CONVERGING FOR CHANGE: MAKING SPACE FOR OUR IDENTITIES IN GEOSCIENCE

Understanding how science identity can be supported through professional development and its correlations with pursuance of STEM careers has been the focus for many discipline-based education researchers, including physical science (e.g. physics, chemistry, geoscience) researchers. Advancements in these Western scientific understandings of STEM teaching and learning practices have resulted in some beneficial outcomes for students as well as faculty. In addition, the implementation of theoretical frameworks from the social sciences have added to our academic understanding of how discipline-specific identities may be formed and nurtured to foster positive affective outcomes for learners. Increasingly, intersectional frameworks are being used within justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts to better understand the unique challenges and opportunities that individuals with multiple marginalized identities encounter within educational and professional environments. In alignment with these approaches, our contribution has been to construct a space, using evidence-based resources, for dialogic conversation within geoscience professional organizations such as the Geological Society of America (GSA). We recognize that similar efforts to create these spaces have been ongoing by many talented and thoughtful members of the geoscience community throughout the years. However, we would also like to highlight the unique shift in power dynamic that is created when leaders with diverse identities autonomously inhabit space created and maintained to centralize the needs and perspectives of non-dominant groups. At future GSA meetings, we hope to continue to develop spaces that celebrate the diverse, lived experiences of the GSA membership, while also striving for justice and equity in geoscience disciplines.