ACTIVATING BROADER DIVERSITY IN STEM – THE MULTICONTEXT PATH TO REDEFINING HOW WE THINK ABOUT DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION

Our current approaches to diversity, equity, and inclusion are still defined by and rooted in Affirmative Action systems that were instituted in the 1960s. These approaches follow a diversity model that measures success primarily by counting the number of women and racialized underrepresented minorities (URMs) in higher education. While the model enabled institutions to recruit these populations into STEM disciplines, this approach only goes skin deep, literally, in its objective to improve the participation of diverse populations in the sciences. It fails to address a systemic issue in the STEM culture (and most of the academia) which is the valuing of one mode of cultural context in terms of knowing and doing science while simultaneously discounting other ways of knowing and doing. This assimilationist approach, if left undisrupted, can be problematic for diversity programs and initiatives in STEM as the opportunity to access the value of diversity -- which is broadening approaches to ways of knowing and doing that can move science forward in significant ways -- is missed. Another underlying problem is that the meaning of an inclusive environment (one that attracts a diverse population, helps everyone thrive in that environment, and values a broad view of success in STEM) has been unclear. Multicontext theory offers a new understanding of diversity in ways of knowing and doing. Presently, the culture of STEM fields primarily values “low context” approaches to scientific inquiry (e.g., individuated, task-oriented, compartmentalized task and concept orientation, and linear and logical thought processes) while “high context” approaches are often less valued (e.g., integrated, process-oriented, holistic, and systems thinking). Multicontext theory allows us to articulate these cultural contexts and apply them to reframe our approaches to scientific inquiry, thus activating the full strengths of diverse populations. It can help us reshape the culture of STEM to reflect greater inclusion. This will not only build toward diversity within the field but more importantly, we hypothesize that it will move STEM inquiry forward in significant ways.