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Dissolving the margins: LEANING IN to an antiracist review process

2021; Wiley; Volume: 110; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/jee.20375

2168-9830

Brooke Coley, Denise R. Simmons, Susan Lord,

Engineering Education and Curriculum Development

In a thought-provoking ASEE Distinguished Lecture in June 2020, “Talking the Talk, Walking the Walk: What our Publications Say About Us as a Community of Scholars,” Dr. Lisa Benson challenged us from her vantage point as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Engineering Education (JEE) to consider who we are as a community and who has been doing the talking (Benson, 2020). We appreciated her perspective and reiterate two critical questions here. Specifically, if publications speak volumes, what messages are being spoken in our community of scholars? And further, if publications represent engineering education culture, what then is our culture, and what have we done to foster just experiences for all members of our academic community? After reading an article in JEE about the experiences of People of Color in engineering, a Black engineering education graduate student asked her advisor, “How does something like this survive the review process at JEE?” Completely flummoxed by the question, the Black engineering education faculty member found herself standing at the margin of the professional community at an intersection of identity and scholarship. The advisor was also offended and frustrated as a Black scholar after carefully processing the article, which she felt contained biased language and racist ideas and failed to appropriately amplify the voices of the study population. The faculty member had once been rejected by this very same characteristically robust review process for work related to the same topic; the faculty member's work honored the voices of the participants from underrepresented groups but was criticized for being polemical and too detailed in the literature review. Confusion as to how such a dichotomy could exist raised concern regarding inconsistently applied review criteria. Furthermore, this scenario also created worry about what it would mean for future scholars and the greater community. With all these considerations, the faculty member's response was “This shouldn't happen in JEE, but in this case, it did.” They returned to their now shared question: “How does something like this survive the review process at JEE?” The advisor and graduate student walked away recognizing this experience as a representation of how racist ideals are commonly perpetuated in scholarship through, among other things, failure to accurately amplify the participant voices and inaccurate representations of supporting literature, often eliminating significant contributions of foundational work that elevates the voices of those being studied. Curating an insufficient portrayal of the relevant literature undercuts the attempt to honor the voices of students from groups underrepresented in engineering and anchors the proposed work in a skewed foundation. As a result of this encounter, the graduate student was discouraged from wanting to publish in JEE. This was a critical moment, in fact a turning point, for both of them. This was a moment of vulnerability where, as Black engineering education researchers, they felt invisible, misrepresented, unprotected, and marginalized. Larger than the manuscript itself was what it represented for the underlying processes associated with peer review, which seemed incongruent with JEE's ideals, and the extent to which racist ideals have been perpetuated. If publications represent the engineering education culture, this article echoed that these researchers were still abutting the margin, if even that, and they certainly did not feel that they were included in what Benson hoped were just experiences as members of the academic community (Benson, 2020). There are many different options for the faculty member and graduate student in response to the posed scenario. In frustration, they could turn away from JEE as a publication outlet, punitive to their own academic careers and with no knowledge being gained from the situation. Or worse, both could be turned off from engineering education altogether—a loss to the field but an understandable outcome in response to feeling marginalized. Seeing this as an opportunity for growth and learning for the engineering education community, the faculty member encouraged her graduate student to join her in LEANING INto influencing an antiracist review process. The faculty member and graduate student had recognized a problem; however, as we cannot address what we do not acknowledge, it was now imperative that it be acknowledged by those with the power to impact the process. What is necessary in this moment is for us to lean into JEE rather than simply turning away. In 2017, Alice Pawley's “Shifting the Default” editorial moved our field to expect the acceptance of diversity as the norm. As an outcome, studies no longer had to justify their inclusion of diverse participants but instead had to be explicit when populations in these studies were homogeneously White and male (Pawley, 2017). Perhaps we have begun to shift, but given the current landscape of the United States and our world, it is now time for a pivot. The eyes of those who benefit from inclusion privilege are collectively opening as we begin to acknowledge the systemic racism and injustice that have been pervasive in the lives of Colleagues of Color for generations. As we begin to call things by their names and tackle the difficult questions, we recognize that this pivot will, at a minimum, require transparency and vulnerability. To engage this discussion, we reflect back to the graduate student's question that probed how a manuscript conveying racist ideas could be published in the premier journal for engineering education research. The hurt that the faculty member experienced is far too common an experience for Scholars and Authors of Color: They lie at the intersection of being a Scholar of Color, member of the engineering education community, and an author and reviewer reading work done on Communities of Color but not by or with Communities of Color, work failing to adequately represent and acknowledge their