Regenerating Research Culture: Feminist STS Approaches to STEM Graduate Methods

Abstract

How can we interrupt and regenerate the culture of research in STEM to expand its possibilities in the face of anti-science discourse and anti-woman, and anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ cultural politics? Research in STEM education suggests that integrating socio-cultural context and communal values into STEM education can increase recruitment and retention of women, under-represented minorities (URMs), and first generation students in STEM, while also enhancing all student’s commitment to the social good. Feminist approaches to STS are well-positioned to shift the culture of research in STEM to produce better and broader results, as well as to increase equity and retention of diverse talent. 4S provides a unique forum for discussing the integration of feminist approaches in STEM with broader discussion of how research that breaks down traditional disciplinary barriers between fields can engage social justice values in social science and humanities together with STEM fields in arena of graduate training. Such curricular changes can also transform the range of research engaged in STEM as well as the diversity of researchers conducting it.

This panel discussion of STEM graduate training brings together insights from feminist theory with social studies of science to address deep bias in scientific research to suggest methods and frameworks that produce more accountable, accurate and responsible scientific research. Feminist approaches are shown to improve objectivity by recognizing all observation as from a partial perspective, and strengthen objectivity by bringing together multiple (partial) standpoints of observation into the scientific method (Harding 2004, Barad 2007). While biases in science are frequently noted and attempts to remove them are initiated, feminist scientists argue that instead of fruitlessly trying to remove all biases, we should instead see knowledge as always “situated” in culture, always historically contextual (Haraway 1988). This panel will discusses how to produce more responsible and accountable science.

Individual Presentations

• “Notes for the Feminist Science Lab/Classroom”: Possibilities for Queer and Feminist Science in the University - Maya Cruz, University of California - Davis

• Articulations of Investment: Connecting Feminist STS with Women in STEM Conversations - Sarah Rebolloso McCullough, Feminist Research Institute, UC Davis

• Streak Plating and Silicon: An STS Re-Examining of Engineering from within the Discipline - James Dylan Rees, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• On Feminist Arts + Sciences of Noticing: Review and Reconnection in Community Data Lab - Anita Say Chan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

• Feminist Collaboratories: Regenerating Cultures of Research - Kalindi Vora, University of California Davis

Session Organizer

• Kalindi Vora, University of California Davis