I read with great interest A 30% Author Experiment in last week’s Inside Higher Education. This article highlighted the results of a research study in political science that explored the relationship between graduate students’ self-efficacy (belief that they will succeed in their field of study) and the proportion of women scholars represented on the syllabus (from the typical 10% to 30%!). What they found was that increasing the representation of women to 30% did not significantly increase women PhD students’ self-efficacy, but it did lower the self-efficacy of the men. Oh dear.
I had lots of questions, and so should you, so here’s the link to the full study: “Having Female Role Models Correlates with PhD Students’ Attitudes to their Own Academic Success” by Shauna N. Gilooly, Heidi Hardt, and Amy Eric Smith. They get into many important variables, not just the sex of the respondents and the authors. Most tellingly, the respondents’ pre-existing attitudes toward diversity overall had a predictive value.
As the authors delved into the details of their results, they posited some explanations for the negative impact of a more inclusive syllabus. One explanation was backlash. Drawing on research by Wilkins, Wellman, Babbitt, Toosi, and Schad (2015) they observed that “male students may have equated rising women’s representation in syllabi with their own group losing status and control, and responded with backlash.” For me the key word here is loss.
Anyone who has tried to champion change knows that one of the biggest factors in slowing or derailing such efforts is the sense of loss. Sometimes it is a seemingly small loss of routine that can follow reorganizing physical spaces (small, but annoying, no doubt as we change our routes and habits to fit the new layout). Sometimes it is the obviously large loss that comes with reorganizing power structures, social rules, and privilege. Even if we are rooting for the progress that the changes may imply, we cannot help but feel the losses that go with them.
The losses are real, even if they are just. As a woman in higher education, I am anxious to see syllabi and research investments that reflect women’s interests and contributions to my field. It is important to build our repertoire of readings and potential mentors in higher education in a way that is truly representative of many perspectives and experiences. In practical terms, this means more women and more people of color on my reading lists because they were underrepresented in my years as a doctoral student and in the textbooks and journals I have frequently consulted. Without reducing everything to a zero-sum game, I must admit that this change will necessarily mean my reading lists will include fewer men. I can’t just add; I can’t keep up. So, yes, the loss is real.
As we attend to the voices of more diverse scholars, we also subtly undermine presumptions of authority. This does not happen overnight; it probably takes a generation. Still, little by little, the assumption that doctors and scientists and serious scholars of all kinds are male will fade and with it that little (or not so little) leg up that these assumptions give will wane. Although some may claim that “privilege” isn’t real, the sense of loss of privilege is palpable. It is that feeling of loss that seems to be clearly expressed in this research study.
Among the important nuances of this study is the attention to the intervening variable of the respondents’ predisposition towards diversity. Those who saw increased diversity as a positive did not suffer the lowering of self-efficacy that the students who were less enthusiastic about embracing a diverse society. This is not at all surprising, but it is very important. It leads to what may be the most important question facing us in higher education right now – how are we contributing to the understanding of the value of diversity?
Well, some things are obvious. Our students come to us with attitudes that have been formed by family, school, and media of all kinds. Observing this we have rightfully argued for increased attention to reading and viewing lists from a very young age. But, I think higher education can contribute more to this conversation. We’ve done a lot of good work showing how negative exclusion is, but not nearly enough time has been dedicated to identifying the tangible benefits of inclusion. Moral arguments are great, and I fully embrace them, but in this case we need a clear research program into the value of including diverse perspectives.
Yes, I’ve just added more to our collective to-do lists and I’m sorry, but this is really important. We can’t just attend to the range of voices on our syllabi; we must attend to the impact of those voices on the research in medicine, science, diplomacy, social institutions, and cultural practices. We must be honest about how complex that inclusive stance can be and how the actions that follow from a new perspective may change our priorities in ways that may be uncomfortable for the few in the short term, but benefit the whole in the long term. And if we argue for the long view, we must be able to provide evidence for that benefit for the whole. This is a hard but necessary next step in our pursuit of equity.
It is time to focus our research on the tangible gains that inclusion can bring. There are already countless stories in medicine that can top the list. There are similar moments in history, literature, art, and psychology. Let’s start talking about how diverse perspectives have reshaped the questions we ask and even how we live. Let’s not talk in the abstract, but focus on concrete results. Maybe we can inspire increased curiosity instead of decreased self-efficacy. Now that would be a real win for everyone.