voices, and work falling short of the standards for quality. These experiences leave Scholars of Color again at the margins, being peripheral rather than core members of the community. To understand how published scholarship that focused on experiences of People of Color included stereotypes and demeaning assumptions about the Black community, we turn to the editorial process. Where are the vestiges of systemic racism in JEE? We now catalyze this urgent discussion amidst a national dialog with an even greater responsibility for action and less need to justify that racism is something which shows up in the world without permeating our academic and/or scholarly environments. This scenario is our example of the close resonance to our academic community, and it urges us to stop, reflect, acknowledge, educate, and act. This editorial is the result of acknowledgment being transferred into action. We call for action in two realms: process and people. JEE is an academic journal, not a venue for activism per se. For reviewers, the editorial board, authors, and readers, we are not advocating for a political stance nor judging people's morals. We are calling for thoughtful reflection on what we do, how we define quality, and the alignment between our values and actions. As a community, we once moved through difficult discussions about the “rigor” of qualitative versus quantitative work and acknowledged the limitations of our previous focus on only quantitative research as being of high quality. We recognize that different methods are needed for answering different types of research questions and that “different” does not have to be reduced to one method being better or worse than others. Can we bring that awareness to a discussion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)? Moving beyond deep-seated and unacknowledged mindsets is difficult, and we must be willing to name inequities, but we can do it (Simmons & Lord, 2019a, 2019b). This issue is more difficult than discussions about qualitative versus quantitative methods and has, arguably, higher stakes as it addresses people's pain. This is also an opportunity for the holistic healing that Linda Vanasupa calls for in her recent JEE editorial (Vanasupa, 2020). With “Shifting the Default,” we accepted that diversity was important in engineering education and assumed it would necessitate JEE simultaneously taking a stance to espouse inclusion (Pawley, 2017). However, when a problematic manuscript is published, it implicates the entire review process and challenges us to consider where the breakdown in responsibility and accountability occurred. Realizing that not everyone has expertise in DEI, broadening participation, and social justice, we are called to contemplate how we as a field determine the line between professional responsibility and expertise in the editorial process. In establishing a baseline of accountability, we must pivot away from accepting DEI as being exclusive to an area of scholarship and operationalize standards of responsibility and inclusive literacy as members of the engineering education community. JEE needs to be more intentional and specific about its commitment to inclusion in words and actions. Zooming out from individuals, we focus our attention on the journal itself. Understanding the effectiveness of an entity begins with revisiting its vision and mission. The vision of JEE is “to help define and shape a body of knowledge derived from scholarly research that leads to timely and significant improvements in engineering education worldwide,” while its mission “serves to cultivate, disseminate, and archive scholarly research in engineering education” (JEE, n.d.). Although assumptions could be made that topics addressing racism, systems of oppression, and social justice would be “timely and significant areas for improvements in engineering education,” a vision for inclusive scholarly research is not explicit. Similarly, JEE's broad-reaching mission lacks explicit intentionality to be inclusive or just. We hypothesize this to be our first misstep as a scholarly community. To build a scholarly community that models the way we wish the world to be, we must be explicit and intentional in establishing the vision for what that looks like. As Mary Anne Evans, perhaps better known by her pen name George Eliot, said, “The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision” (George Eliot Quotes, n.d.). The necessary pivot is from awareness to action. It is no longer enough to talk about systemic racism, injustice, or implicit bias in the editorial process; we must now develop metrics and accountability that promote a standard for our field while creating value and consistency in how we handle these topics. To echo JEE's stated role, it is “a vital partner in the global community of stakeholders dedicated to advancing research in engineering education from pre-college to post-graduate professional education” (American Society for Engineering Education, n.d.). We should revise our mission to intentionally state our commitment to inclusion. Here is a suggestion: Proposed Revised Mission: The Journal of Engineering Education serves to cultivate, disseminate, and archive inclusive scholarly research in engineering education that is free of biased language (suggested changes are in bold font). Other sections of the strategic plan, author guidelines, etc. should be examined and revised to reinforce JEE's commitment to inclusivity. Beyond redefining the vision and mission of JEE, the journal could seek to create new models and metrics that mandate a standard related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. From our experience, reviewers face dilemmas when submitting their reviews because DEI is not explicitly included in the review criteria. These dilemmas are anchored in a lack of clarity about what is valued by JEE, particularly as these values relate to DEI. Is DEI an equally valued area of scholarship, and would DEI concerns raised by a scholar with expertise in this area be prioritized for manuscripts that are otherwise strong? At the National Science Foundation (NSF), reviewers are easily able to differentiate such concerns as all projects are evaluated based on two criteria: intellectual merit and broader impacts. Both are deemed essential to the success of a study, and