ERIC Number: ED625490
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2022-Dec
Pages: 51
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
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Available Date: N/A
Ideological Intensification: A Quantitative Study of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM Subjects at American Universities
Goad, Mason; Chartwell, Bruce R.
National Association of Scholars
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideology has spread aggressively through institutions of higher education in the United States and throughout the Western world. Arising from within the humanities and social sciences, DEI has begun to influence the natural sciences, where it promises to do great intellectual and economic damage. This report documents and quantifies the growing prevalence of DEI-associated language in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in the United States. For this study, five new datasets were assembled--comprising over 30 GB of data in over 280,000 files--focusing on American university webpages, university Twitter accounts, annual programs of academic associations, grants of major scientific research funders, and publications of scientific research, making this the largest study to date of DEI ideology's intensification in STEM fields. Our findings show that DEI-related language has increased significantly in all STEM sectors over the last decade, and exponentially so within the last few years. DEI indicators linked with STEM have risen 2,600 percent compared to a decade ago on university websites, with similar trends observed in social media content. This increase has been catalyzed, in part, by significant increases in government spending. The two principal funders of scientific research, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), increased DEI-related research spending by roughly 300 percent in one year alone (2020-2021). This increase is also visible in scientific publications, with DEI-related language rising up to 4,200 percent between 2010 and 2021.
Descriptors: STEM Education, Web Sites, Social Media, Publications, Grants, Sciences, Diversity, Inclusion, Equal Education, Language Usage, Discourse Analysis, Scholarship
National Association of Scholars. 221 Witherspoon Street 2nd Floor, Princeton, NJ 08542-3215. Tel: 609-683-7878; e-mail: nasonweb@nas.org; Web site: http://www.nas.org/
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Numerical/Quantitative Data
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: National Association of Scholars (NAS)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
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