Epistemological Dominance and Social Inequality: Experiences of Native American Science, Engineering, and Health Students (September 2017)
Cech, Erin A. (Author)
Metz, Anneke (Author)
Smith, Jessie L. (Author)
deVries, Karen (Author)
Science, Technology and Human Values
Volume: 42
Issue: 5
Pages: 743-774
Can epistemologies anchor processes of social inequality? In this paper, we consider how epistemological dominance in science, engineering, and health (SE&H) fields perpetuates disadvantages for students who enter higher education with alternative epistemologies. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Native American students enrolled at two US research universities who adhere to or revere indigenous epistemologies, we find that epistemological dominance in SE&H degree programs disadvantages students through three processes. First, it delegitimizes Native epistemologies and marginalizes and silences students who value them. Second, in the process of imparting these dominant scientific epistemologies, SE&H courses sometimes require students to participate in pedagogical practices that challenge indigenous ways of knowing. Third, students encounter epistemological imperialism: most students in the sample are working to earn SE&H degrees in order to return to tribal communities to “give back,” yet, because the US laws regulating the practice of SE&H extend onto tribal lands, students must earn credentials in epistemologies that devalue, delegitimate, and threaten indigenous knowledge ways to practice on tribal lands. We examine how students navigate these experiences, discuss the implications of these findings for SE&H education, and describe how epistemological dominance may serve as a mechanism of inequality reproduction more broadly.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Maria do Mar Pereira;
(2019)
Boundary-work that Does Not Work: Social Inequalities and the Non-performativity of Scientific Boundary-work
(/isis/citation/CBB949567754/)
Article
Roderic N. Crooks;
(2019)
Times Thirty: Access, Maintenance, and Justice
(/isis/citation/CBB487672024/)
Article
Elina I. Mäkinen;
(March 2018)
Action in the Space Between: From Latent to Active Boundaries
(/isis/citation/CBB718195671/)
Article
Arne Pollock;
Banu Subramaniam;
(November 2016)
Introduction to Special Issue: Resisting Power, Retooling Justice: Promises of Feminist Postcolonial Technosciences
(/isis/citation/CBB706070191/)
Article
Nadine Levin;
Sabina Leonelli;
(March 2017)
How Does One “Open” Science? Questions of Value in Biological Research
(/isis/citation/CBB290502459/)
Article
Meghna Sabharwal;
Roli Varma;
(September 2017)
Convergence or Divergence: Practice of Science by Migrant Faculty in India and the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB764801856/)
Article
Nicholas Buchanan;
(May 2017)
Which Fish? Knowledge, Articulation, and Legitimization in Claims about Endangered and Culturally Significant Animals
(/isis/citation/CBB452061779/)
Article
Barbara L. Allen;
(November 2018)
Strongly Participatory Science and Knowledge Justice in an Environmentally Contested Region
(/isis/citation/CBB069762669/)
Article
Eva Barlösius;
(2019)
Concepts of Originality in the Natural Science, Medical, and Engineering Disciplines: An Analysis of Research Proposals
(/isis/citation/CBB195775388/)
Article
Ruha Benjamin;
(November 2016)
Informed Refusal: Toward a Justice-based Bioethics
(/isis/citation/CBB856025239/)
Article
Nassim JafariNaimi;
(March 2018)
Our Bodies in the Trolley’s Path, or Why Self-driving Cars Must *Not* Be Programmed to Kill
(/isis/citation/CBB556129964/)
Article
Amy Adams Quark;
(2019)
Outsourcing Regulatory Decision-making: “International” Epistemic Communities, Transnational Firms, and Pesticide Residue Standards in India
(/isis/citation/CBB678564374/)
Article
Devasmita Chakraverty;
Sarah N. Newcomer;
Kelly Puzio;
Robert H. Tai;
(2018)
It Runs in the Family: The Role of Family and Extended Social Networks in Developing Early Science Interest
(/isis/citation/CBB531316217/)
Article
Lisa Sigl;
(May 2016)
On the Tacit Governance of Research by Uncertainty: How Early Stage Researchers Contribute to the Governance of Life Science Research
(/isis/citation/CBB119230475/)
Article
Kellie Owens;
(September 2017)
Too Much of a Good Thing? American Childbirth, Intentional Ignorance, and the Boundaries of Responsible Knowledge
(/isis/citation/CBB160615752/)
Article
Bo Hee Min;
Christian Borch;
(April 2022)
Systemic failures and organizational risk management in algorithmic trading: Normal accidents and high reliability in financial markets
(/isis/citation/CBB890038954/)
Article
Sabine Roeser;
Udo Pesch;
(March 2016)
An Emotional Deliberation Approach to Risk
(/isis/citation/CBB657243437/)
Article
Flatow, Ira;
(Fall 2018)
An Interview with... Ira Flatow of Science Friday
(/isis/citation/CBB327530703/)
Article
Khan Sal;
(Spring 2017)
An Interview with . . . Sal Khan
(/isis/citation/CBB283311293/)
Article
Maioulis, Ioannis;
(Summer 2017)
An Interview with ... Ioannis Miaoulis.
(/isis/citation/CBB291366215/)
Be the first to comment!