LB 8-78 - Class Intervention to Address Representation and Social Justice Issues in Ecology

Thursday, August 18, 2022

5:00 PM – 6:30 PM EDT

Located in: ESA Exhibit Hall

Presenting Author(s)

AB

Amanda Bevan

PhD Candidate
University of Northern Colorado
Fort Collins, Colorado, United States

Coauthor(s)

KS

Karina Sanchez, PhD

University of Northern Colorado, United States
EH

Emily A. Holt, PhD

Associate Professor
University of Northern Colorado, Colorado, United States

Background/Question/Methods:

To address institutional, structural, and cultural racism and bias within the field of ecology, we must build cultural competency and increase the sense of belonging in students interested in the field. The Ecological Society of America has called for interventions to increase awareness of lack of representation and social justice issues in the field of ecology. The objectives of this work are to 1) Describe undergraduate students’ perceptions of representation and equity in the field of ecology and 2) Describe an intervention addressing topics in representation and social justice in the field of ecology. To address our first objective, we conducted a pre-intervention survey in a college ecology course that assessed student perceptions of identity compositions, racism, and sexism in ecology. To address our second objective, we developed a classroom intervention for ecology students that addressed these learning objectives: 1) Explain social justice issues in the field of ecology and 2) Identify representation of ecologists in the field. These topics aligned with recognized issues of racism and ethnocentrism in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology (Cronin et al. 2021). Our intervention was implemented in both a lab and lecture setting in Spring 2022.

Results/Conclusions:

Pre-intervention survey data was collected from 27 students, of which 2 individuals only partially completed the survey. We found 15.4% of students (4/26) agreed that ecology is a racist field and 38.5% (10/26) agreed or strongly agreed that ecology is a sexist field. Despite most students not perceiving racism or sexism within the field of ecology, 73.1% (19/26) agreed or strongly agreed that they “believe that European colonization had, and continues to have, a significant impact on the field of ecology”. Pre-intervention data suggests students are aware of the historical effects of colonialism in ecology but may yet be unaware of specific examples of the current effects of institutionalized racism and sexism within the field. Our intervention included inquiry activities for students to discover patterns of racism and sexism in the current and historic field of ecology. We will also discuss how post-intervention data may illustrate the importance of creating interventions that allow students to examine and discover the legacy of racism and sexism in ecology and its current impacts on promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.