test (IAT) from a list of possible topics . We will also ask you (optionally) to report your attitudes or beliefs about these topics and provide some information about yourself.

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- eg about our own implicit biases
- what our values are
- how our own values and ways of knowing about the world might not be shared with everyone and how they could differ from other peoples values and ways of seeing the world