X-DBER 2021 Conference

Professional societies call on their members to support diversity, equity, and inclusion. To meet this goal, introductory college courses need to repay the educational debts society owes due to racism and sexism. We investigated the size of and changes in society’s educational debts in conceptual knowledge in introductory chemistry, biology, and physics courses for majors using a critical quantitative framework. The varying gender and racial representation across these disciplines provided context for interpreting the relationship between society’s educational debts and representation across disciplines. We analyzed data from 17,430 students in 257 courses at 33 institutions students collected with the LASSO platform using Bayesian hierarchical linear models. The models identified many similar educational debts due to racism and sexism were maintained in all three disciplines. Time will be made for the audience to discuss and offer insights into the findings.