What Do Physicists From Majority Groups Know and Believe about Race and Gender?

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

This project will address the significant need to increase diversity in physics by developing a robust understanding of the majority population's beliefs, knowledge, and attitudes toward the marginalization of white women and people of color. Most physicists in the United States are white men, which is a result of many factors, including unnecessary barriers that unfairly impede the success of white women and people of color. Increasing diversity in physics both improves the quality of physics research and is a matter of justice. This project is significant in its departure from previous work (which has generally focused on those from underrepresented minority groups) by focusing on white men, who constitute an overrepresented majority of physicists. Through interviews with 120 white male physics students and professors, this project will describe the majority group's understanding of race- and gender-based marginalization in physics. This information will be important for designing programs that productively involve both minority and majority populations in efforts to diversify physics. The three goals of the project are to (1) document and understand the majority population's knowledge of, beliefs about, and experience with race- and gender-based inequities in physics; (2) develop theories about the logic that underlies the majority population's understanding of race, gender, and marginalization in physics; and (3) use these theories to identify avenues for change. To achieve these goals, 120 self-identified white male physics students and faculty at five research universities will be interviewed about race and gender in physics. Interview data will be analyzed using a framework that describes marginalization along four dimensions: ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized. By filling the gap in knowledge about the majority group's views about race and gender, this project will advance the understanding of barriers to success faced by people from minority groups in physics.