Social Justice Awareness in Ecology Classrooms - Survey Responses

Xcel spreadsheet includes two tabs"Information" tab includes description of data"Student Responses" tab includes tab includes de-identified raw pre and post survey data from ecology students. Surveys focused on social justice awareness in ecology. An intervention was completed after the pre- surveys.Includes 5 questions on both pre and post surveysQuestion 1 (Q1) is an open response only questionQuestions 2 - 5 are two part 1) response to a 5-point Likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree and 2) Open responses to explain part 1Data is absent when a student did not complete that survey (pre or post)Survey data was collected in 2022 for 33 students in a general ecology class at at 4-year comprehensive university in the West United StatesManuscript AbstractScience, like many other fields, is undergoing a reckoning to address the legacies of injustice and inequities that have influenced research findings, policy outcomes, and participants of science. In ecology specifically, there have been calls to action to address social justice awareness gaps, dismantle bias, and build greater equity. Most actions resulting from these calls focus on practices in research labs, while little work and research investigates how this call is being addressed in university education settings. Although administration-level changes are underway, college campuses and classrooms have historically been centers of social change and action in the US and around the world. The college classroom allows for bottom-up reform, and we therefore sought to describe college students’ awareness of institutional, structural, and cultural racism in ecology. We then implemented a classroom intervention where students collect and analyze data on how racism, sexism, and colonialism have impacted the field of ecology. After the intervention, we observed a shift in student perceptions, and students became more aware of how racism and colonialism have shaped the field. Our work demonstrates the importance of actively engaging students in conversations on racism, sexism, and colonialism as a critical part of college ecology curricula to build cultural competency and change perceptions about social justice in ecology.