What would be good inclusivity training?

[Anon1787]

Dismalist, I don't quite understand your comments, but "quality be damned" seems to be saying that there are not enough qualified or meritorious people of underrepresented groups to be hired into the positions you're envisioning? Like, say, people want to increase the number of women physicists or black physicists, but you don't believe there can be enough meritorious women physicists or black physicists, so the ones that will be hired don't actually deserve the jobs? I wonder if you have hard data to back up the idea that the women and black people in the field are worse scholars than the white men.  Or perhaps it's just an a priori assumption.

The dubious a priori assumption is that a particular group is underrepresented when it does not match its share of the total U.S. population.

[mahagonny]

I'll just say that as a woman, I found a lot of what was written here really troubling, though it certainly explains the situation on my campus. Much of what was written here is the reason why we need diversity and inclusivity training. If you legitimately think that a woman, LGTBQ person or BIPOC was hired because they were a 'diversity hire,' then you're part of the problem.

For ways to fix it: try surveying your students on the first day on their name and pronouns. Make sure you pronounce their names correctly. Try acknowledging the work of women, LGTBQ people and BIPOC in your field, while also acknowledging how far your field has to go. Try teaching about the roles of women, LGTBQ people and BIPOC - they are part of history, society and humanity. Try not using the term diversity hire.

I have no idea where my field is going. The future could include (1) the same number of women, (2) fewer, or (3) more. While I would be happy to see more, in no instance is the viability of the field or the fecundity of work produced anything to worry about.
Some fields/endeavors have disproportionately high numbers of BIPOC people or women in them already. Does something need to be done about this?
Does musical theatre have too many gay men? Why? Let them do their job. They're wonderful. But they're there in numbers because...they just are. We don't know exactly why.
ETA: that is why I call diversity staff administrative bloat. They're mostly a mission in search of a culture needing someone with that mission.

[dismalist]

Dismalist, I don't quite understand your comments, but "quality be damned" seems to be saying that there are not enough qualified or meritorious people of underrepresented groups to be hired into the positions you're envisioning? Like, say, people want to increase the number of women physicists or black physicists, but you don't believe there can be enough meritorious women physicists or black physicists, so the ones that will be hired don't actually deserve the jobs? I wonder if you have hard data to back up the idea that the women and black people in the field are worse scholars than the white men.  Or perhaps it's just an a priori assumption.

The dubious a priori assumption is that a particular group is underrepresented when it does not match its share of the total U.S. population.

Corrrrect, but it's worse: Under-representation is attributed to discrimination, in turn attributed to animus. This is moronic.

Where are the female construction workers? Carry those heavy loads! Where are the female sanitation workers, in the sewers? Smelly, dirty.

These are jobs women do not want, and if they did, statistical discrimination would keep them out [perhaps not in the former USSR]. Upper body strength, lack thereof.

Women want the cushy jobs, all of them! Universities are full of cushy jobs. :-)

[Caracal]

Two things are different about that.

• He wasn't as directly responsible for gun safety as the armourer.
• He had lots of experience. The fact that he got fired from his last movie was only part of his history.

There were obviously a lot of poor decisions on this project, but that just goes to show how the factors that should have been most important (like safety) were not taken as seriously as other things.
[/quote]

Seems like getting fired from a movie for getting someone hurt because you didn't follow proper safety protocols should be something that gets a lot of consideration before you get hired for another job, especially when there have been similar complaints against you. At a minimum, you would think future employers would want to hear that you understand what went wrong and are committed to taking concrete actions to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Usually when stuff goes wrong like this, it isn't because one person screwed up or didn't know what they were doing. There needs to be a larger culture of cutting corners and not worrying about safety precautions. I don't know much about guns, but I know that you should always act like a gun is loaded and that you should never take anyone else's word that a gun isn't loaded. If you hand someone a gun and tell them it isn't loaded without checking, you're responsible for what happens if it is.

