Standard: The Ethics of Diversity--Fortifying Ethical Infrastructure to Prevent and Address Sexual Harassment in STEM Research & Practice Settings

性骚扰是科学和工程领域的一个重大伦理问题，但在科学伦理学研究中，对这一主题的研究相对较少。该项目将研究科学中的性骚扰及其发生的社会背景，以了解如何最好地预防和解决STEM环境中的性骚扰。调查人员将首先进行全面的文献综述，以确定导致预防和补救性骚扰的道德气候的政策和做法。然后，他们将开发一个自我评估工具，使各组织能够审查其预防和管理性骚扰的能力，并评估自我评估工具是否以及如何有助于改善预防性骚扰的道德基础设施。最后，他们将为本科生和研究生开发一个以性骚扰为重点的教学模块，以加强道德培训和沟通。该项目的主要目标是了解STEM中与性骚扰相矛盾的条件，并授权研究机构加强与性骚扰有关的道德基础设施。该项目将有助于更细致和现实地了解STEM中与性骚扰相关的社会和组织条件，以及克服和预防性骚扰的方法，原则和战略。该项目在理论上将性骚扰视为正式制度体系，非正式影响以及当地文化和气候之间相互作用的结果，而不仅仅是一两个不道德的“坏苹果”的行为。它在应用多模态，多波研究设计方面具有方法创新性，将全面的文献综述与社会调查和深入访谈相结合，以促进对这些问题的基本理解，并创建一个在科学和工程领域具有广泛实用性的自我评估工具。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Sexual harassment is a major ethical issue across science and engineering fields, but research on this topic is relatively rare in studies of scientific ethics. This project will examine sexual harassment in science and the social contexts in which it occurs to understand how best to prevent and address sexual harassment in STEM settings. The investigators will do so first by conducting a comprehensive literature review to determine the kinds of the policies and practices that lead to ethical climates that prevent and remediate sexual harassment. They will then develop a self-assessment tool that will enable organizations to examine their ability to prevent and manage sexual harassment, and to evaluate if and how the self-assessment tool contributes to improved ethical infrastructures for preventing sexual harassment. Finally, they will develop a teaching module focused on sexual harassment for undergraduate and graduate students that will enhance ethical training and communication. The main project goal is to understand the conditions that contradict sexual harassment in STEM and empower research institutions to strengthen their ethical infrastructures related to sexual harassment. This project will facilitate a more nuanced and realistic understanding of the social and organizational conditions associated with sexual harassment in STEM, and of methods, principles, and strategies for overcoming and preventing it. This project is conceptually innovative in theorizing sexual harassment as resulting from interactions among formal institutional systems, informal influences, and local cultures and climates, rather than simply the behavior of one or two unethical 'bad apples'. It is methodologically innovative in applying a multimodal, multi-wave research design that combines comprehensive literature reviews with social surveys and in-depth interviews to advance basic understanding of these issues and to create a self-assessment tool with broad utility across the sciences and engineering. Project findings and the self-assessment tool will be broadly disseminated.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.