no project can move forward without addressing both criteria. What are the comparable core measures of scholarship for JEE publications? What is the responsibility of JEE to attend to raised DEI concerns when these are not currently explicit metrics in the review process? Another example of a fairly simple opportunity that could have a far-reaching impact is adopting bias-free language guidelines. Changes by the American Psychological Association (APA) in its 7th edition hold writers accountable for their usage of bias-free language to describe the people involved in their work with inclusivity and respect. It “emphasizes the need to talk about all people with inclusivity and respect. Writers using APA Style must strive to use language that is free of bias and avoid perpetuating prejudicial beliefs or demeaning attitudes in their writing. Just as you have learned to check what you write for spelling, grammar, and wordiness, practice reading your work for bias” (American Psychological Association, 2020). Race is a social construct designed to allow sorting of people into categories. While such categories allow specificity in describing populations, race is a contested concept with political implications. As such, authors must take care to not impose labels but instead to ask participants for their preferred labels. Such guidance is intended to avoid the pejorative use of minority, minoritized, underrepresented, underprivileged, underserved, and related terms as synonyms for a particular race. JEE's author guidelines point to APA guidelines on inclusive language, including capitalizing Black and White when used to designate a racial group. Furthermore, the new edition of APA advises authors to explain any racial term chosen. As Associate Editors, we can attest that our community of authors and reviewers still needs to hear this guidance. We need to carefully reflect on where deficit approaches have become entrenched and be open to creative asset-based approaches, for example, saying “rising stars” instead of “underrepresented minorities” (White, 2016). Bias-free language and labels for race are not static and require continued self-education on current practices and emerging research in this area (e.g., Williams, 2020). There is a critical need for DEI literature to be reviewed in a systematic way and be accessible to the JEE editorial board, readers, and authors who submit manuscripts to this journal. One recent example is the literature review on women of color in undergraduate engineering education by Ong et al. (2020). Review articles offer the JEE community a source for the current state of research on DEI topics and are also useful to the editorial board in the manuscript review process. While many journals publish review articles, existing articles lack the specific focus on DEI and insights on how DEI intersects with engineering education. We suggest JEE empanel an inclusive group of experts to identify needed review articles on specific DEI topics, commission a special collection that includes invited articles, and select at least two persons to serve as editors of the special collection. Before you read further, we encourage you to take a breath and be aware of the fallacies used to disengage from conversations about inclusion. Resist the temptation to believe you are under attack. We ask that you act with clarity, recognizing your position and privilege, and guard against logical fallacies that people use to disengage from conversations of inclusivity, including ad hominem, straw man, red herring, and anecdotal evidence. See Box 1 for more details. Our community needs to affirm more voices with different perspectives rather than discouraging them. Those of us in positions of power and privilege need to listen to, learn from, and respect our brave colleagues who speak their truth. We are scholars, researchers, and educators. Responsible scholarship means acknowledging limitations, including our own positionality and gaps in expertise. Those of us who are experts in certain areas need to acknowledge our deficits in other areas and recognize both the expertise others have that we do not and the vital role of lived experience. We do not want to widen a gulf of distrust between Scholars of Color and JEE. Are we ready for honest conversations, or are more People of Color needed on the editorial board before that can happen? It is imperative for those in leadership positions to send a clear message that we value scholars from diverse perspectives. Failure to put this into action will only affirm that our Scholars of Color remain at the margin and that the community finds this acceptable. How will we diversify our leadership if we do not support emerging scholars? How diverse is our advisory board? Is the editorial process producing the outcomes that we want? How are we evaluating scholarship? Who is doing the evaluating? As we examine our practices, where are systemic racism, sexism, and other biases? Who is excluded? What do we want for the future? It is scary to try something new, but the status quo is also scary for many in our community. How can we make the editorial process more compassionate? Ad hominem is a fallacy of relevance where someone rejects or criticizes the person making the argument instead of the argument itself. Verbally attacking the authors of this editorial (e.g., to discredit them as being inexperienced, inauthentic, or biased) instead of addressing the issues we present is an example of this fallacy. In the straw man argument, someone attacks an oversimplified or distorted version of their opponent's argument. Using this fallacy, someone may take the position that we are stating that no inclusive scholarship has ever been included in JEE or that all of which are included are all of poor quality. Do not allow yourself to move beyond what we are actually describing. The red herring fallacy is characterized by distraction from the argument by bringing up another issue that seems to be relevant. We ask that you guard against thinking the issues and actions we call for should be addressed outside of our editorial board, reviewers, and authors or divert attention by bringing up other important issues such as COVID-19 or student retention. This is not a contest about what issues to address. We are asking for serious consideration of