[ergative]

Dismalist, I don't quite understand your comments, but "quality be damned" seems to be saying that there are not enough qualified or meritorious people of underrepresented groups to be hired into the positions you're envisioning? Like, say, people want to increase the number of women physicists or black physicists, but you don't believe there can be enough meritorious women physicists or black physicists, so the ones that will be hired don't actually deserve the jobs? I wonder if you have hard data to back up the idea that the women and black people in the field are worse scholars than the white men.  Or perhaps it's just an a priori assumption.

The dubious a priori assumption is that a particular group is underrepresented when it does not match its share of the total U.S. population.

Corrrrect, but it's worse: Under-representation is attributed to discrimination, in turn attributed to animus. This is moronic.

Where are the female construction workers? Carry those heavy loads! Where are the female sanitation workers, in the sewers? Smelly, dirty.

These are jobs women do not want, and if they did, statistical discrimination would keep them out [perhaps not in the former USSR]. Upper body strength, lack thereof.

Women want the cushy jobs, all of them! Universities are full of cushy jobs. :-)

That's why the upper echelons of the university professoriat is filled to bursting with estrogen.

Look, sometimes groups are underrepresented for reasons of animus. Sometimes they're underrepresented because group members are not interested in looking for those jobs. Sometimes they're underrepresented because group members have been trained since childhood that such jobs are not for them, and so they never actually consider applying for them.

Sometimes a cough and a fever are a bad cold. Sometimes they are covid. If there is a known, proven, bad root cause that exists as an alternative to a harmless root cause, it's not moronic to look into whether the bad reason is responsible for this particular situation.

#notalldiscrimination, sure, sure, but #maybeyou'dbettercheckallthesame!

[Caracal]

Dismalist, I don't quite understand your comments, but "quality be damned" seems to be saying that there are not enough qualified or meritorious people of underrepresented groups to be hired into the positions you're envisioning? Like, say, people want to increase the number of women physicists or black physicists, but you don't believe there can be enough meritorious women physicists or black physicists, so the ones that will be hired don't actually deserve the jobs? I wonder if you have hard data to back up the idea that the women and black people in the field are worse scholars than the white men.  Or perhaps it's just an a priori assumption.

The dubious a priori assumption is that a particular group is underrepresented when it does not match its share of the total U.S. population.

Corrrrect, but it's worse: Under-representation is attributed to discrimination, in turn attributed to animus. This is moronic.

Where are the female construction workers? Carry those heavy loads! Where are the female sanitation workers, in the sewers? Smelly, dirty.

These are jobs women do not want, and if they did, statistical discrimination would keep them out [perhaps not in the former USSR]. Upper body strength, lack thereof.

Women want the cushy jobs, all of them! Universities are full of cushy jobs. :-)

That's why the upper echelons of the university professoriat is filled to bursting with estrogen.

Look, sometimes groups are underrepresented for reasons of animus. Sometimes they're underrepresented because group members are not interested in looking for those jobs. Sometimes they're underrepresented because group members have been trained since childhood that such jobs are not for them, and so they never actually consider applying for them.

Sometimes a cough and a fever are a bad cold. Sometimes they are covid. If there is a known, proven, bad root cause that exists as an alternative to a harmless root cause, it's not moronic to look into whether the bad reason is responsible for this particular situation.

#notalldiscrimination, sure, sure, but #maybeyou'dbettercheckallthesame!

Academics seem to have weird ideas about upper body strength and what you need it for.

[marshwiggle]

For ways to fix it: try surveying your students on the first day on their name and pronouns. Make sure you pronounce their names correctly. Try acknowledging the work of women, LGTBQ people and BIPOC in your field, while also acknowledging how far your field has to go. Try teaching about the roles of women, LGTBQ people and BIPOC - they are part of history, society and humanity. Try not using the term diversity hire.

For the last year plus, I have been teaching completely remotely and asynchronous. I have no idea about what any of my students look like, whether they have an accent, how old they are, or anything but their names. For many names that I haven't heard before, I have no idea whether it is either traditionally or exclusively male or female. I don't need to know their preferred pronouns since I'd only be using "you" and "yours" if they email me. The material in my STEM field is technical, and there's no need to talk about who discovered or developed anything.

