Thread by @mathprofcarrie

Small quant exercise I did in my first year seminar as an intro on a discussion on positionality in science research: 1/1

I asked "how much does it cost to get from here [Bates College] to New York City?" And I gave them 60 seconds to come up with a number. I said they could even use their phones, computers, estimate, etc. 2/2

When time was up, I said "Compare answers with other your groups. Are they different? How and why?" After a small chat, I said "Okay, let's report out - I don't care about the cost, what I want to know is what assumptions did you make?" 3/3

The first person said "I assumed everyone had two legs" so we talked about how we make ableist assumptions. How everyone in this class "had two legs" - but my mom does not have two legs. How this may eliminate subways without handicap entrances or walking between stations. 4/4

And what about the disabilities we don't see - that aren't as obvious as in a wheelchair or missing a leg? The next person said I assumed I was on a very small budget. Which led us into talking about how that might change the mode of transportation you are thinking about. 5/5

Whereas another student said they just assumed they were driving - which makes other assumptions about vehicle ownership and accessibility and having a driver's license. Others went right for flight schedules, requiring familiarity with nearby airports, identification, etc. 6/6

The point is that a quantitative problem is not necessarily independent of our social positioning. I closed with reading a portion of #DataFeminism - I can't remember who recommended it, but it was perfect. For this audience (students that are first gen, 7/7

BIPOC, low SES and/or with other barriers to success in STEM), this worked well because it emphasized how knowing ones positionality is important to acknowledge and frame and appreciate how it enriches science. 8/8

After letting them digest this in groups, we closed by sharing some challenges or thoughts and the main take away was how much more important it is to be part of science because of the new perspectives that we bring to science. 9/9

Math can be used to facilitate these conversations or how in an alternate class that same question might be perceived to have only 1 or 2 correct answers. Questioning assumptions in math (and STEM) is an important skill that we should be emphasizing more. 10/10

Apparently my early morning tweets were not of the form i/n, but i/i lol #TweetingWhileTired 😆

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