Pathways for Accelerating Change in Social Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in STEM Curricula

Does a person’s race affect the type of medical care they receive in the US? In this cluster, we investigate where ideas about race originate from, and how these ideas influence health care and public health today. We learn about the impact of racism on the health of people from racially marginalized groups. We also explore how we can work towards more equitable and just health care for all.

 Racial Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Science Education centers around integrating race in science classrooms with interactive, inclusive, and interdisciplinary resources. These resources are available to create inclusive learning opportunities and engage students to develop inclusive mindsets. This project seeks to guide learners and empower educators through the creation of new content that demonstrates how to apply critical thinking skills to identify and transform the structures that sustain racial inequity in healthcare, education, and STEM fields in the US.

From LabXchange and Harvard University's Racial Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Science Education (RDEISE) project. The resources in Racism as a Public Health Crisis would be of immense value for students interested in pursuing (or who are currently pursuing) public health and related fields as these resources explore the concept of race in the context of medicine and healthcare to demonstrate how race has a significant impact on a person's treatment and health outcomes.

https://dividednolonger.com/recommended-resources/

This glossary includes terms and phrases that may be relevant in learning about and understanding aspects of Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. A separate file with annotations about glossary terms including examples where they have been applied are available for you to explore and learn.

The purpose of education is to understand and help address local and global problems to better society and the world. A key player in this endeavor should be STEM education, which has the potential to equip learners with the skills and knowledge necessary to address intersectional issues such as climate change, health and income disparities, racism, and political divisions. However, in this article we argue that despite the transformative potential of STEM education, it remains far removed from most people’s lived experiences and is detached from the real-world social, political, and economic contexts in which it exists. This detachment not only perpetuates existing inequities by failing to meet the specific needs and reflect the experiences of these communities, but it also hampers STEM education’s capacity to address the very local and global problems it is purported to solve. By remaining removed from the tangible, real-world contexts in which it exists, STEM education cannot fully harness its potential to better humanity. To address these issues, we propose humanizing STEM education by intentionally and explicitly grounding all work in the recognition of the inherent worth and dignity of all students, regardless of their background. We begin the article by critically examining the typically unspoken pre-existing assumptions or “agreements” that govern and dictate the norms of teaching and learning within STEM, ways of approaching framing STEM education that we often take for granted as necessary and true. We propose new agreements that expand the ways in which we think about STEM education, in hopes of making STEM education more accessible, inclusive, relevant, responsive, and reparative. Throughout, we deliberate on the notion of being human. We argue that to envision a future of humanistic STEM, one that is intentionally grounded in an ethics of care and equity for all, including the environment, it is necessary to continue to make visible and reimagine the unarticulated assumptions that underlie our current approaches to STEM education and practice.

STEM higher education in the U.S. has long been an uninviting space for minoritized individuals, particularly women, persons of color, and international students and scholars. In recent years, the contemporary realities of a global pandemic, sociopolitical divides, and heightened racial tensions, along with elevated levels of mental illness and emotional distress among college students, have intensified the need for an undergraduate STEM education culture and climate that recognizes and values the humanity of our students. The purpose of this article is to advance a more humanized undergraduate STEM education and to provide a framework to guide efforts toward achieving that vision. We argue that humanizing approaches recognize and value the complexity of individuals and the cultural capital that they bring to their education, and that this is particularly important for empowering minoritized students who are subordinated in status in STEM higher education. A STEM education that centers students’ humanity gives rise to equity and promotes human well-being and flourishing alongside knowledge acquisition and skill development. We then offer a guiding framework for conceptualizing the broader ecosystem in which undergraduate STEM students are embedded, and use it to outline the individual and collective roles that different stakeholders in the ecosystem can play in humanizing STEM education.

Resources on curriculum development and leadership from the National Equity Project

This is a semester-long project in which students read and discuss the story of Henrietta Lacks from multiple ethical perspectives. This project was developed for an undergraduate science ethics course but could be adapted to other biology courses.

[HTML] Association Between Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms Among Hispanic or Latino Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-Sectional Study

[HTML] Practice-Based Research From the Frontlines: Selected Strategies for Reducing Health Disparities and Accelerating Progress Toward Health Equity in the United …

Socioeconomic Disparities and the Prevalence of Antimicrobial Resistance

Evidence for Environmental Risk Factors and Cumulative Stress Linking Racial/Ethnic Identity and Psychotic-Like Experiences in ABCD Study Data

This is an example of my attempts to help students develop a growth mindset towards their studies.  It utilizes assignments with multiple attempts, rewarding practice.

Tips for inclusive teaching in a clinical environment

JAMA Article

Inclusive Language Field Guide

Systems Thinking and Civic Engagement for Climate Justice in General Chemistry: CO2 and PM 2.5 Pollution From Coal Combustion (Sonya Doucette)

Carbon Dioxide Birthday (Heather Price)

Climate Justice and Health Impacts of Methane (So-Called Natural Gas) in General or Introductory Chemistry (Heather Price) 

Redlining Practices of the 1930s Leading to the Effects of Extreme Heat Waves Today (Tracy Fields)

Clearing the Air through Climate Justice and Civic Engagement (Jessica Wang)

Transitioning to Renewable Fuels – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Grady Blacken)

Harris, B.N., P.C. McCarthy, A.M. Wright, H. Schutz, K.S. Boersma, S.L. Shepherd, L.A. Manning, 2020. From panic to pedagogy: Using online active learning to promote inclusive instruction in ecology and evolutionary biology courses and beyond. Ecology and Evolution 10: 12581–12612. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6915