Queer in STEM: Workplace Experiences Reported in a National Survey of LGBTQA Individuals in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Careers

A survey of individuals working in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer, or asexual (LGTBQA) was administered online in 2013. 

Participants completed a 58-item questionnaire to report their professional areas of expertise, levels of education, geographic location, and gender and sexual identities and rated their work and social communities as welcoming or hostile to queer identities. 

An analysis of 1,427 responses to this survey provided the first broad portrait of this population, and it revealed trends related to workplace practices that can inform efforts to improve queer inclusivity in STEM workplaces.

Below:  Histograms of participants’ openness ratings in (A) personal contexts, (B) to colleagues, and (C) to students. Note that only participants working in degree-granting institutions (academics) are included in panel C

Below:  Box-and-whisker plots of participants’ openness ratings for personal contexts (white boxes), to colleagues (black boxes), and to students (gray boxes), broken down by participants’ fields of STEM expertise

Below:  Across major STEM fields of expertise, the relationship between proportion of employed scientists and engineers who are women and participants’ median (±95% confidence interval) rating of openness to colleagues. A regression across all points is nonsignificant with p = .31 (solid line). However, a regression excluding data from psychology, in which professional standards may prevent openness independent of workplace climate, is significant with p = 0.02 (dashed line).

Below:  Box-and-whisker plots of participants’ openness ratings for colleagues (top row) and for students (bottom row), in relation to their descriptions of the safety (A, B), welcoming climate (C, D) and their employers’ support for LGBTQ needs (E, F).

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/c1rvxw

By:   Jeremy B. Yoder PhD^a & Allison Mattheis PhD^b*

• ^a Department of Plant Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
• ^b Division of Applied and Advanced Studies in Education, California State University, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

 

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