Standard: Indigenous Ethics in STEM

我们对什么是伦理科学、技术和工程（STEM）的集体理解在不断增长，但我们对STEM伦理如何与土著文化知识交叉知之甚少。该项目将探讨文化嵌入的伦理问题是否以及如何影响土著参与STEM领域。它将通过研究土著学生和教师所经历的伦理问题，测试土著精神信仰是否会对追求STEM相关职业造成文化障碍，并探索伦理问题对土著STEM专业人员的保留和晋升的影响程度。提供这些问题的答案将使：(1)发展一种关于科学伦理如何与土著文化相交的理论；(2)为大学和教职员工创建一套与STEM领域土著学生和教职员工面临的道德挑战相关的最佳实践；(3)确定与土著个人和社区参与STEM相关的一系列未来研究问题和政策问题。这个研究项目的结果将使土著人民在STEM中有更公平的代表性，并将加强对当地文化如何与伦理问题相互作用以影响科学劳动力参与的理解。这个多方法研究项目将使用调查和访谈来了解土著文化和禁忌如何塑造土著大学生在STEM领域的参与。它将融合接地理论与批判性本土研究方法概念化这些问题。在方法上，研究设计将基于对美国西部从事STEM专业的土著学生的经历和态度的广泛社会调查，然后对调查受访者的战略子集进行深入访谈。然后，这两个数据流将以迭代和比较的方式组合和分析。该项目将在三个方面提供重要的知识进步：(1)它将提供理论和数据驱动的见解，以了解土著文化如何以阻碍科学、工程和数学参与的方式与科学文化相互作用；(2)它将为制定新政策提供实用的见解和可实施的知识，以提高STEM领域中代表性最不足的社会群体之一的参与；(3)它将创造新的工具和方法，这将有助于未来的研究人员努力理解类似的问题。总体而言，该项目直接推进了NSF扩大代表性不足群体参与STEM领域的目标。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Our collective understanding of what constitutes ethical science, technology, and engineering (STEM) continues to grow, but we know little about how STEM ethics intersect with Indigenous cultural knowledge. This project will explore if and how culturally-embedded ethical issues affect indigenous participation in STEM fields. It will do so by researching the ethical issues experienced by Indigenous students and faculty, testing if Indigenous spiritual beliefs create cultural barriers for pursuing STEM related careers, and exploring the extent to which ethical issues impact the retention and promotion of Indigenous STEM professionals. Providing answers to these questions will enable: (1) the development of a theory about how scientific ethics intersects with Indigenous cultures; (2) the creation of a set of best practices for universities and faculty members related to ethical challenges for Indigenous students and faculty in STEM fields; and (3) identification of a set of future research questions and policy issues related to STEM participation by Indigenous individuals and communities. The results from this research project will enable more equitable representation of Indigenous peoples in STEM, and will enhance understanding of how local cultures interact with ethical issues to shape participation the scientific workforce.This multi-method research project will use surveys and interviews to understand how Indigenous cultures and taboos shape Indigenous college students' participation in STEM fields. It will blend grounded theory with a Critical Indigenous Research Methodology to conceptualize these issues. Methodologically, the research design will be based on a broad social survey of the experiences and attitudes of Indigenous students in the western United States with STEM professions, followed by in-depth interviews with a strategic subset of survey respondents. These two data streams will then be combined and analyzed in an iterative and comparative fashion. This project will provide important intellectual advancement on three fronts: (1) it will provide theoretical and data-driven insights into how Indigenous cultures interact with scientific cultures in ways that can hinder participation in science, engineering, and mathematics; (2) it will provide practical insights and implementable knowledge for developing new policies to improve participation in STEM fields by one of the most underrepresented social groups in science; (3) it will create new tools and methods that will be useful for future researchers working to understand similar issues. Overall, this project directly advances NSF's goal of broadening participation in STEM fields by underrepresented groups.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.