People talk a lot about group/team work that better represents the workplace as a thing education should do.
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People talk a lot about group/team work that better represents the workplace as a thing education should do. One issue for STEM fields struggling to diversify? Such groups can discriminate.
For instance, these field studies in long-running undergrad groups finds male-majority teams differentially act to cede less influence to female members, and are less likely to elect female members to represent the group. Female leaders, not just members, change things.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4646347 -
I don't disagree with the potentially powerful impact of more collaborative work in education, I just think actually making that work requires facing issues like this head-on. I have many friends who've gone through a CS PhD and had to weave a very complicated dance around discriminatory people, this is treated as so common it is rote, and I ask myself, "do we have a situation that justifies the type of intervention that in the abstract sounds good?" A lot about stuff like this.
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@grimalkina
Yes, can confirm! Merely forming diverse groups is not sufficient. If you’re forming teams without treating teamwork itself as a primary learning goal, a thing that requires conscious attention from teacher and students, then you’re setting up all kinds of problems. It’s really tough work. I struggle with this all the time. (something something access versus inclusion) -
@inthehands so much time and emotional as well as intellectual labor.
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@grimalkina
Yes!! And real labor that both tech and academic culture try to teach us not to see as real labor, when so often it’s •the• most important thing in a class / on a project. -
Marsh Gardiner 🌱🐝replied to Paul Cantrell last edited by
@inthehands @grimalkina Strong Shirky Principle vibes right there!
"Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/
