Six Ways to Incorporate Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion into Scientific Research

Liz Kyonka (California State University, East Bay), & Shrinidhi Subramaniam (California State University, Stanislaus)

1. Build capacity in scientists from historically marginalized groups

• Go beyond hiring (King, 2022)
  
• Rethink mentoring
  • as coming from a multidirectional network rather than a guru (Rockquemore, 2013)
  • as groundskeeping rather than gatekeeping (Davies et al., 2021; Montgomery, 2020)

 
2. Cultivate diverse and inclusive research teams

• Include community partners (Ruzycki & Ahmed, 2022).
• Foster a sense of belonging (Ayala et al., 2021)
• Ten simple rules for building an antiracist lab (Chaudhary & Behre, 2020)

 
3. Develop JEDI-informed research questions

• Reflect on how your beliefs, identities, training, etc. influence the way you approach research (Pearson et al., 2021).
• Conduct a JEDI literature review that considers the social and cultural contexts of extant research (Ruzycki & Ahmed, 2022).
• Involve stakeholders in the development of research questions (Ruzycki & Ahmed, 2022).
• Frame research questions as asset-based rather than problem-based (Castillo & Gillborn, 2022; Friman, 2021).

 
4.Categorize and report categories thoughtfully

• Apply a critical lens to inclusion and exclusion criteria, choose your demographic variables carefully (Castillo & Gillborn, 2022; Ruzycki & Ahmed, 2022).
• Use inclusive language when recording and reporting demographic variables (e.g., Levy et al., 2021; Ruzycki & Ahmed, 2022).
• But! Demographic questions are one of the best ways to enable assessment of equity and one of the best ways to inadvertently reinforce racism. Think about the purpose of collecting the information as well as the consequences for your participants (Krause, 2023).
• Report representation relative to representation in the general population (Lewis et al., 2009).

 
5. When analyzing data, use a critical approach that acknowledges that data are not separable from their social and cultural context (Castillo & Gillborn, 2022; Gillborn et al., 2018; Pearson et al., 2021).


6. Share your data as openly and transparently as possible

• When reporting data, describe effects in ways that are meaningful to the broadest possible audience (Castillo & Gillborn, 2022).
• When sharing data, consider the ethics of data stewardship (Ruzycki & Ahmed, 2022)
• …and provide accessible data to stakeholders (Castillo & Gillborn, 2022; Ruzycki & Ahmed, 2022).
  

References

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