Gender, Race, and the Complexities of Science and Technology: A Problem-Based Learning Experiment

Two female astronauts work on an experiment onboard a space shuttle.

Astronauts Dr. N. Jan Davis and Dr. Mae C. Jemison, the first African American woman in space, work as mission specialists on board the STS-47 mission in 1992. (Image courtesy of NASA.)

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

WGS.693

As Taught In

Spring 2009

Level

Graduate

Cite This Course

Course Description

Course Description

What can we learn about science and technology–and what can we do with that knowledge? Who are "we" in these questions?–whose knowledge and expertise gets made into public policy, new medicines, topics of cultural and political discourse, science education, and so on? How can expertise and lay knowledge about science and technology be reconciled in a democratic society? How can we make sense of the interactions of living and non-living, humans and non-humans, individual and collectivities in the production of scientific knowledge and technologies?

The course takes these questions as entry points into an ever-growing body of work to which feminist, anti-racist, and other critical analysts and activists have made significant contributions. The course also takes these questions as an invitation to practice challenging the barriers of expertise, gender, race, class, and place that restrict wider access to and understanding of the production of scientific knowledge and technologies. In that spirit, students participate in an innovative, problem-based learning (PBL) approach that allows them to shape their own directions of inquiry and develop their skills as investigators and prospective teachers. At the same time the PBL cases engage students' critical faculties as they learn about existing analyses of gender, race, and the complexities of science and technology, guided by individualized bibliographies co-constructed with the instructors and by the projects of the other students. Students from all fields and levels of preparation are encouraged to join the course.

Related Content

Peter Taylor, and Anne Fausto-Sterling. WGS.693 Gender, Race, and the Complexities of Science and Technology: A Problem-Based Learning Experiment. Spring 2009. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


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