Learning to see inequity in science.

I have often wondered whether I have persisted as a scientist in part because I was not a very keen observer of inequity in science during my education and early career. It was rather late in my scientific training that I began to see inequities in science, which I'll loosely define here as unfairness or injustice that is linked to an individual's personal characteristics such as gender, culture, race, ethnicity, linguistic background, and sexual orientation, among others. As stewards of our discipline and scientists who are also educators, we all have a special responsibility to be alert to issues of inequity, to address these issues, and to make careers in science accessible for all. Interestingly, my attentiveness to inequities in science did not arise from my own experiences, at least not initially. It came instead from my skepticism of those who had already learned to see inequities in science and were doing something about it. In my case, I was deeply skeptical about the founding of an after-school science club program designed to encourage middle school girls to persist in science (Chatman et al., 2008 ). At that time, I thought having a single-sex science club unfairly implied that girls needed some special treatment. I also worried that as an unintended consequence, girls would think something was wrong with them, that the existence of a special girls science club would imply that they needed extra remedial help. Somewhat in protest to this girls-only science club program, I did two things one spring. First, I initiated a coeducational after-school science club, which seemed eminently fairer to me at the time. Second, I began critically reading the literature on gender inequity in science and in science education (American Association of University Women [AAUW], 1992 ; Sadker and Sadker, 1994 ). What happened that spring, in a relatively short period, profoundly altered my thinking about gender equity in science. My readings suggested differential treatment of and participation by girls and boys in science classrooms (AAUW, 1992 ; Sadker and Sadker, 1994 ). My coed science club became a living laboratory in which I personally witnessed inequities in the participation of girls and boys. Most striking, the science club was also a setting in which I saw differential treatment of girls and boys that mirrored what I had been reading. And I, a woman scientist, was the person treating girls and boys differently! Research has shown that the gender of a teacher is not a predictor of the equity climate in the classroom (Tobin and Garnett, 1987 ), and I was a shining example. I called on boys to answer questions more often than girls. I was more likely to tell a boy how to focus a microscope, and more likely to do it for a girl. My skepticism about inequity and unfairness in science, in particular gender inequity, was replaced that day by an ability to see inequity in a way I had never seen it before. The inequity that I witnessed was in my own classroom and was not, as I had imagined it would be, sinister or grotesque or even very obvious. Rather, the gender inequity that I observed and help promulgate in the coed science club was quite everyday, easily passed over, and largely invisible if you didn't think about what to look for or know how to look. As a result of my skepticism, and more careful observation (with the guiding help of the literature) of what was happening around me, I have developed an “equity eye” that has never allowed me to see science classrooms, science conferences, or anything else in my discipline quite the same way ever again. Learning to see inequity in science is critical to anyone who is actively encouraging young people to invest their education, career, and life in the discipline. If the culture of science is grossly inequitable, why should students take the risk of entering this discipline over careers in other arenas? Many scholarly publications from the fields of psychology, science education, and sociology have described inequities in science; proposed theoretical frameworks for understanding them; and explored practical strategies for addressing such inequities (Tobias, 1990 ; Seymour and Hewitt, 1997 ; Brown, 2004 ; Johnson, 2007 ; Tanner and Allen, 2007 ; Chamany et al., 2008 ), but progress in jettisoning these inequities from our discipline has been slow. I illustrate this by examining three seemingly simple examples of inequity in science: the ad campaign Rock Stars of Science, the documentary Naturally Obsessed: The Making of a Scientist, and the story of a University Seminar Series Committee, made anonymous. I chose to share these three examples for several reasons. First, these examples underscore that messages of inequity can be found in materials that are very well meaning and well intentioned. Second, these examples illustrate that inequitable messages can be found in both very public places and in the everyday activities and routines of academic science. Finally, each of these examples has the potential to inadvertently discourage broad participation of women and people of color in the discipline of biology through subtle and implicit messages about who can be successful in research science. If we, as stewards of our discipline, can learn to recognize and address these instances of inequity, we can do much to prevent their reoccurrence. As scientists who are also educators and role models to our students, our attention to these issues and our responses to them is likely much more important than we may generally recognize.