Not Just Boxes to Check: Faculty Agency and the Everyday Politics of DEI in STEM

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:45 am - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Faculty Issues amid Political Change in Academia

Abstract

This study explores how STEM faculty at a flagship university in a historically conservative state advance DEI by asking: (a) What actions faculty engage in; (b) How organizational and societal schemas and resources enable or constrain faculty actions; and (c) In what ways faculty actions interact with organizational and societal schemas and resources to reproduce or transform the cultural and material conditions shaping DEI within their departments. Findings show that faculty advanced DEI through mentoring, curriculum revision, and advocacy, shaped by organizational and societal constraints. They navigated barriers using situational, adaptive, and creative agency. Their racialized and gendered experiences informed both action and awareness, offering insights into how faculty sustain equity efforts and reshape conditions in structurally constrained STEM contexts.

Authors

• Wu Xie, University of Missouri

• Candace R. Kuby, University of Missouri