GENDER AND RACE IN PHYSICAL GEOLOGY TEXTBOOKS: THE CAUCASIAN MALE STEREOTYPE OF GEOSCIENTISTS CONTINUES TO DOMINATE

Attracting more students and more underrepresented minorities into the geosciences is imperative to meet a projected shortfall in the national workforce. Many students’ first experience with geology is in a freshman college course. Hundreds of thousands of physical geology text books are sold to these students each year. Is there bias in how geologists are portrayed in these books and, if so, what are those biases? Has progress been made in the last decade? We report on the six most recent editions of popular texts from five different publishers that were part of a 2008 study. Data was collected on the number of photos, the number of photos with scientists and the number of scientists in each photo. Gender data was divided into male, female, and unknown. For each gender we noted if the individual was Caucasian, African-American, Asian, Latinx, or unknown. 567 geologists were shown in 6,593 figures (8.6%); 346 were male (61%), 153 were female (27%), and 68 were of undeterminable gender (12%). Out of 346 males, 307 were Caucasian (88.7%), 11 were African American, 7 were Asian, 2 were male Latinx, (total underrepresented male 5.8%), and 19 were unknown (5.5%). Out of 153 females, 137 were Caucasian (89.5%), 6 were African American, 4 were Asian, (total underrepresented female 6.5%), and 6 were unknown (4%). No female Latinx were shown. Textbooks portray males as 2.3 times more likely to be geologists compared to females. This ratio significantly exceeds the current proportion of early career geoscientists (49% female) and the near equal proportions in the U.S. population. The books imply that Caucasian geologists are 15 times more abundant in the work force compared to their non- Caucasian peers. This ratio differs significantly from the data for recent graduates and the general U.S. population (about 3:1 for both data sets). Has progress been made? The photos of scientists increased from 199 to 567 which may attract more majors but 294 of these were Caucasian. Identified minorities increased from 8 to 30 but even these show males 2:1; only 10 minority females were identified in 567 photos of geoscientists. Possible solutions include increased collaboration with illustrators to portray women and people of color, constructing an online database of photographs of diverse geologists, and adding detail to captions to identify gender or race.