In short, all of those elements related to diversity and inclusion above are entirely irrelevant. When I hired TAs this year, from people who took the course last year, I had no idea of all of those factors about THEM for the same reasons. I hired them by looking at the students with the highest grades of those who had applied.

Merit is what matters. I'm sure I'm not alone in being in a field where what I've described is how most people operate.

[downer]

I am still pondering the original question.

One issue is whether there is any good evidence that any training makes any difference. You'd have thought someone would have tried to measure some effect. I haven't seen any results though.

At this stage I'm most sympathetic to the idea that college should be welcoming to new students from minority populations. There are things like professors remembering student names which could make a difference. I'm not particularly clear what other steps would really make a difference. To a large extent, my thought is that colleges should have smaller class sizes and pay faculty enough so that they don't need to take other jobs. Then they can spend more time remembering names and making welcome cards.

I wonder whether those who get paid to do inclusivity training are aware that they are mainly window dressing.

[Caracal]

I am still pondering the original question.

One issue is whether there is any good evidence that any training makes any difference. You'd have thought someone would have tried to measure some effect. I haven't seen any results though.

At this stage I'm most sympathetic to the idea that college should be welcoming to new students from minority populations. There are things like professors remembering student names which could make a difference. I'm not particularly clear what other steps would really make a difference. To a large extent, my thought is that colleges should have smaller class sizes and pay faculty enough so that they don't need to take other jobs. Then they can spend more time remembering names and making welcome cards.

I wonder whether those who get paid to do inclusivity training are aware that they are mainly window dressing.

I'm more or less with you on this. The goal isn't to create a more inclusive environment, its to look like you're doing something if anyone asks while ignoring the structural problems which take actual commitment and resources to solve.

[artalot]

The material in my STEM field is technical, and there's no need to talk about who discovered or developed anything.

These technical aspects weren't developed by a person? Your field is completely representation of the population demographics in the country where you teach? This seems like a cop-out to me. Letting students know that a person of color invented this process or theory or piece of equipment lets them know that this is field where people of color can be successful. Allowing students to share pronouns (not forcing them - who does that?) lets them know that you and by extension your field accept all genders and sexualities. This is not about you or how you address students or what technical processes you need to teach. It's about showing students that the field is an option and can be inclusive and diverse.
This is as easy as indicating on a slide that this process you're discussing was developed by a woman. And a survey the first day of class with several optional questions, including pronouns. It's really not hard, and that you think it is reveals why we still have major disparities in STEM fields. It's not that they're too hard for women. It's that they're hostile to difference.

[marshwiggle]

The material in my STEM field is technical, and there's no need to talk about who discovered or developed anything.

These technical aspects weren't developed by a person? Your field is completely representation of the population demographics in the country where you teach? This seems like a cop-out to me. Letting students know that a person of color invented this process or theory or piece of equipment lets them know that this is field where people of color can be successful.

This assumes that I even know (or care).

Except for a few theorems named after specific people, I don't have the slightest idea who came up with the technology, processes, software, etc. that is current, and it would be a colosal waste of time to try to research it, especially since the only time it would be "appropriate" to mention would be when it's someone other than a white (or possibly Asian) male.

Allowing students to share pronouns (not forcing them - who does that?) lets them know that you and by extension your field accept all genders and sexualities.

All English language pronouns are gender-neutral except for third person singular, and referring to a person by name in the third person singular avoids assuming any gender, so there's never a need to use any gendered pronouns. (In fact, that's the common practice here, where peoples' identities are essentially unknown.)

This is not about you or how you address students or what technical processes you need to teach. It's about showing students that the field is an option and can be inclusive and diverse.

This sounds like something that would have been said a century ago, when there were restrictions like women not being allowed to go to medical school. When in the past few decades has it been appropriate to suggest that any field was restricted to certain types of people?

