STS Professor works to advance cultural change at Cal Poly

Coleen Carrigan is on a mission to make Cal Poly a more inclusive environment through her Advancing Cultural Change (ACC) project. Carrigan, her Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (ANT 201) students and research assistants are working collectively to unearth and combat exclusionary behaviors on campus.

Data analysis has revealed three major themes: ‘majorism,’ gender bias and racial bias. Majorism grants prestige to technical fields and denigrates liberal arts. The ACC team works to connect this phenomenon to broader social issues in U.S. education and economy. Gender bias is evident when female students in male-dominated fields, like engineering, report feeling intimidated and are presumed incompetent. Finally, racial bias is evident when historically underrepresented minority students report feeling left out in classrooms and are assigned inferior tasks in groups.

In June, they will present a paper on ACC methods at the 2017 American American Society for Engineering Education annual conference in Columbus, Ohio.

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