Feds Hop On The "Microaggressions" Train: Spending $368,695 To Study Microaggressions In Engineering Programs
Elizabeth Harrington writes at Free Beacon:
The National Science Foundation is spending over $350,000 studying "microaggressions" in college engineering programs using an "intersectional perspective."The joint project is being conducted by Iowa State University and North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University. The project was awarded this summer, though research will not begin until Jan. 1, 2019.
The study will "build a gender and race microaggressions psychometric scale" to evaluate engineering students' behavior. The project is billed as "An Intersectional Perspective to Studying Microagressions [sic] in Engineering Programs."
"The research is motivated by the persistently low representation of gender and racial minorities in engineering education and seeks to study the subtle behaviors, or microaggressions, that students experience in engineering programs," according to the grant for the project.
The researchers claim there is a dearth of studies on "microaggressions" in engineering labs and suggest that "verbal, nonverbal, environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional," may be the cause of fewer female and minority students enrolling in engineering programs.
Goals of the study include raising awareness about "microaggressions" and making "minority students feel safe" in engineering labs.
And here's Scott O. Lilienfeld, one of my favorite debunkers of bullshit dressed up as science, writing at Aeon:
There is scant real-world evidence that microaggression is a legitimate psychological concept, that it represents unconscious (or implicit) prejudice, that intervention for it works, or even that alleged victims are seriously damaged by these under-the-radar acts.
Yet:
Across college campuses and the corporate landscape, a big idea has taken hold: the notion that microaggressions - subtle but offensive comments or actions directed at minorities or other powerless people - can lower performance, lead to ostracism, increase anxiety, and sometimes cause so much psychological pain that the recipient might even commit suicide.
And still:
A number of major companies, including Coca-Cola and Facebook, have recently provided training to employees to detect and avoid implicitly prejudicial comments and actions, including microaggressions.All of these applications hinge on one overarching assumption: that the microaggression research programme aimed at documenting the phenomenon is sound, and that the concept itself has withstood rigorous scientific scrutiny. This is not the case. Microaggressions have not been defined with nearly enough clarity and consensus to allow rigorous scientific investigation. No one has shown that they are interpreted negatively by all or even most minority groups. No one has demonstrated that they reflect implicit prejudice or aggression. And no one has shown that microaggressions exert an adverse impact on mental health.
And a problem:
Microaggressions necessarily lie in the eye of the beholder. It is doubtful whether an action that is largely or exclusively subjective can legitimately be deemed 'aggressive'. After all, referring to an action as aggressive implies at least some degree of consensus regarding its nature and intent. Take the statement: 'I realise that you didn't have the same educational opportunities as most whites, so I can understand why the first year of college has been challenging for you.' If one person interprets the comment as patronising and hostile while another sees it as supportive, should it be classified as a microaggression?The 'eye of the beholder' assumption generates other logical quandaries. In particular, it is unclear whether any verbal or nonverbal action that a certain proportion of minority individuals perceives as upsetting or offensive would constitute a microaggression. Would a discussion of race differences in personality, intelligence or mental illness in an undergraduate psychology course count? Or a dinner table conversation regarding the societal pros and cons of affirmative action?
I come back to something I've said many times before: It is through dealing with conflict that we become stronger. Avoiding it is a prescription for remaining weak.
Is that really what we want in today's college students -- and tomorrow's citizens who are running things. (Or hiding under the bed with hurt feelz when they're supposed to be running things?)
Welcome to Weenie World!
via @CHSommers
I have had similar training to this at work. Slightly different name and it could be both positive and negative.
My manager at the time clearly showed favoritism to a few people on the team -- 1 in particularly -- via these micro-whatevers. On most topics, he would ask "W" first -- sometimes the other two favorites and then anyone else got something to say ? If "W" was not there he might postpone topics. There were a number of examples in the course that I had absolutely seen. How big a difference these things made in the big picture I don't know.
I have mostly forgotten the material.
The Former Banker at October 16, 2018 11:48 PM
Former engineer here. 1) I never experienced any oppression in engineering school. 2) There's no need to get more people into engineering programs. Colleges are already churning out twice as many engineers as the market can absorb.
Lori at October 17, 2018 6:49 AM
"The research is motivated by the persistently low representation of gender and racial minorities in engineering education and seeks to study the subtle behaviors, or microaggressions, that students experience in engineering programs"
In other words, not very many women and minorities other than Asians choose engineering. What bad things are white men doing to cause that?
Ken R at October 17, 2018 7:45 AM
I can't wait until somebody claims the law of thermodynamics is cisnormative, or whatever the new term is.
Radwaste at October 17, 2018 7:47 AM
"The research is motivated by the persistently low representation of gender and racial minorities in engineering education" seriously? Have you seen how many chinese and Indians and Persians (including girls) are in engineering programs? The only way to make this claim is to deny that these are racial minorities.
