How to Build a Feminist Science Shop • Workshop

Dr. Sara Giordano of Kennesaw State University will build the case for creating more democratic sciences to reduce social inequities in both STEM fields and our larger society through the model of the feminist science shop.  The attrition of women and minorities from STEM fields is not only due to explicit sexism and racism but also because of a disconnect between the kinds of questions that are deemed appropriate to these fields and the interests of students from marginalized communities.  Therefore we need to rethink how research questions are determined if we are serious about creating more diverse STEM fields.  Science shops originated in the late 20th century in the Netherlands as a mechanism for community members outside of the academy to ask questions of university researchers.  Feminists have suggested using this model with an added commitment to social justice.  In 2017, Dr. Giordano co-founded the first feminist science shop at UC Davis.  Their results from specific community-academic collaborations show the importance of interdisciplinary research and political commitments to social justice in executing this model in university classrooms.  In this workshop, Dr. Giordano will provide examples from two studies based in the feminist science shop model to show how we might engage a more diverse audience of STEM students.  They will bring workshop participants through activities that model how to make a classroom into a science shop.  This will be an interactive workshop and Dr. Giordano will share materials that can be adapted for use in classrooms at Davidson.

Organized by Davidson Gender & Sexuality Studies and co-sponsored by FIRST.

Resource sheet can be found here.