A rethink on diversity in physics

Is multiculturalism relevant to diversity in outreach or is it time for a rethink?

I’ve been working in physics outreach as a volunteer for over 5 years, and frankly, I’ve not seen much improvement in ‘diversity’. Sure, we all have the vocabulary; ‘science capital’, ‘LGBT’, ‘gender’, ‘white working class boys’, ‘black underprivileged’, ‘Asian’ and we try to address deficits in specific disadvantaged groups. These seem to move in and out of fashion as we discover yet another area of deprivation. But nothing seems to improve.

I’m starting to wonder if we’ve got things wrong and that a new way of thinking might be more useful. The problem, I believe, stems from a political philosophy that is often called ‘multiculturalism’. It’s very hard to criticise it because, rightly, at its core is a respect for all individuals irrespective of their cultural origins. The problem comes when some interpretations of multiculturalism startsto classify individuals into ethnic groups, sometimes erroneously. This is compounded by  an overemphasis on the importance of cultural identity. 

I speak from some experience here. My own extended family is variously mixed race (Indian), Mexican and American. They generally identify as being international and my son describes himself as a ‘third culture kid’. In addition, I’ve worked on international assignments in Japan and China for a multi-national companies. In all cases a ‘cultural identity of origin’ tag is nice to have but not very relevant to the well-being of the individual.

There are also other groups of people who are under-represented. For example, people who are dyslexic, and those with  forms of dexterity and intelligence not recognised by the British academic system. We tend to associate academic achievement with intelligence and manual dexterity with ‘the trades’. But recently a professor at Imperial College, London expressed his concern at the lack of dexterity in surgical students.

What I’m proposing is that we start to focus on ‘cognitive diversity’, how people think differently, why they do and have respect for modes of thought that can also lead to good STEM outcomes. This includes taking into account the social and cultural pressures that might exist for an individual who we are trying to encourage with STEM subjects. More over, it should encourage us, as STEM advocates, to seek out patterns of thought that may be unfamiliar to us, but useful in STEM outreach.

If we are to truly embrace diversity, we should include all and not offer ‘affirmative action plans’ to specific groups. We need to understand that not all the people in these groups think the same way. This approach makes our interventions less effective and in some cases condescending. By developing a tool kit of activities based on different cognitive behaviours and strategies, hopefully we can address ALL cultural and gender issues. At the same time, I hope that we can identify and give better credibility to under-rated cognitive behaviours that lead to better science.