If you have good social skills and a social advantage, why would you work your ass off to become an engineer? If on the other hand, you are from India, it makes perfect sense.
If you want to find the largest collection of guys with social deficits, an engineering program is your spot. That is one reason they chose engineering--no one expects them to be chatty and smooth. Social deficits are not "micro-aggressions" unless you are a SJW. You just need to learn their language: pokemon-Go, debating operating systems or AI, video games. If they are talking about what interests you and you feel excluded, that is not their problem. Also, when they debate, they don't hold back: again if you don't like to debate technical stuff that is your problem. But these socially awkward nerds are among the most honest, straight-forward people around.
Radwaste: too late, it is already claimed that STEM is patriarchal and colonialist--though of course without explanation or evidence.
cc at October 17, 2018 8:32 AM
What bad things are white men doing to cause that?
Just being men, and white. That is enough these days.
10-to-1 that the people running the studies will NOT be from the engineering departments, but from their administration or gender studies department or whatever SJW group worries about these things. And no doubt they will find pervasive biases and aggressions. The engineers would find a way to get hard data rather than just feelz, and data is kryponite to those other folks.
bkmale at October 17, 2018 8:32 AM
My daughter got her degree in business administration and worked for years as a software engineer. The projects she worked on required multiple teams to accomplish. Because of her interest and education in linguistics the company she worked for sent her team on business trips to Asia and Europe. There were rarely any other women on her team, though there were several on the graphic design teams that they worked with. She was a team leader just as often as anyone else.
I asked her and she said she never noticed any kind of discrimination, bigotry, patronizing, less favorable treatment or microaggressions against her because of her sex or gender identity (both female). But she wasn't looking for it either.
She did notice sexist condescension and chauvinism in other countries she worked in. She wasn't really annoyed by it; she just considered it to be one of the many obstacles the team had to work around in a culture that wasn't as "nice" or "laid back" as ours here in the USA.
She's no longer doing that kind of work. She now works full time raising and homeschooling my grandchildren and managing her rental properties.
Ken R at October 17, 2018 9:02 AM
A micro in 1/1000. But 1/1000 of what?
Let us posit that a full aggression is to kill someone. I guess a microaggression would be like, wearing flip flops on an airplane? A loud cell phone call in public? Asking your server, "Does this have gluten? I can't eat gluten."?
Steve Daniels at October 17, 2018 11:36 AM
Those are microinequities (they're unintentional). A microagression (intentional) is something for which you owe a microapology.
Lori at October 17, 2018 12:14 PM
I'd like to skip to first causes of the alleged shortfall of some minorities in STEM fields. It's not possible to begin to examine the question unless we establish, at a minimum, how many of said minorities are entering college with the necessary chops to successfully complete a demanding science curriculum. Disclosure: Had there been a study of why there were not many women in my university class graduating with an engineering degree, it would reveal that I for one wasn't discouraged from pursuing such a degree because of microaggressions. Or macroaggressions. In fact, a Tyranosaurus Rex wielding a flaming sword, standing between me and the engineering department, would not have contributed to my lack of a B.S. The inquiry starts and stops with the following info: Math SAT, 560.
RigelDog at October 17, 2018 2:15 PM
B.S. The inquiry starts and stops with the following info: Math SAT, 560.
RigelDog at October 17, 2018 2:15 PM
Math SAT 660 in 1973 still wasn't enough to make me understand Fortran, after coming from a two bit high school with poor math instruction.
Isab at October 17, 2018 4:12 PM
It is interesting how the SAT and later the GRE are pretty much worthless for measuring fitness for science and engineering degrees. Sure, if you can't score a near perfect on the math sections you don't belong in those programs. But the bar is set so low it lets lots of people pass with perfect scores who are incompetent for those degrees.
It is like if the english section was a three letter word spelling test for english majors. Sure, if you can't spell cat you shouldn't be an enlish major. But being able to spell cat doesn't say much either.
Ben at October 18, 2018 6:34 AM
Ben,
Excellent point. SAT does not show your fitness but it does show if you would flunk out. Which is important.
I know several female engineers and a chemist. None report any discrimination or microaggressions. If you aren't thick skinned enough to put up with engineering profs, impossible assignments, and TAs who barely speak English, then STEM is not for you. If you are, then you will never see these evil acts because micro-stuff is all paranoia.
I had a neighbor who was a pharma salesman. He said no white doctor ever was a bigot even 1%. The few middle eastern docs who were flaming jerks he said "it is their problem" and laughed about it. Life is tough, people are jerks, deal.
cc at October 18, 2018 8:40 AM
I know an indian (from India) doctor who got run out of rural Mississippi. He worked at a free hospital and the locals didn't like 'furriners'. I had to explain to him that anyone more than 10 miles from there counted as a foreigner and was not welcome.
The swamp folk are ok with you visiting and with them visiting you. But moving in is not an option.
Ben at October 19, 2018 11:56 AM
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