June 2025

Welcome to interactive presentation, created with Publuu. Enjoy the reading!

Oceanography | Vol. 38, No. 2

60

retired/emeritus stages, respectively. Heterosexual white women

show a largely normal distribution over the career stages, with

the mid-career stage covering the largest period of an individ­

ual’s career. As OSM24 collected aggregated data that did not

distinguish early, mid, and late career, it is difficult to compare

these distributions with the overall distribution of career stages

at OSM24. Therefore, assessing whether these distributions indi­

cate personal perceptions within each group as to when BAJEDI

work is most “valuable” professionally is outside the scope of

this study. While the increased representation of minoritized

individuals at the graduate and early-career stages is encour­

aging, a longitudinal analysis between 2007 and 2021 examin­

ing 55 ocean sciences graduate programs in the United States

showed that while the recruitment of minoritized individuals

into graduate programs has increased substantially, the gradu­

ation rate for this group has not concurrently increased (Lewis

et al., 2023). Structural equity, which refers to the intentional

design of institutional policies to minimize systemic bias and

incentivize equity work, is necessary to remove existing barri­

ers to the long-term retention of historically minoritized groups

in ocean sciences. Specific examples of structural equity include

funding first-year graduate fellowships accessible specifically

to minoritized groups (as is common for first-year fellowships

for women), requiring anti-bias training for advising faculty,

considering faculty contributions to BAJEDI initiatives during

tenure and promotion review, and funding equity-focused fac­

ulty chairs that offer salary support for BAJEDI work. While

the demographic composition of career stages offers interest­

ing trends, it is important to note that these results represent a

limited sample and cannot be compared to the overall OSM24

attendee demographics, as information connecting conference

attendee gender to career stage is not available.

Survey results show that many individuals, particularly those

in minoritized communities and heterosexual white women,

continue to experience marginalization within ocean sci­

ences (Figure 2b,c). On average, minoritized individuals and

heterosexual white women personally experienced bias, dis­

crimination, or bullying in the past two years at rates that

were statistically higher than those experienced by hetero­

sexual white men (48%, 58%, and 0%, respectively, Figure 2c;

ANOVA F(2, 90) = 3.09, p ≪ 0.05). Similar results were seen when

participants were asked if they had personally witnessed bias, dis­

crimination, or bullying: minoritized individuals and heterosex­

ual white women were significantly more likely to respond in the

affirmative (69% and 84%, respectively), compared to only 15%

of heterosexual white men (Figure 2b; ANOVA F(2, 90) = 3.09,

p ≪ 0.05). Minoritized individuals and women reported statisti­

cally similar levels of both experiencing and witnessing bias and

discrimination (Welch’s t-test, p > 0.05 in both cases). In gen­

eral, prior studies have shown that minoritized individuals and

FIGURE 2. Career stage distri­

bution (a) and responses from

questions 1 (b) and 2 (c) of sur­

vey respondents broken down

into broad demographic cat­

egories. Minoritized individ­

uals and heterosexual, white

women both personally wit­

nessed (b) and personally

experienced (c) similar levels

of bias discrimination, or bully­

ing, and these rates were sta­

tistically greater than those

witnessed or experienced by

heterosexual white men.

Made with Publuu - flipbook maker