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 fieldGeoscience 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.”
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY