Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721-0088.
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-4601.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2024 Dec;23(4):ar49. doi: 10.1187/cbe.24-02-0052.
Curricular content in undergraduate biology courses has been historically hetero and cisnormative due to various cultural stigmas, biases, and discrimination. Such curricula may be partially responsible for why LGBTQ+ students in STEM are less likely to complete their degrees than their non-LGBTQ+ counterparts. We developed Broadening Perspective Activities (BPAs) to expand the representation of marginalized perspectives in the curriculum of an online, upper-division, undergraduate animal behavior course, focusing on topics relating to sex, gender, and sexuality. We used a quasiexperimental design to assess the impact of the BPAs on student perceptions of course concepts and on their sense of belonging in biology. We found that LGBTQ+ students entered the course with a better understanding of many animal behavior concepts that are influenced by cultural biases associated with sex, gender, and sexuality. However, LGBTQ+ students who took the course with the BPAs demonstrated a greater sense of belonging in biology at the end of the term compared with LGBTQ+ students in the course without BPAs. We also show that religious students demonstrated improved comprehension of many concepts related to sex, gender, and sexuality after taking the course with BPAs, with no negative impacts on their sense of belonging.
由于各种文化上的污名、偏见和歧视，本科生物学课程的课程内容在历史上一直是异性恋和性别规范的。这样的课程可能部分解释了为什么 LGBTQ+ 的 STEM 学生比非 LGBTQ+ 的学生更不可能完成学位。我们开发了拓宽视角活动（BPAs），以扩大在线、高年级本科动物行为课程课程中边缘化观点的代表性，重点关注与性、性别和性取向有关的主题。我们使用准实验设计来评估 BPAs 对学生对课程概念的理解以及他们对生物学归属感的影响。我们发现，LGBTQ+ 学生在进入课程时对许多受与性、性别和性取向相关的文化偏见影响的动物行为概念有了更好的理解。然而，与没有 BPAs 的课程相比，参加有 BPAs 的课程的 LGBTQ+ 学生在学期末对生物学的归属感更强。我们还表明，宗教学生在参加 BPAs 课程后，对许多与性、性别和性取向相关的概念的理解有所提高，而他们的归属感没有受到负面影响。