It's a whole lot more bigoted to say "I'm OK with black people moving into my neighbourhood" than it is to show no specific interest in the skin colour of my neighbours and just get to know them as people.

This is as easy as indicating on a slide that this process you're discussing was developed by a woman. And a survey the first day of class with several optional questions, including pronouns. It's really not hard, and that you think it is reveals why we still have major disparities in STEM fields. It's not that they're too hard for women. It's that they're hostile to difference.

So since biology is one STEM field that has a majority of women, where's the evidence that biology has historically made vastly greater efforts to indicate the discoveries, techniques, etc. that were developed by women that must account for it?

[Hegemony]

Oh, I'm just so tired of it, you know? That it's been this many years and it's still going on. So so tired of it.

[ergative]

All right, I'll have a go, and then I'm out.

The material in my STEM field is technical, and there's no need to talk about who discovered or developed anything.

These technical aspects weren't developed by a person? Your field is completely representation of the population demographics in the country where you teach? This seems like a cop-out to me. Letting students know that a person of color invented this process or theory or piece of equipment lets them know that this is field where people of color can be successful.

This assumes that I even know (or care).

Except for a few theorems named after specific people, I don't have the slightest idea who came up with the technology, processes, software, etc. that is current, and it would be a colosal waste of time to try to research it, especially since the only time it would be "appropriate" to mention would be when it's someone other than a white (or possibly Asian) male.

Just because you are not interested in the history and development of discoveries in your field does not mean that teaching the history and development of those discoveries is bad pedagogy. Absolutive teaches high school math. He always makes sure that students know that the word 'algorithm' was derived from an Arab mathematician named al-Ḵwārizmī. Is it part of the standardized testing curriculum? No, of course not. But it sure is convenient--especiallly in the post-9/11 era when he started teaching--to remind students that Arabs are not all terrorists. It sure is convenient to let Muslim students know that mathematics, even the anodyne standardized high school curriculum, has roots that they share.

If it makes you itchy to say 'this person was black' without also saying 'this person was white', then don't. Just put a photograph on the slide where you introduce the topic. The students will see pretty quick that some of those photographs are of people who look like them, and that works just as well.

If you're not interested in teaching the historical context of your field, then fine, don't teach it. But don't claim that it's irrelevant or a waste of time.

Allowing students to share pronouns (not forcing them - who does that?) lets them know that you and by extension your field accept all genders and sexualities.

All English language pronouns are gender-neutral except for third person singular, and referring to a person by name in the third person singular avoids assuming any gender, so there's never a need to use any gendered pronouns. (In fact, that's the common practice here, where peoples' identities are essentially unknown.)

'That's an outstanding question, Gwendopol. Let's consider it together. Gwendopol's question is whether adding Gwendopol's own blood sacrifice to the summoning circle is necessary, or whether anyone's blood could serve. I remember this came up last week, when Mikroluio had difficulty with Mikroluio's summoning spell, and we had discovered that Mikroluio's lab partner had added Mikroluio's lab partner's blood, rather than waiting for Mikroluio to add Mikroluio's blood.'

It gets rather exhausting to use only names and no pronouns, I think.

This is not about you or how you address students or what technical processes you need to teach. It's about showing students that the field is an option and can be inclusive and diverse.

This sounds like something that would have been said a century ago, when there were restrictions like women not being allowed to go to medical school. When in the past few decades has it been appropriate to suggest that any field was restricted to certain types of people?

It's a whole lot more bigoted to say "I'm OK with black people moving into my neighbourhood" than it is to show no specific interest in the skin colour of my neighbours and just get to know them as people.

Well, yes, what has changed in the past decades is that people are no longer explicit about saying 'Black people don't belong in my field' or 'Oh, I have no objection to black people in my field.' And yet, black people keep feeling unwelcome. In Absolutive's school, an AP calc teacher once told a black student, the instant the student walked into the class, 'Are you sure you're in the right place?' Didn't ask the student's name, didn't check the register, simply assumed that a black student didn't belong in the AP calc classroom.

