Skip to main content

How Current Scientific Cultures and Metrics Reproduce Privilege


At the Privileged Logics 2024 conference, there was broad agreement that metrics currently used are unfair and reproduce privilege. Reasons include adherence to a competitive scientific culture, perceptions that these metrics are objective, their usefulness in appealing to outsiders for engagement and recruitment, and inertia and/or mistaken notions of rigor from those who have been at the institution for a long time and don’t want to change the way things are done.

Examples of metrics that have affected outcomes for individuals due to privilege included:

  • The demand for novelty and transformation (although there can also be an anti-innovation bias denying merit to delivery modes such as podcasts as well as to core expanding substantive areas and a focus on community impact) over replication and incremental gains
  • Statistical significance as a measure for worthwhile research
  • Tenure as a status attached to financial stability
  • Grades as measures of learning and achievement
  • Differential treatment based on your field or major
  • The demand for grants and differential value attached to different kinds of grants (e.g., federal), and different methodologies (e.g., community-based research takes more time, and this is not accounted for when counting publications).

We also talked about “memorable messages”: E.g., “Don’t focus too much on teaching,” which undergird the existing hierarchies of advantage. 

Strategies for mitigating negative outcomes of metrics because of privilege included:

  • Flexible appointment scheduling for research participants
  • Appropriate financial compensation for research participants
  • Workshops for informal peer review of methodology that assigns value before publication
  • Expansion of promotion and tenure criteria (e.g., categories for community engagement and DEIJ work); recognition of integration of teaching/service/research; recognizing planning, engagement and other types of grants as worthwhile deliverables
  • Equity audits

Among the unquestioned assumptions that maintain privilege are the superior “rigor” of quantitative versus qualitative designs — science is even thought to be “by its nature” quantitative — hence we set our review standards similarly. Similarly, there is a conservative bias in that those in power get to define quality (what “counts”) as well as when and how and who gets to be involved in those normative conversations. Questions fostering inclusion and change would push toward more holistic and expansive metrics; ex., success of students/faculty/staff whom we have mentored; contributions to the institution and community (can we elevate service more?). 

A two-tiered system (research vs teaching faculty) perpetuates the hierarchy even while ostensibly recognizing contributions that are not traditional. These hierarchies of merit and reward, including status and financial rewards, are present in hiring, promotion, funding agencies, publishers (e.g., journal rankings) and most of the peer review systems surrounding those arenas. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Privileged Logics 2024 Conference: Highlights from a Research Ethics Workshop

  At the Privileged Logics 2024 Conference, various participants shared what was being done at their institutions regarding research ethics. Training ranged from nothing and bare minimum CITI modules focused on compliance for those with federally funded grants, to monthly town halls and resources provided across campus. Some included weekly face-to-face trainings to supplement CITI required courses for all researchers, whether or not they are federally funded. The most comprehensive program resulted from disciplinary action by a federal granting agency. Examples of research ethics topics most directly related to privilege included sexual harassment and Indigenous student mentoring. But there was wide agreement that the orientation to understanding and addressing privilege was largely absent from most institutional training. A narrow focus on research integrity ignores the social benefits of research and equity and generally leads to rather superficial topics and a focus on com...
Post a Comment
Read more

Introducing the Privileged Logics Blog

Welcome to the Privileged Logics Blog!  Purpose of the Blog: Welcome to the Privileged Logics blog! Our blog serves as a platform for continued conversations surrounding privilege in STEM research and research ethics training . Our goal is to foster a community where researchers, educators, administrators, and stakeholders can come together to share resources, ideas, and insights on promoting equity and inclusion in STEM fields and in research ethics training.  About Privileged Logics 2024: Privileged Logics 2024 was a one-day conference held on February 25, 2024, funded by the National Science Foundation (Award Number 2316197). The conference examined the foundations of privilege in STEM research and research ethics, explored promising practices, and inspired participants to redefine research quality, ethics, and opportunity in STEM fields.  Privilege is a complex system of power that can manifest in various aspects of STEM research, from biases in peer review to dispa...
Post a Comment
Read more