Abstract
Geoscience is one of the least diverse STEM fields. While gender
diversity has improved over the last few decades, ethnic and racial
diversity in Geoscience doctoral programs show little to no progress
since 1973 [1]. At various levels of academic hiring, recruitment
and under-represented minority (URM) retention, the STEM community often
refers to definitions of URM as laid out by the National Science
Foundation. In all STEM disciplines, Hispanics, African American and
American Indian or Alaskan natives are largely under-represented
relative to national demographics. However, a more granular analysis of
demographic data within the Geosciences shows that Asian Americans are
also under-represented and face challenges similar to other minority
groups [2]. To better understand current representation of different
races and ethnicities within the multitude of STEM Disciplines, we have
complied demographic data from the NSF survey of Earned Doctorates of
2019 to test whether there are differences in Asian American
representation based on field of study [3]. According to the 2019
survey data, Asian Americans are significantly less represented in
Geosciences compared to other STEM fields, particularly Biological and
Biomedical sciences (BMS), Chemistry (CHEM), Mathematics and Computer
Science (MCS), Physics (PHY) and Engineering (ENG). Asian American
earned doctorates in BMS ~13%, CHEM
~11%, MCS ~14%, PHY
~12% and ENG ~17%, whereas for
Geosciences that number is significantly low: ~4%. This
current percentage of Asian Americans earned doctorates in the
Geosciences is also lower relative to their national demographics.
Importantly, Asian Americans include a broad spectrum of racial and
ethnic groups which are not currently taken into consideration in these
surveys. Our data analysis suggests that higher representation of Asian
Americans in certain disciplines skews their overall representation
within STEM, and particularly forms a misnomer in the Geosciences.
Racial and ethnic representation, hence, should be re-considered based
on demographic data of the related field of study, and not STEM as a
whole. [1] Bernard & Cooperdock, 2018, Nature Geoscience [2]
Ibarra et al., 2018, AGU Fall Meeting 2018 [3]
https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21308/data-tables