Geoscience Students See Field as Too Ableist and Too White, According to Survey
“BIPOC students in geoscience face discrimination and barriers to learning at all levels, from microaggressions to systemic racism”
Why does the left seem to have a perpetual need to engineer the population of certain fields?
The College Fix reports:
‘Too rock heavy,’ too ableist, too white: Geoscience students identify concerns in field
Geoscience courses are “too rock heavy,” remote field sites are not handicap accessible, and faculty in the field are insufficiently diverse — these are some of the concerns identified through a nationwide survey of students majoring in geoscience.
“BIPOC students in geoscience face discrimination and barriers to learning at all levels, from microaggressions to systemic racism,” wrote Willa Rowan of Western Washington University in her August 2023 master’s thesis.
Geoscience students that fall into this umbrella category of black, indigenous, or people of color, stated Rowan, “are also less likely to have positive, transformative experiences than their white peers.” These white peers, she added, are also overrepresented in geoscience.
Rowan’s claims follow her analysis of the self-reported experiences of geoscience students from a variety of demographic backgrounds and how these experiences impact what Rowan refers to as their “geoscience identity.”
Defining the construct as one’s ability to identify as a geoscientist, Rowan measured geoscience identity through a series of survey questions gauging self-reported competence at understanding geoscience content, performance of geoscience activities, and recognition as a geoscientist by others.
She surveyed 139 college seniors majoring in geoscience and recruited from 99 universities.
In addition to the survey questions, Rowan also presented participants with a series of short-answer questions inquiring about their motivations, educational transitions, and transformative academic experiences: Why did they choose their major? Did they ever consider leaving their major? Do they plan to pursue a geoscience career after graduating? Nearly 130 students answered the short-answer questions.
Upon analyzing student survey and short-answer responses, Rowan found white students “had stronger geoscience identities than BIPOC male students, with much of the difference concentrated in the performance/competence domain of geoscience identity.”
This finding, Rowan noted, “speaks to issues of racial equity that go beyond diversity and representation.”
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
This attitude has got to arise from students accepted into colleges for reasons other than merit. These students, unable to excel in these fields, want to dumb them down and use click-bait words to criticize the requirements needed to excel in them. I think this is why more people, in particular white males, are choosing not to go to college.
Let’s see, I want to say I’m in STEM. But even biology is too hard for me. Maybe if I do geoscience and avoid all that hard stuff about rocks, well there isn’t much math or chemistry then, that will be my STEM identity!
There’s a reason that introductory geology overview courses became known as “rocks for jocks.”
Any data they have is pretty weak with 1300 schools under NCAA and NAIA control.
Imagine being in a field of study that examines, among other things, rocks, and then complaining because it’s rock heavy–self awareness isn’t a thing, I guess, in geoscience or on the part of Ms. Rowan
“Geoscience courses are “too rock heavy,” remote field sites are not handicap accessible”
We need to redesign boxing so you can become a champion without all that awful hitting of people.
Easy to remedy. Replace every student who demanded change with a physically challenged, non-white student.
This is the same shit as “land acknowledgements.”
“Every day we will confess that we stole this property. But we’ll never give it back.”
Rowan found white students “had stronger geoscience identities than BIPOC male students, with much of the difference concentrated in the performance/competence domain of geoscience identity.”
Maybe it speaks to the idea of these BIPOC male students that they don’t have to learn about rocks. No wonder they don’t feel competent in geoscience.
What is it that they want to study in geoscience, if not rocks? I bet the survey doesn’t ask that.
“What is it that they want to study in geoscience, if not rocks?”
Elevationism. Microfracture aggressions. Deep-seated petroleum anxiety. Transeismic rights. Heavy-element shaming. DEI (Drilling, Excavating, and Injection).
“Geoscience students that fall into this umbrella category of black, indigenous, or people of color, stated Rowan, “are also less likely to have positive, transformative experiences than their white peers.”
Here is my totally fed up with this crap answer, Maybe they should not be there in the first place. Not just in the geosciences but in university at all. I spent a few years in college, took a variety of classes, some positive, some not so positive. What I never expected or demanded was that UF provided me with a transformative experience. That was on me. Yes I had some, keeping in mind the limit to any bail funds in my piggy bank. Maybe the White peers gained such by getting off their asses and going after said experiences.
She buried the lede in her last point.
She wants to guarantee herself and others in her tribe a faculty job when she finishes. That’s what this is about and the rest is just a smokescreen.
If you look at this “study”, one of the criteria to decide if someone identifies with being a geoscientist is if they say that “Seeing other people who look like me within my field reinforces my geoscience identity.” So, since most geoscientists aren’t black, black people by definition can’t identify as well as being geoscientists. And the startling conclusion is that black people have problems identifying as geoscientists!
How on earth is such a stupid study worth granting a Master’s degree?
Hey, this approach did wonders to swell the ranks of black mermaids.
My entire family is Latino. Could somebody please explain to me what a “microaggression” is supposed to be? Have relatives in university, and what they report as “microaggressions” are leftist faculty trying to get them to report someone, and my relatives are more annoyed with the faculty than other students saying dumb things.
I’ll try to keep it short.
It’s a made-up slight. It’s literally defined as a “perceived slight” by one person against another.
So, to summarize its purpose, it’s often employed by self-absorbed minority activists to use as a cudgel of grievance power against another entity due to their race, gender, or sexual orientation in the majority.
It’s when somebody offends you in such a minor way that you are the only person in the universe who notices it.
I want to be a surgeon, but I can’t stand the sight of blood.
I want to be president, but all I want to do is eat ice cream cones and babble.
I want to be a full time fireman, but only between 3 and 4 PM on the first Wednesday of each month.
I want to be a theoretical physicist, but I’m having a lot of trouble with basic math and science courses. So my supersymmetry and general relativity courses aren’t as transformative to me as they are for people who actually understand the subjects. Therefore the professors, students, and college are all racists.
You have to contact 139 people at 99 universities to make it relevant!
I find the NBA too black! So what?
Black?
It’s toxically male!
That too! And they are all tall.
Was her thesis accepted for a M.S in Geoscience? Reads more like a sociology paper.