UTILIZING CRITICAL FRAMEWORKS TO PROMOTE THE RECRUITMENT, RETENTION, AND EMPOWERMENT OF UNDERSERVED GEOSCIENCE STUDENTS

The U.S. geoscience community continues to remain disreputably homogenous despite that decades of initiatives have been aimed to broaden the participation of underrepresented minority students. All major underrepresented groups face barriers to participation within the geosciences including students in racial and ethnic minorities and particular women of color, individuals with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Past research from the geoscience education community has guided projects and programs that have locally improved the participation of underrepresented minority students, but few have explored the sociopolitical and historical contexts that have contributed to the geosciences being traditionally dominated by white, able-normative men. One way that future researchers can holistically investigate problems of underrepresentation is through the adoption of critical theories found within sociology. Critical theories are sociological frameworks that allow researchers to investigate problems in ways that acknowledge the social, political, and historical contexts within problems that often revolve around issues related to power, privilege or oppression. This presentation will provide summations of several critical frameworks used in sociology and explain how such frameworks can be used in future geoscience education research regarding diversity and underrepresented minority students. The frameworks that will be discussed include: Critical Race Theory, Critical Disability Theory, and Critical Latinx Indigeneities. Such frameworks would allow geoscience education researchers to challenge traditional geoscience culture as the reason why underrepresented minorities fail to participate in the discipline as opposed to the culture of underrepresented minorities themselves.