Special Session - Valuing Diversity As It Happens: Exploring Laboratory Interactions Where More Is Going on Than Science

In this session we address the issue of diversity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by focusing on everyday interactions in research and educational settings where unconscious prejudices about race and gender can work to exclude and make invisible underrepresented minorities. The session goals are: 1) to increase awareness of racial and gender stereotypes that subvert educational practices 2) encourage dialogue about how race and gender enter into learning settings in critical ways and 3) increase awareness of the (an)other in majority schools where the perspective and position of minority students are often forgotten and channels of communication that would foster more awareness are clogged by a legacy of racism or gender biases. The emphasis in this session is on everyday practices that are both social and cognitive and their unanticipated effects and non conscious subtexts