You don't need to explicitly talk about the welcomeness or unwelcomeness of different groups to make the feel welcome or unwelcome. One way you can make them feel unwelcome is by telling them that they, as individual people, are unwelcome in a setting where they don't look like every other individual person. And one way to make them feel welcome is by making it clear that the setting does include individual people who do look like them.

This is as easy as indicating on a slide that this process you're discussing was developed by a woman. And a survey the first day of class with several optional questions, including pronouns. It's really not hard, and that you think it is reveals why we still have major disparities in STEM fields. It's not that they're too hard for women. It's that they're hostile to difference.

So since biology is one STEM field that has a majority of women, where's the evidence that biology has historically made vastly greater efforts to indicate the discoveries, techniques, etc. that were developed by women that must account for it?

Here's an article: We found that white men were most likely to report a sense of belonging whereas women of color were the least likely. Further, we found that representation within one's STEM sub-discipline, namely biology versus the physical sciences, impacts sense of belonging for women. Four key factors were found to contribute to sense of belonging for all students interviewed: interpersonal relationships, perceived competence, personal interest, and science identity.

Here's another article: The most consistent and significant links among models for the five participating institutions occurred between belonging at the class level and positive emotional engagement, while the least frequent and least consistent occurred between belonging to the university and all forms of engagement.

What you do specifically in the classroom matters to students and affects their engagement in their studies. Biology classrooms do it better than other STEM fields for women, which may be why biology has more women. This doesn't strike me as very complicated. And it doesn't require much change in pedagogical methods to implement these practices.

[marshwiggle]

All right, I'll have a go, and then I'm out.

So since biology is one STEM field that has a majority of women, where's the evidence that biology has historically made vastly greater efforts to indicate the discoveries, techniques, etc. that were developed by women that must account for it?

Here's an article: We found that white men were most likely to report a sense of belonging whereas women of color were the least likely. Further, we found that representation within one's STEM sub-discipline, namely biology versus the physical sciences, impacts sense of belonging for women. Four key factors were found to contribute to sense of belonging for all students interviewed: interpersonal relationships, perceived competence, personal interest, and science identity.

Here's another article: The most consistent and significant links among models for the five participating institutions occurred between belonging at the class level and positive emotional engagement, while the least frequent and least consistent occurred between belonging to the university and all forms of engagement.

These may reflect the situation now, but they don't address how the discrepancy got started in the first place. The reason this matters is that small effects over a long time period have significant consequences. This applies to everything, not just discrimination. So, for instance, if women have somewhat more interest in living things compared to men, that would account for more women in biology than in physics in the absence of any discrimination. Similarly, if men have somewhat more interest in mechanical systems than women, that would account for more men in physics than biology in the absence of any discrimination.

I do labs for one course in a male dominated field, and then I teach a subsequent course which is an elective for most students. Many women in the first course tell me they enjoy it, and some (but not all) sign up for the second course.  Here's the important point:

Even if women think my course sounds interesting, they will only sign up if it sounds more interesting than all of their other options.

So, if my course is the #1 option for more men, and the #2 option for more women, there's still going to be an imbalance.

LESSON: I can make my course as welcoming as possible, but I have no control over their other courses and interests. Unless everyone has the same ranking of interests, there are going to be different outcomes.

[Ruralguy]

The authors probably address this, but I am not sure all of these factors are independent of each other, though perhaps that can be rooted out by survey.
For instance, a survey can possibly root out how  deep and lasting someone's interest really is. Otherwise my concern is that its highly correlated with peer relationships.

That being said, there probably are some general differences in interests between men and women (percentage wise) that may be very difficult to control/manipulate due to how much they are influenced by deep-seated societal and family factors as well as anything that *might* be more innate, if there is anything truly innate. Still, so long as women report biases and uninviting environments in some sciences, explaining even some of it away with fundamental differences in interests will seem weak (as with Larry Summers).