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A “Scientific Diversity” Intervention to Reduce Gender Bias in a Sample of Life Scientists

Mounting experimental evidence suggests that subtle gender biases favoring men contribute to the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including many subfields of the life sciences. However, there are relatively few evaluations of diversity interve...

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Autores principales: Moss-Racusin, Corinne A., van der Toorn, Jojanneke, Dovidio, John F., Brescoll, Victoria L., Graham, Mark J., Handelsman, Jo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Cell Biology 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5008876/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27496360
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-09-0187
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author Moss-Racusin, Corinne A.
van der Toorn, Jojanneke
Dovidio, John F.
Brescoll, Victoria L.
Graham, Mark J.
Handelsman, Jo
author_facet Moss-Racusin, Corinne A.
van der Toorn, Jojanneke
Dovidio, John F.
Brescoll, Victoria L.
Graham, Mark J.
Handelsman, Jo
author_sort Moss-Racusin, Corinne A.
collection PubMed
description Mounting experimental evidence suggests that subtle gender biases favoring men contribute to the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including many subfields of the life sciences. However, there are relatively few evaluations of diversity interventions designed to reduce gender biases within the STEM community. Because gender biases distort the meritocratic evaluation and advancement of students, interventions targeting instructors’ biases are particularly needed. We evaluated one such intervention, a workshop called “Scientific Diversity” that was consistent with an established framework guiding the development of diversity interventions designed to reduce biases and was administered to a sample of life science instructors (N = 126) at several sessions of the National Academies Summer Institute for Undergraduate Education held nationwide. Evidence emerged indicating the efficacy of the “Scientific Diversity” workshop, such that participants were more aware of gender bias, expressed less gender bias, and were more willing to engage in actions to reduce gender bias 2 weeks after participating in the intervention compared with 2 weeks before the intervention. Implications for diversity interventions aimed at reducing gender bias and broadening the participation of women in the life sciences are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-50088762016-09-09 A “Scientific Diversity” Intervention to Reduce Gender Bias in a Sample of Life Scientists Moss-Racusin, Corinne A. van der Toorn, Jojanneke Dovidio, John F. Brescoll, Victoria L. Graham, Mark J. Handelsman, Jo CBE Life Sci Educ Article Mounting experimental evidence suggests that subtle gender biases favoring men contribute to the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including many subfields of the life sciences. However, there are relatively few evaluations of diversity interventions designed to reduce gender biases within the STEM community. Because gender biases distort the meritocratic evaluation and advancement of students, interventions targeting instructors’ biases are particularly needed. We evaluated one such intervention, a workshop called “Scientific Diversity” that was consistent with an established framework guiding the development of diversity interventions designed to reduce biases and was administered to a sample of life science instructors (N = 126) at several sessions of the National Academies Summer Institute for Undergraduate Education held nationwide. Evidence emerged indicating the efficacy of the “Scientific Diversity” workshop, such that participants were more aware of gender bias, expressed less gender bias, and were more willing to engage in actions to reduce gender bias 2 weeks after participating in the intervention compared with 2 weeks before the intervention. Implications for diversity interventions aimed at reducing gender bias and broadening the participation of women in the life sciences are discussed. American Society for Cell Biology 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC5008876/ /pubmed/27496360 http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-09-0187 Text en © 2016 C. A. Moss-Racusin et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2016 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0). “ASCB®” and “The American Society for Cell Biology®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology.
spellingShingle Article
Moss-Racusin, Corinne A.
van der Toorn, Jojanneke
Dovidio, John F.
Brescoll, Victoria L.
Graham, Mark J.
Handelsman, Jo
A “Scientific Diversity” Intervention to Reduce Gender Bias in a Sample of Life Scientists
title A “Scientific Diversity” Intervention to Reduce Gender Bias in a Sample of Life Scientists
title_full A “Scientific Diversity” Intervention to Reduce Gender Bias in a Sample of Life Scientists
title_fullStr A “Scientific Diversity” Intervention to Reduce Gender Bias in a Sample of Life Scientists
title_full_unstemmed A “Scientific Diversity” Intervention to Reduce Gender Bias in a Sample of Life Scientists
title_short A “Scientific Diversity” Intervention to Reduce Gender Bias in a Sample of Life Scientists
title_sort “scientific diversity” intervention to reduce gender bias in a sample of life scientists
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5008876/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27496360
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.15-09-0187
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