inclusivity in our processes within JEE. The anecdotal evidence fallacy uses personal accounts and narratives to determine the entire argument. Guard against the suggestion that because you may not have noticed these issues being raised, that you review with inclusivity in mind and know others who do, or that you have seen several papers on diverse populations in JEE, there is no basis for our calls to action. You could easily fall into one of these fallacies, but we ask that you not. Furthermore, we ask that you challenge those who may engage with you using one or more of them. Instead, we implore you to lean into how we, as authors, reviewers, and the editorial board, can strategically and systemically perceive and learn from this call to action and move our journal forward to a more inclusive future. Reviewers, review with inclusivity in mind, and as you find failures and exemplary work, call attention to both in your comments to the authors and the editor. We make the same request of readers: If you see such examples in published manuscripts, communicate these failures and exemplary works to the editorial board. Reviewers have responsibility in the editorial process, particularly as it relates to manuscripts that involve content around DEI, be it the intended focus of the work or not. Reviewers must expand their own DEI knowledge base as members of the engineering community. Reviewers should approach manuscripts with a critical eye beyond the JEE reviewer checklist to consider questions such as the following: Who stands to benefit from this work? Are underserved communities impacted by this work? Are they adequately represented? Are the identities included appropriately called or stated? Are there Authors of Color working in this space, and if so, are they cited? Are authors claiming contributions to DEI by listing keywords but then not being accountable to do the challenging work of addressing the issues? Are we mindful of the phrase often used by disability activists, “Nothing about us without us”? It will take intentional action from all reviewers, those holding expertise in DEI as well as those who do not, to be as critical in these topics as with any other area of scholarship to improve the integrity of the manuscript review process. Reviewers often employ frameworks that are helpful in evaluating quality (i.e., Sochacka et al., 2018) but fail to consider DEI. Incorporating DEI in these frameworks would be a valuable enhancement that could codify standards for the field. In this critical moment, frameworks that do not explicitly include DEI are insufficient and represent a skewed perspective. As reviewers, we have to be thorough in our reviews, and when we see something that is not just or equitable, we cannot be afraid or hesitant to call it out: It is our responsibility. How can the editorial board demonstrate commitment to DEI? This is difficult work. Implicit bias training is a popular solution implemented in many areas, such as prior to reviewing NSF proposals. We are not convinced such training has ushered in the change in behavior we had hoped for. Implicit bias training might be a start, but it is not enough as training is not as important as the action. We are acutely aware that these are volunteer positions that most of us do in addition to our “day jobs” and appreciate the time and energy that all members of the editorial board contribute to JEE. However, as we all consider how to improve the manuscript review process, we ask if commitment to DEI is a factor when choosing associate editors and reviewers. Are we all careful about demanding bias-free language? In choosing reviewers, are we ensuring a variety of expertise, including the population and context studied? Do vestiges of our preconceived preferences for quality mean that we do not listen to reviewers who bring up issues related to DEI? How much does the consideration of DEI issues depend on the reviewers and the associate editors who handle the manuscript? We need more standardization and accountability, for example, language from the editor or within the reviewer checklist to reassure reviewers that their comprehensive feedback, including comments related to DEI, matters while also taking steps toward consistent and actionable standards for the journal. By far, this is not the end of the conversation but rather an opening. This moment in history calls for us all to first be self-reflective and then take action. Each of us have this responsibility but particularly those of us in positions of power, such as the editorial board. These issues are nuanced and complex. They do not fit neatly into the bullet points with which engineers are comfortable. This work is not comfortable; it is a lifelong journey. This is not a call to sacrifice quality or lower standards—that would be a false dichotomy and introduce a fallacious argument (see Box 1 for more information). Rather, it is a call for difficult reflection on our positionalities and processes. As a community, we cannot simply say that systemic racism is found only in other parts of society and is enacted by others. We need to examine our own processes, reflect on our own biases, and broaden our community. We need to be willing to listen and look deeply enough to identify it within our own hearts and processes. We need to give others—and ourselves—space to make mistakes. These systems were built over decades. They cannot be dismantled in a short time. We are JEE. We shape what JEE becomes. We need to take responsibility and action. As a member of this community, how will you answer the questions we started with: If publications speak volumes, as a community of scholars, what messages are we speaking? And furthermore, if publications represent engineering education culture, what then is our culture, and what have we done to foster just experiences for all members of our academic community? As Audre Lorde profoundly observed in the title of her work, “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House” (Lorde, 1984), we must pivot away from the way things have been to the way things could be, with each of us doing our part to dissolve the margins. We call on you to join us in LEANING INto an antiracist review process. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the USA National Science Foundation under Grant 1828659.