Diversity in geoscience: Participation, behaviour, and the division of scientific labour at a Canadian geoscience conference

Abstract

Effective policies promoting diversity in geoscience require understanding of how the values and practices of the community support the inclusion of different social groups. As sites of knowledge exchange and professional development, academic conferences are important culturing institutions that can alleviate or reproduce barriers to diversity in geoscience. This study examines diversity at a 2017 geoscience conference, the joint Canadian Geophysical Union and Canadian Society of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology annual meeting, through observation of participation, presentation content, and behaviour in conference sessions. Across 256 observed presentations, women constituted 28% of speakers, whereas women of colour made up only 5%. Participation rates differed between disciplinary sections, with the most populous sessions (Hydrology and Earth Surface) having the lowest percentage of women. Examination of presentation content reveals that the methods and scholarly contributions of both women and people of colour differed from the majority, suggesting an intellectual division of labour in geoscience. Examination of audience behaviours between presenters reveals how a "chilly climate" can be experienced by women and other marginalized demographics in conferences. We argue that there is more to be done than simply increasing numbers of women or other minorities in geoscientific spaces, and we suggest pathways to making geoscience a more inclusive and democratic pursuit.

A Global Survey on the Perceptions and Impacts of Gender Inequality in the Earth and Space Sciences

“…In contrast, men are more than twice as likely as women (69.2% and 32.9%, respectively) to feel not at all or not really affected by gender imbalance at scientific meetings. These results align well with recent findings reported by King et al () who observed at two Canadian geoscience meetings that only 20% of questions were asked by women and women were more likely to ask questions in female‐dominated sessions. Our findings further demonstrate the possibility of an exclusionary and sexist climate for women at geoscience conferences—a phenomenon that has been reported for other scientific disciplines before (Settles & O'Connor, ).…”

“…Our data show the prevalence of gender inequality in scientific institutions (i.e., workplaces), organizations (i.e., professional societies such as the EGU), and meetings (e.g., conferences). Beyond everyday work, scientific organizations and conferences play an important role in supporting researchers as they provide scientific journals and grants, are gateways to academic careers, and show where and how scientists participate in the geoscience community (Biggs et al, ; Ford et al, ; King et al, ; Potvin et al, ).…”

“…Holmes et al () categorized the reasons into three overlapping groups of individual, interactional, and institutional barriers, with the lack of role models and implicit (unconscious) gender bias lying at the heart of their overlap. Gender bias manifests itself in unequal opportunities in research funding (van der Lee & Ellemers, ) and collaborations (National Research Council, ), underrepresentation in prestigious scientific roles (e.g., journal editorial board members) (Vila‐Concejo et al, ), men‐exclusive networks (Massen et al, ), unequal pay and less prospects of research positions (Moss‐Racusin et al, ), lower acceptance and citation rates for research papers (Fox & Paine, ), fewer invitations to review manuscripts (Lerback & Hanson, ) and write commentaries or commissioned articles (Conley & Stadmark, ; Editorial, ), fewer opportunities to speak at conferences and colloquiums (Ford et al, ; King et al, ; Nittrouer et al, ), weaker recommendation letters (Dutt et al, ), and fewer research grants and academic prizes (Lincoln et al, ; Tamblyn et al, ). These examples indicate that gender bias is widespread and potentially impacts a woman's professional trajectory in academia.…”

Ontological mingling and mapping: Chinese tourism researchers’ experiences at international conferences

“…For instance, in their report, Munar et al (2015) note that women are subject to unequal treatment and social status at tourism conferences, especially concerning who can be the keynote speakers and hold honorary chair positions. Studies from other fields have also discussed gender inequality at academic conferences, noting that female participants are not as included or listened to compared to their male peers (King et al, 2018). The phenomena as such pose a question of what conference space can enable and dis-enable for long-term knowledge-making.…”

Theatre, labs and gender: an education package to improve STEM working environment

“…Women are also less likely to receive prizes and awards, and are less invited to conference talks (Holmes et al, 2011;Ford et al, 2019). In addition, King et al (2018) 2 https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-2020-12 Preprint. Discussion started: 7 April 2020 c Author(s) 2020.…”